Reports and quality
Getting out the numbers you have to show
What can be measured, for whom, and which number does not mean what it looks like.
Sooner or later someone asks for numbers: how many suppliers are up to date, how long onboarding takes, how many cases are incomplete. The platform holds them all; the work is choosing the three that say something.
The four that nearly always matter
| Number | What it answers | For whom |
|---|---|---|
| Complete cases over the total | Whether the control works | Management |
| Average days to complete | Whether the process is reasonable | Whoever runs it |
| How many expire next quarter | What is coming | Operations |
| How many have been stuck over a month | Where the dead work is | Whoever runs it |
Important
"Complete cases" does not mean "compliant suppliers". A case can be complete with documents that expired last month if nobody set their expiry. Before showing that number to management, check the expiry dates are in place.
The number that misleads
Total documents. It only ever rises, means nothing, and creates a sense of progress that corresponds to nothing. An archive with twenty thousand documents, half of them expired, is worse off than one with two thousand current.
Watch out
Be careful comparing months without knowing what happened. A month with few onboardings may be good news (no new suppliers) or bad (nobody processed them). The number alone does not say.
Worth knowing
If you have to show this monthly, produce it the same way on the same day. A comparable report is worth far more than an exhaustive one.
›Can it be exported to a spreadsheet?
Yes, with its dates, which is what lets you cross it with your own data.
›Can it be filtered by site or client?
Yes, and that is usually the view people actually use.
›Can a monthly report be automated?
Ask about it; for recurring reporting it usually pays off.
A real case
The situation
Management asks for a monthly documentary compliance indicator.
What you do
- Picks complete cases and next-quarter expiries
- Checks first that expiry dates are set
What you get
The indicator reflects reality instead of counting expired documents as fine.
The situation
Management asks for the quarter's numbers and they are built by hand from three spreadsheets.
What you do
- Checks the status already calculated per period
- Compares with the previous quarter before presenting
- Saves the view so next quarter is not rebuilt
What you get
The report goes from an afternoon to ten minutes, and the next one costs the same.
The situation
The number rises and nobody can explain why.
What you do
- Compares the breakdown with the previous period
What you get
The change is located before the meeting.
The situation
Each department presents its figure and they do not reconcile.
What you do
- Checks the same source for all of them
What you get
The meeting starts from a common picture.
The situation
A number is shown without saying where it comes from.
What you do
- Brings the breakdown that backs it
What you get
The figure can be defended.
The situation
Something nobody uses to decide is measured.
What you do
- Keeps the indicators that change decisions
What you get
The report gets read in full.
This article answers
- documentation reports
- how many cases are complete
- get statistics for management
- measure documentary compliance