home/work/Reporting without the spreadsheet

The Monday report, without the Sunday.

Every week someone exported three spreadsheets, pasted them into a fourth, and wrote two paragraphs about what the numbers meant. An agent now pulls the numbers from the systems, writes the paragraphs, points out what changed, and sends it before the meeting.

boards · management teams · family offices · one report, zero hours

The job, before.

The report took four hours a week, and was out of date by the time it was read.

Sales from one system, bookings from another, costs from the accountant’s export. Someone with better things to do spent Friday afternoon or Sunday evening reconciling them. The commentary was the same sentences with new numbers, because there was no time for more.

What the agent does now.

Sunday 22:00

Pulls the numbers

Directly from the sales, booking and accounting systems. No export, no paste. Each figure keeps a link to where it came from.

22:05

Compares and flags

Against last week, last year and the budget. Anything outside its usual range is marked, with the two or three likely reasons found in the data.

22:10

Writes it up in plain language

Two paragraphs a manager would write with time: what happened, what changed, what to look at. In the house style, in French or English.

Monday 07:00

Sends it, or holds it

The report lands in the inbox before the meeting. If a number is missing or a system was down, it says so plainly instead of guessing, and a person is told.

What changed.

The report arrives every Monday and nobody wrote it. It is read because it is on time, and trusted because every number links to its source. The discussion moved from “are these figures right?” to “what do we do about this one?”

Built in two weeks on the weekly report; the monthly board pack followed a month later.

0a week, back, in this build
0spreadsheets exported by hand
0systems read directly: sales, bookings, accounting
0weeks from first call to the first report sent

what you get

  • A report on time, every timeWeekly, monthly, or both, in your format, before the meeting.
  • Numbers that link to their sourceClick any figure to see where it came from and how it was calculated.
  • Anomalies, pointed outWhat is outside its usual range, with the likely reasons, so the meeting starts there.

what it takes

  • Read access to the systemsSales, booking, accounting, bank feeds. Read-only; the agent never changes a figure at the source.
  • Three past reportsSo it learns your format, your definitions and your tone.
  • A reader to correct it for a monthFive minutes on Monday: what was useful, what was noise. It adjusts.

The rules it keeps.

Read-only first

Every agent starts by watching and drafting. It only sends, books or files on its own once you have seen it be right, step by step.

Your data stays yours

Agents run inside your own accounts and tools. Where a model is needed we use EU-hosted options by default, and nothing is used to train anyone’s model.

A person for the exceptions

Anything the agent is unsure about goes to a named person, with the facts already gathered. You decide what it may do alone, and when.

Related work

Asked about this one.

Can it be wrong about a number?

It reads the systems directly and shows its calculation, so errors are visible and rare. When data is missing, it says so rather than filling the gap. A spreadsheet with a pasted cell has neither property.

Does it replace our accountant or controller?

No. It replaces the export-paste-reconcile part of their week. The judgement about what the numbers mean stays with them; they just get to it on Monday morning instead of Sunday night.

Which systems can it read?

Anything with an export, an API or a database: the common accounting, point-of-sale, booking and CRM tools all qualify. We confirm yours on the quick-check.

Have a job like this one?

Thirty minutes is enough to tell whether it would pay back for you. We will say so either way, in writing.

ben@bss.mc · a reply within one working day