Every company over twenty people has The Report. The one assembled by hand, every week, by copying from three systems into a spreadsheet and a deck. Nobody remembers why it is done this way. It is done because it always has been.
Let's price The Report
Four hours a week times 48 weeks is 192 hours a year — at a fully loaded €25 rate, that is €4,800 for copying numbers. Add re-typing errors (and one awkward board meeting where the figures did not match) and the fact that the report exists on Friday while the decisions happened on Tuesday.
What the solution looks like
An automated pipeline: data is pulled overnight from the ERP, CRM and invoicing, transformed, and waits in the morning in a dashboard and as a PDF in the leadership inbox. Deployment over existing systems: €6,000–15,000 depending on the number of sources. Payback with one Report: under a year. With three — and every company has three — under four months.
Why Excel alone will never fix it
An Excel macro looks like a solution until the one person who maintains it leaves, or the data source changes and the whole thing quietly breaks. Excel is great for analysis, poor as a repeatable pipeline. A robust solution pulls data straight from the source, validates it, and runs without anyone having to remember it on Friday.
First step: map one report
Don't start with “reporting automation” as a grand project — pick the one report done most often that hurts the most. Write down where the data comes from and who joins it. That map alone often reveals half the steps are pointless. One automated report with a clear saving then justifies the second — and funds it.
The nicest side effect is not the time saved. It is the moment meetings stop debating whose number is right, because there is only one.