Reporting on the work you do can be a crucial part of your business process. Whether it's checking that your projects are still scheduled to be completed before the deadline, confirming your jobs are profitable or reporting back to the client, WIP reporting is a big deal. Here are three things you can look into in your business to get the most from your reporting.
Part of the challenge in improving your WIP reporting is understanding what is really important to report on. Your first response might be “I want to know everything, but in a lot of cases, this is impossible and wouldn’t be useful. Sure, you could keep track of every staple your team uses, but when would you use that report? And would the time taken to record that outweighs the benefit?
Instead, it’s best to narrow down and truly understand the WIP reports you need to understand and manage your projects. If you are starting from scratch, you can start with the basics like timesheets and tracking purchases, and build up as your team gets used to reporting. Get a list together of what you want to be reporting on a project to you, and what information you want to be able to report back to your customers. From here, you have the foundation which you can use to build up the resources and processes you need.
Once you have the reports and info you need in mind, it's time to invest in processes that work to get you where you need to be. It’s not just about sourcing the software or tools you need, it’s also investing time into communicating the change to your team, training them in new processes and getting them on board.
Getting the right platforms that support your WIP reporting can also help save you from headaches and wasted hours down the road. For example, WorkGuru gives you the ability to report time spent and stock used as a seamless part of the workflow so your team aren’t spending an hour at the end of every day doing admin.
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The specific tools you need will change depending on your needs, but things like smooth stock control, easy project reporting and flexible invoicing and reporting templates can help you to make WIP reporting easier.
Part of creating processes that will stand the test of time and scale with your business growth is ease of use. Processes that are needlessly complicated, time-consuming or prone to errors will cause annoyance and become less reliable as your workload grows.
On the flipside, reporting tools that are built into your workflow and are easy to use will be more likely to stick. Especially if the benefits your team gets from this info are more beneficial than the effort to input information. This doesn’t mean that everything needs to be automated, or that your team won’t have to lift a finger, but the effort needs to make sense. Be open to feedback as you build out and trial your processes to find faster and easier processes that don’t cut corners.
Here's a quick example of how quick adding stock to a project is in WorkGuru. Can't see the video? Click here to watch on YouTube.
Get a demo of the WIP reporting tools in WorkGuru with a free, personalised training session. We can take you through the process of great recording and reporting and show you how the right tools make it easy.
Get in touch today to secure your session.
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