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Business reporting brief

Start with the decision a report should support. Define calculations before narrative: persuasive commentary does not make incomplete comparisons or incorrect data reliable.

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When to use it and what to produce

Before automating sales, operations or service reports and when adding AI summaries to business data.

A report contract covering audience, metric definitions, sources, checks, reviewer and distribution conditions.

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1. Define the decision

Choose an operational question and an audience. A report intended for every department can mix meanings, reporting frequencies and access levels.

See a worked example

Illustrative example: a weekly report helps support redistribute open tickets. Its question concerns workload and ticket age, rather than automatically assessing employees.

State which decision the reader should make and what information they currently lack.

Record roles, necessary level of detail and who owns the next action.

Define interval, time zone, extraction time and treatment of records arriving late.

2. Establish metrics and checks

Define formulas and populations before generating commentary. Calculations must be reproducible, and missing information must remain distinguishable from a real zero.

See a worked example

Illustrative example: open tickets are those not closed at extraction time. If one intake channel is missing, flag incomplete coverage instead of describing lower volume as an improvement.

Describe numerator, denominator, units, exclusions and the difference between absolute and percentage change.

Link an identifiable query or extract, authoritative systems and aggregation steps.

Plan counts, source comparisons, anomaly checks and behaviour when a system supplies no data.

3. Govern commentary and distribution

Keep interpretation within available evidence. A change in numbers may justify investigation but does not establish its cause by itself.

See a worked example

Illustrative example: a summary flags increased ticket volume but does not blame a campaign without evidence. The owner checks the context before distributing that interpretation.

Specify permitted comparisons, sources to cite and claims requiring confirmation from an owner.

Define checks on numbers, wording and recipients, including when distribution should be paused.

Preserve data reference, version, generation time and a channel to correct errors or unhelpful metrics.

Pitfalls to avoid

  • Allowing the model to invent a formula or fill in missing figures.
  • Comparing periods with different coverage without saying so.
  • Turning a correlation or change into a claim of proven causation.

Take the next step together.

Use this document to start a discussion about scope, evaluation and project ownership.

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