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Published December 10th, 2016 by

How Can Reporting Software Help Grow Your Business?

How Can Reporting Software Help Grow Your Business?

Managing a growing business or organization is not an easy job especially when you are looking at a lot of numbers on a bunch of paper that contains records and reports while using only your imagination to get a picture of what really it is you’re looking at in order to come up with important decisions and conclusion, which is important in the success of your business. Being uncertain with your decisions could have adverse effects on your business. So let’s face it. You are running a business, and in order for your business to grow and be successful, you need to stop leveraging the future of your company based on luck.

So, in order to somehow get you off of the rather complex tasks involved in growing your business, what you need to do is find a solution that can help you improve the way you get things done. You need to get your hands on a tool that would work effectively, efficiently, and accordingly to the needs of your business.

With the implementation of a certain technology, you will have a better understanding of the importance and relationship between different data of your reports and records. And that technology is in the form of a software that will give you visibility and analytical insight regarding processes and data gathered from your network. And this software is called reporting software.

First, let us discuss what exactly is reporting in business. Business report is theoretically defined as “an organized statement of facts or events or any situation relating to business or commercial interests prepared after an investigation and presented to the interested persons with or without recommendations.” It helps in facilitating the evaluation of progress and decision-making processes, especially in business. This type of report usually is of the upward communication kind where communication process begins with your employees going to the concerned upper-level staff member.

The success of your business depends on a number of aspects and factors, and data are considered as one of the most important. Data when correctly and effectively analyzed become an essential key to boosting revenue and ramping up production of products and services. Reporting likewise gives you the capacity to solve simple challenges even before they become complex ones, determines sales trends as well as knows more about your clients and how to communicate with them more efficiently, and finally organizes inventory.

In a nutshell, data aid you in making important decisions for your business. However, as mentioned, in order for you to analyze these data efficiently, there needs to be a reporting program or a reporting software that will be able to assist you in this task.
A reporting software is a tool that helps a business or an organization to see the bigger picture of the progress and status of the complex, day-to-day, and time-consuming operation process. It allows owners or management to have an edge in making strategic plans and wise decisions that are needed in order to keep moving forward. Not only this will save you a whole lot of time trying to automate reports, but also you will be able to preview data in a manner that you need to use it.

Types of Reports That Need To Be Accomplished

You need to have a sales report and sales overview that specifies the status of your business’ sales at a glance, and it is imperative that you have a reporting software that provides features that attend to this matter.
Reports also include information regarding promotions, which lets you know how successful or unsuccessful your promotions went, and this is also important in planning and making decisions regarding future promotions. Report on gift cards and voucher usage should also be taken into consideration.
Most importantly, your reporting should include data regarding refunds and items, which are not selling. With this, you will be able to know about products that are being returned and why as well as learn about items that are not selling in a given length of time in order to make a decision about items or products that need to be discontinued.
Also, it is imperative to have employee reports like timesheets, salaries and payroll as well as sales that your employees make. This is to make sure that everything is in order and that your employees are being honest about their attendance and in order to efficiently incorporate their timesheet in their payrolls. Monitoring the number of sales that an employee makes is likewise necessary in order calculate commissions that are due to them.
Reports regarding customers are likewise important like sales by their postcodes, which are vital for focused local marketing efforts and data regarding demographics to help you determine who your customers are in order for you to market to them effectively.
Finally, stock status and order status should be included in the inventory management report to let you monitor online orders that are being posted.

Features To Look For In a Reporting Software

Depending on the type of needs that your business requires, the following are some of the features that somehow need to be considered:

1.Data blending. This feature allows you to import data from Excel spreadsheets like historical data or regular report by an external party. A reporting software should also be able to integrate multiple data source, which is important if you opt to blend data from other sources like an accounting software or an inventory management system. A good reporting software should be able to let you export data to Excel and PDF.

2.Data visualization. This feature provides a customizable dashboard, which is excellent in viewing essential metrics at a glance in an understandable format. It also helps you see things real time as a significant delay in any business is non-negotiable. Reporting software provides you with graphs that are easy to understand and manage. Also, there should be an effective filter and search functionalities so that time would not be wasted trying to locate needed data.

3.Administration and usability. Reporting software should be intuitive, which means that it offers a friendly interface and easy to use. With reporting software, administrative tasks like report scheduling, email reports, and reports design are made easy as these reports are effectively and efficiently automated.

4.Collaboration. Collaboration is an essential aspect in any type of business, with reporting software. It is designed to help your employees who are involved in a specific task achieve their goals and objectives effectively and in a timely manner.

5.Software provider. Finally, it is important to consider technical support options before acquiring or signing up for a reporting software as this can sometimes be a hidden cost that in fact usually comes for free if you will be able to pick a good reporting software. Also, some providers offer trial versions that usually last for a month before clients buy them. This way, you and your team will be able to test its efficiency, and this will prevent having further difficulties once you have finally gotten on, as you have already test-driven it, so to speak.

Nowadays, businesses need different ways and methods to generate and make reports, and there is a wide range of reporting tools and instruments that claim to efficiently fill in this gap; however, given the sheer number of products that are available in the market, choosing the right reporting software has somehow proven to be quite a tedious task.

As business owners, you can always opt to do your business reporting manually. However, given the foregoing features and benefits a reporting software offers, you cannot possibly overlook how important this software is going to be in your business. Click here more information on what reporting software is for more features that you need to look out for.

Because reporting software is not a one-size-fits-all solution, it is strongly advised that you determine what your business really needs in order for you to fully take advantage of its benefits. Once you have identified your specific requirements and researched on possible software products that you would want to acquire, you may choose to avail of the software vendors or providers ’ trial versions. These trial versions often last between 15 to 30 days. This period would actually be enough for you and your team to learn how it operates while at the same time learning what it can and cannot do to drive your business to its success.

If this article has somehow convinced you to adopt a reporting software, you may want to check on client reviews on the best reporting software at CrowdReviews.com. This will conveniently provide you with insights on what did and did not necessarily work for these clients who are currently enjoying its features and benefits.

Our rankings are completely independent, transparent, and community driven; they are based on user reviews and client sentiment. These reporting software companies had to earn their way up and didn't just pay their way up.

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