Do you know how to efficiently create a management report and how to use it to benefit your business? This is a very broad and important tool for managers to have a clear and complete view of various processes such as achieving results , employee performance and other corporate studies.
In addition to providing relevant information about the company, they can also add great value to business decision-making. If you want to know how to prepare this report, continue reading this article and find out what this document is, its importance, as well as the fundamental steps to do it efficiently!
What are the main types of management reports?
There are different types of management reports, each of which meets different management needs within the company, namely:
- financial report : covers several documents that involve the financial health of the entity, such as cash flow, budgets, investments, accounts payable and receivable, etc.;
- Sales Report : Provides sales-related data including lead conversion , salesperson performance, sales amount, etc.;
- marketing report : this is a diagnosis of situations, problems and the effectiveness of marketing strategies;
- report of productivity : involves productivity and quality indicators;
- satisfaction report : is an assessment of the satisfaction of the company’s employees, measuring their loyalty to the business;
- registration report : it relates variations in the customer, supplier and distributor database.
Although there are several types of reports, all of them can be created based on 8 basic steps that will be explained in the following topics.
How to make a management report in 8 steps?
Understanding the steps involved in creating a good management report is crucial to generating good ideas from this document. That’s why we’ve listed each of them below.
1. Establish the structure
There is no single, global model to follow when structuring a management report. However, we have listed and explained basic elements that should be present in your report in order to ensure completeness, objectivity and clarity, namely:
- title: must contain the name of the company responsible for the preparation, its department and delivery date;
- terms of reference: the objectives of the report;
- abstract: brief text about what will be covered;
- content: must follow a logical sequence, starting with the presentation of a situation, presenting the problems and listing possible solutions ; depending on the report, there must be indexes, scenario assessment, etc.;
- results: observations, analyses and conclusions about the report, must have tables, graphs and statistics to support the arguments;
- sources and references: origin of data for later verification, if necessary.
2. Determine the objectives
Knowing how to write a management report depends on knowing how to identify and list the objectives of the report. This should also be done with the sectors or departments of the company that will be covered and the employee it is intended for, i.e. whether they will be the administrator, owner, manager of a sector, supervisor, etc.
It is important that they are clear and add value to the company, only then will the report be useful in supporting decisions that will help achieve the expected results.
3. Plan the content
Plan all the content that will be included in the report before you start writing it. First, create topics in a logical or chronological sequence of facts (depending on the type of report), then separate the subjects that will be allocated in each of them and check whether each piece of information will meet the reader’s needs.
Each subject included must be aligned with the objective or contribute to improving management. Therefore, ask yourself whether a given piece of data, event, metric, fact or other element will help in decision-making, in defining priorities or in the functioning of the company’s strategy.
4. Define KPIs
KPIs stand for Key-Performance Indicators and are metrics used to monitor performance in an organization. They must be applied continuously in a company so that you know if the objectives are being achieved . There are four main types of indicators:
- productivity;
- of quality;
- of capacity;
- strategic.
As they are directly linked to achieving the company’s results, list the KPIs that relate to the report’s objectives and survey the data obtained.
5. Keep your language clear
A good management report is not one that contains complex or difficult terminology. Remember that the manager will receive several reports and needs to absorb the content as quickly as possible. For this reason, it is essential that it be:
- scannable: allows dynamic reading and the main information can be found quickly;
- clear : your objectives, information and conclusions are clear;
- objective : don’t fool the reader;
- relevant : all information is relevant to the recipient.
6. Make conclusions and recommendations
Close the document with quick summaries of everything that was written and provide conclusions about the data presented.
For example, if the report states that a specific investment in Digital Marketing resulted in a 30% increase in customers in one year, you can compare the results with the objectives and recommend continuing the strategy.
7. Review
Before you finalize your report and send it to your reader, do a thorough review of its entire structure. This is crucial to help you identify potential errors and make corrections.
In addition, it is also important to review it grammatically, spelling-wise, and make edits to make it more objective, excluding information that is not relevant to the analysis. These steps will make your report more professional.
8. Use technology
One The management system will assist in preparing the document from different sources. This platform will gather various information about the business and provide reports with clear, objective and real information.
It is interesting to implement software that integrates sectors, so it will be possible to obtain data from all areas of the business and create a report that considers all elements of the company that impact its content.
With this technology, you will be able to obtain all the information necessary for your management report quickly, which speeds up its preparation, as well as preventing errors from being made or incorrect data from being used.
