Operations
The three reports you actually use
Every requirements list has a reporting section, and it is always long. Six months later, almost everyone is running the same handful.
Reporting requirements are where selection processes go to expand. Everyone can name a report they would like, nobody can rule one out, and the list becomes a scoring criterion. Then the system goes live, and usage tells a different story.
What people actually open
In the businesses we have watched, it is usually three things, checked often:
- What am I owed, and how old is it. Daily in trades that extend credit.
- What did I make on what I sold. Not revenue but margin, by line or category, because revenue can rise while margin falls and the owner is the last to know.
- What is on the shelf that should not be, and what is not that should. Slow movers and stockouts, which are the same question asked twice.
Everything else tends to be opened when a specific question arises, which is fine, but it is a different requirement from a report you live in.
Why the long list still matters
Not as a feature checklist. As a description of what your business is trying to see. If someone asks for eleven reports, the useful conversation is which decision each one supports. Three will have a decision behind them. The rest are usually a hope that the data will explain something, which a report cannot do on its own.
A better test than counting reports
Take your three. Ask how many clicks from opening the system, whether the numbers are current or from last night, and whether you can trust them without checking something else by hand.
A system with forty reports where the answer to the third question is no is worse than one with six where it is yes.