Growing Need for Custom Reporting

Evaluation is an important task for the smooth functioning of any business, and different kinds of reports are used for this purpose. When it comes to financial health evaluation, business stakeholders refer to financial reports. Traditionally when we talk about financial reporting, it just refers to Profit and loss statement, Balance sheet and Cash flows statement. Companies operating in Australia are required to prepare and lodge financial reports with ASIC. In contrast, few companies are exempted from doing so, but it is always suggested to prepare financial reports for internal control and management.

Financial reports are tools that help communicate the financial health of a business to its stakeholders in an easy and understandable format, thereby enabling in budgeting and forecasting. Financial reports are made by every business, mainly to analyse and evaluate the company’s financial performance in the previous financial years as well as how the company is doing on a regular interval. It provides a basis for comparison between how the organisation has performed in the past and how it is performing presently and may perform in future.

“Need for custom reporting is evident in today’s business ecosystem. Businesses have unique needs and require financial information which is unique to the nature of the business which will help in bringing efficiency in the system,” said Mr. Prateek Kapoor, Operations Partner, Whiz Consulting. He further added that “Financial decisions are dependent on a lot of factors which might not reflect in the traditional reports. Financial reports might be useful for an overview and might be overloaded with information which might not help answer a specific question. Custom reporting solves this issue and let business owners focus on the important information without the necessity to examine huge amounts of data which one might not need while making sure not to exclude important information.”

Customised reporting helps in getting a closer look and attention to details which might provide you with information which otherwise may be hidden in plain sight. The good part is that a lot of accounting software that allows you to generate customised reports as and when required or set recurring timeline for reporting. While the need for custom reporting increases, it is not necessary that your outsourced partner or your in-house accountant is aware of the ideal usage of the report or even how to make one. It is the responsibility of the business owner to make sure that the reporting suits the need of their business. 

“We have added few additional custom reports like customer wise reports, product wise reports, department wise reports, expense break-up reports which apply to kinds of business. Additionally, we provide custom reports for different industries, different sectors, and businesses as per the specific requirements. Custom reporting has helped many of our clients in understanding the underlying issues of their business. We hope businesses all over the globe also take upon themselves to get aware of custom reports applicable to their business and hence improve their decision-making process.” As per Mr. Prateek.

It is important to understand that every business is different from another, and there are different types of industry. A business might be operating in the hospitality industry, but again there are many sectors inside it. One report will not fit a restaurant, hotel or that of business providing tour package. A personalised report with the right financial information is a must. In such a case, a monthly, quarterly or yearly report will not suffice. This leads to the point that a custom report is not bound by timeline and hence you can prepare or request for the custom report which you deem fit for your business. A custom report helps business owners to have a detailed analysis of the critical areas of their business. Having this analysis help not just to grow and understand your business better, but it allows you to get a competitive edge.