The dos and don’ts of reporting

At Artemis, we provide our clients with a completely open and transparent working process. This means that we submit relevant monthly reports with details of all of the work that we have carried out over the month, as well as information on how this work has affected rankings, conversions and a full range of other metrics.

Here Artemis Finance Supervisor Narciso Baldo sets out some of the dos and don’ts of reporting.

The Dos

Make it relevant

You have to make reporting relevant to the stakeholder, there’s no point sending a report on the general office expenses to the HR department. Focus on creating a report that is going to be beneficial to the person who is going to read it.

Keep it concise

People don’t like long reports, even if they’re interesting people don’t hold long attention spans. Keep reporting as concise and to the point as possible to ensure that information is imparted.

Use correct language

Reporting should be formal and professional. It is best to stay away from slang and writing in the first person. You should also proofread the report multiple times to make sure that you have not repeated yourself. The language should be neutral and objective.

Keep it timely

There’s no point sending reports that are out of date. Make sure your reporting is current and fresh otherwise it will be redundant and obsolete.

Reporting

The Don’ts

Don’t have spelling errors

You simply can’t send reports with errors. Doing so reflects poorly on you and the organisation and shows a lack of attention to detail. There’s no reason why report should ever have a spelling error when we all have spell checks.

Don’t miss deadlines

Everyone is busy and needs reports at the right times. Is there ever a legitimate excuse to send a report after the deadline?

Don’t forget the contents page

Readers like to know where to look, it might be simple, but you have to include a contents page so the reader knows where to look for specific parts.

Don’t have important text straddling pages

Formatting is crucial to how a report reads. If you have parts straddling pages, it shows you haven’t taken the time to properly format your report and looks shoddy. Text should be easily readable and structured well so you don’t have to turn the page for the same part.