Good reporting starts with management questions
Do not start with charts. Start with what the owner asks every day: revenue, late orders, unpaid invoices, risky stock, and blocked work.
- Revenue
- Late orders
- Receivables
- Inventory
Reporting
Low-cost reporting systems: send the right numbers to the right channel
SMEs do not always need a large BI platform immediately. Many teams need clean data, a few core metrics, and scheduled reports through email, Lark, Zalo, or Slack.
7 min readAutomated snapshots can beat dashboards nobody opens
If the owner only needs a morning view, an automated snapshot can outperform a complex dashboard. Use dashboards for drill-down later.
- Daily email
- Lark card
- Light PDF
- Drill-down link when needed
When real BI is needed
Use a full BI setup when data has many sources, roles, long history, and genuine drill-down requirements. Before that, ship a small report that runs reliably.
- Many sources
- Many roles
- Large history
- Real drill-down need