How can an accountability report be produced efficiently?
Efficiency question :
Many organizations must periodically produce accountability reports. This is the case, for example, for certain media organizations that must submit reports to the CRTC, non-profit organizations that report on their activities to their board of directors or funding organizations, and financial institutions that may have reporting obligations to regulatory bodies.
Producing these reports can require significant work when information must be retrieved manually from several sources. Automation can structure this collection process and make periodic report production easier.
Key considerations:
An accountability report is generally not purely financial. It may combine financial data, operational statistics and different indicators that demonstrate the organization’s activities and results.
Some reports must also follow specific criteria and a precise format determined by the organization that receives them. Before automating their production, it is therefore necessary to identify all required information, its sources and the requirements the report must meet.
Challenges:
The main challenge is to combine data of different types and from several sources.
For a non-profit organization, for example, accountability reporting may include the number of people who received a service, customer satisfaction rates, the impact of activities in the community and the cost of services delivered.
This information is also often compared with results from previous years. The automation must therefore bring together current and historical data to make analysis and comparison easier.
Technology:
Excel is often well suited to automated accountability reporting because it can combine data, calculations and report formatting in the same environment.
Power Query can automatically retrieve and prepare data from different sources. VBA can then automate certain processing, formatting and report-production steps.
An Excel utility combining Power Query and VBA also provides enough flexibility to evolve when the information requested or the report presentation needs to change.
Developer's advice:
Adapt the report design to the type of accountability reporting required. For a non-profit organization, adding graphical elements can make it easier to present results, statistics and their evolution.
When a report must comply with regulatory requirements or predefined standards, follow the format required by the receiving organization rigorously.
Finally, plan for control reports and comparative analyses with previous years. These mechanisms make it possible to verify the results produced and more easily identify variations that deserve particular attention.