Custom data and reporting
Your figures already exist. They sit scattered across exports, spreadsheets and inboxes, and pulling them together costs a day every time. FastSolve builds the path that runs from your raw files to a number you can look at every Monday.
You can see the result before discussing it: the link below is available online, with no sign-up required.
The number nobody can produce
Four situations come up almost every time.
- The question sounds simple, how many of this item did we sell in June, and answering it means opening three exports and cross-checking by hand.
- Two files give two different results for the same period, and nobody knows which one to believe.
- The monthly report for the bank or the partner is rebuilt from scratch every month, with the same formatting done again from zero.
- One client appears under three spellings, which skews every total without anyone seeing it.
The problem is almost never a lack of data. It is that the data is scattered, written differently depending on the source, and that no reliable path runs from the raw file to the figure on screen.
Four steps from raw file to reliable figure
Most projects go through all or part of these four steps.
1. Cleaning and merging
This is the least visible work and the most decisive. Reconciling spellings, aligning date formats, removing duplicates, deciding what to do with incomplete rows. A dashboard built on dirty data displays wrong figures with great confidence.
Typical case. A wholesaler merged four exports from different systems every month. Item codes were written three different ways. A mapping table now reconciles them, and the totals add up.
2. Extracting what is locked away
Some of your figures are not in a spreadsheet at all: they sit in PDFs, in emails or in badly formatted files. Getting them out is a job in itself, and it is often what unblocks everything else.
Typical case. A haulier received fuel statements as PDFs. Litres and amounts are now extracted automatically, which made possible a cost-per-kilometre view that simply did not exist before.
3. Showing what matters
A useful dashboard fits on one screen and answers the three or four questions you actually ask. Adding twenty indicators does not make the decision easier, it delays it.
Typical case. A services firm stared at a forty-column file. It now follows four figures, one of them the average time to get paid, which on its own drove a change in payment terms.
4. Producing the report you share
A document meant for someone else, a bank, a partner, an accountant or a client, has its own requirements of form and scope. It gets generated, not reformatted every month.
Typical case. A practice spent two days rebuilding a quarterly report. It is now produced in the expected format, ready to send, and those two days went back into billable work.
What reporting will not do
A dashboard shows. It does not explain, and it fixes nothing upstream.
- It does not repair data that was never entered. If the information is missing at source, no processing will conjure it up.
- It does not tell you why a figure is falling. It flags the drop earlier, which leaves you time to look for the cause.
- It does not replace your accountant. Management reporting and statutory accounts answer to different rules.
- It does not refresh itself if nobody feeds the source. That is often where an automation completes the picture.
The gain is in reliability and in how quickly you reach the figure, not in the interpretation, which stays yours.
Frequently asked questions
My data is a mess, is that a problem?
That is the usual situation, and it is precisely the work. Clean files would already be usable without us. Mess can be dealt with: it simply has to be looked at before quoting, because it is what determines the effort.
How much does a reporting project cost?
The amount depends on how many sources have to be brought together, the state of the data and how often it needs refreshing. A dashboard fed by a single clean export and a chain that reconciles four systems every night are in no way comparable. The price is set after scoping, once the files have been seen. As a guide, excluding VAT, most reporting projects fall between 1,000 and 5,000 euros. A pipeline that reconciles several applications every night can reach 10,000 euros.
Do I have to give up Excel?
No. Excel remains an excellent entry point and an excellent exit point. What causes trouble is the manual work in between: that is the part that disappears, not your files.
How often do the figures refresh?
That is decided during scoping, according to actual use. A sales view looked at on Monday does not need real time, whereas a stock alert does. The choice has a direct effect on cost, so it is worth settling early.
Who can see the figures?
Access is defined during scoping and appears on the quote. A dashboard can be open to the whole team, restricted to management, or split so that each person sees only their own scope.
What if my sources change?
Changing an export or a source system means reworking the processing, more or less briefly depending on how far it has moved. This falls under maintenance.
Tell us which figure you are missing
See how a project runs, from scoping to delivery
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