Why manual reporting always stops eventually#
Almost every company has tried, at some point, to track its numbers weekly. A spreadsheet is created, a few metrics are chosen, and for a month someone fills it in diligently. Then a busy week comes along, the spreadsheet isn't updated, and the tracking fizzles out.
The problem isn't the value of reporting, which nobody disputes. It's its nature: a repetitive task with no apparent urgency that consists of copying data from one tool to another. Exactly the kind of task an agent does better than a human, because it never gets bored.
A reporting agent connects to your tools (payments, invoicing, CRM, analytics, project management), pulls the figures for the period, calculates the metrics, compares them with the previous period and your targets, then produces two deliverables: a PDF summary you can read in two minutes, and an Excel file with the details for anyone who wants to dig deeper.
PDF or Excel: why you want both#
| PDF report | Excel file | |
|---|---|---|
| For whom | Owner, partners, banker, team | Accountant, controller, department head |
| Content | Key metrics, charts, points of attention | Detailed data, one row per sale, invoice or deal |
| Use | Read, decide, share | Filter, cross-check, rework |
| Length | One to two pages | As many rows as needed |
The PDF answers “How are we doing?”; the Excel file answers “Why?” A good automated report delivers both, so the summary is never a black box.
Five reports almost every business can use#
1. The weekly management report#
The Weekly management report template gathers sales (Stripe), the sales pipeline (HubSpot) and website traffic (Google Analytics) every week, compares them with the previous week and the target, and sends a one-page PDF with three points of attention. You can swap each source for the tool you use.
2. The monthly dashboard#
The Monthly dashboard template produces a two-page PDF report with charts and the detailed Excel file on the 1st of each month. It's the ideal format for a meeting with your partners or your accountant.
3. The cash position update#
The Weekly cash update template reads your customer and supplier invoices every Monday at 8 a.m., forecasts cash over four and eight weeks, flags tight weeks and sends a PDF with a chart and a week-by-week Excel table.
4. The sales review#
For an online business, the Weekly sales review template calculates revenue, average order value, best-selling products and repeat customers every Monday, and compares them with the previous week.
5. The team activity report#
The Team activity report template reads project progress in Asana every Friday at 4 p.m. and posts a report per project on Slack: done, coming up, blocked.
Choosing your metrics: fewer, but better#
The most common mistake is trying to track everything. A twenty-metric report doesn't get read. Choose five to seven that answer a question you genuinely ask yourself.
| Question | Possible metric | Usual source |
|---|---|---|
| Am I selling enough? | Revenue invoiced or collected, compared with target | Invoicing, Stripe |
| Are my clients paying? | Accounts receivable, overdue invoices | Invoicing, accounting |
| Do I have enough cash? | Cash forecast at 4 and 8 weeks | Bank, invoicing |
| Is my pipeline filling up? | Number and value of open deals, conversion rate | CRM |
| Is my website attracting people? | Visits, contact requests | Google Analytics, form |
| Is my team making progress? | Tasks completed, delays | Asana, Trello, Notion |
For each metric, tell the agent which comparison matters to you: previous week, same week last year, target. And ask it to flag variances beyond a threshold rather than commenting on every number.
A sample brief to copy#
Every Monday at 7 a.m., prepare my report for the past week. Sources: my invoices in Xero (revenue invoiced, payments received, overdue invoices), my pipeline in Pipedrive (open, won and lost deals), my website in Google Analytics (visits, contact requests). Compare with the previous week and with my monthly revenue target (attached file). Produce a one-page PDF: the five key figures with their trend at the top, then a chart of revenue over twelve weeks, then three points of attention max. Add an Excel file with the details of invoices and deals. Don't interpret beyond the numbers: if a change has no visible explanation in the data, say so. Email everything to me and my business partner.
The architect will ask you to connect each tool, show you a sample report built on realistic dummy data so you can approve the layout, then quote the price.
What the agent does with the data#
A reporting agent isn't just copy and paste. With the “code” capability, it can actually calculate:
- Aggregate: totals by week, client, product, salesperson.
- Compare: changes in value and percentage, variance from target.
- Project: month-end at the current pace, cash a few weeks out based on known due dates.
- Detect: outliers (an unusually large invoice, a sudden drop in traffic).
- Format: charts, tables, PDF layout, Excel tabs.
Calculations are done on the real data in your tools, not estimated. If a source is unavailable or incomplete in a given week, the report should say so clearly rather than show a wrong number. That's a rule to keep in the agent's design.
Scenario: a trading SMB and its Monday report#
A nine-employee building materials distributor ran its weekly review from an export of its invoicing software, reworked every Monday by the office manager for a good hour.
She creates an agent that, every Monday at 7 a.m.:
- reads the week's invoices in the invoicing software;
- reads open supplier orders;
- calculates revenue by product family and by salesperson, gross margin by family based on the purchase prices in the tool, and accounts receivable;
- produces a one-page PDF and an Excel file with three tabs (sales, purchases, receivables);
- sends it to the managing director and drops the files in the company's shared folder.
The office manager reviews the report on Monday at 8 a.m., adds a comment if needed and moves on. Successive files build up in the folder and in the dashboard's Files tab, creating a searchable history.
Analyzing a one-off file#
Not every need is recurring. For a file you receive now and then (a sales export, a supplier statement, an inventory file), the Excel file analysis template is triggered each time a file is dropped in a folder: it makes sense of the file, calculates the useful figures (totals, trends, comparisons, outliers) and returns a plain-language summary with charts, as a PDF.
Where to find your reports#
Each report is delivered wherever you want: by email, to a Slack or Teams channel, to a Google Drive, OneDrive or Dropbox folder, or on WhatsApp. It's also kept in your dashboard, along with the run history. Files count toward your plan's storage: 1 GB with Free, 25 GB with Pro, 200 GB with Studio, which is room for a very large number of PDF and Excel reports.
If several agents produce data (a prospecting agent, a follow-up agent, a sales agent), a reporting agent at the end of the chain can read their shared tables and summarize them. It's one of the most useful applications of collaborating agents, described on the features page.
Getting it running in three weeks#
- Week 1: one report, one source. Start with the metric you miss most, for example the week's revenue from your invoicing tool. Check the first report against your own numbers.
- Week 2: add sources. Pipeline, traffic, cash: add one source at a time, so you can easily spot data that was misread.
- Week 3: fine-tune the format. Order of sections, charts, alert thresholds, recipients. By now, the report should take two minutes to read.
Then let it run for a few weeks before changing it again: a metric becomes meaningful when you can compare it over time.
Pricing#
A reporting agent that reads several tools, calculates and produces a PDF and an Excel file is usually in the “Advanced” tier, around €19 a month; a simple report from a single source costs less. The exact price is calculated and shown before launch. See the pricing page.
To round out your management, an invoice follow-up agent acts directly on the receivables your report measures.