Evgeniy Zheltonogov
Head of PPC department at Rush Agency
Agencies, freelancers and internal specialists provide reports on the work done and plans for further optimization of advertising campaigns.
Some prepare reports of 100 sheets, because “the larger the report, the larger the scope of work.” Others send a standard download from Yandex.Direct, thinking that the customer will figure out the metrics himself.
Well done only the third, who know that everyone needs high-quality reporting: the customer - to assess the effectiveness of spending, the contractor - to keep a finger on the pulse and analyze important indicators.
Why you need to be able to report on your work correctly
The work process can be represented as a complex mechanism in which each employee of the company is a gear. In this example, the head of the organization acts as an engineer who is responsible for ensuring that all mechanisms work smoothly and as quickly as possible.
In real life, it is quite difficult for bosses to evaluate how well employees are doing their jobs if they do not see the results of their work. Therefore, in almost all enterprises, management obliges each employee to regularly prepare a report on the work done. Often this document is created at intervals of 1 week. In this way, management can see what employees have been doing, as well as how useful they were to the enterprise.
Block 1. “Emergencies”
Information about emergency situations that occurred at the facility is entered. Failure of turnstiles, elevators, lifting gates, contamination of the territory, unauthorized storage of waste, failure of elevators and turnstiles, malfunction of the security system and video surveillance system. Visits of supervisory authorities, traffic accidents on the territory, damage to the property of the owner, injuries to employees of tenants and guests of the complex. This section also indicates accidents/malfunctions of engineering systems that affected the operation of the facility. Try to write really important things - unnecessary information will work against you. Tested in practice.
Wrong example
The document is drawn up in free form. Perhaps this is why there are a large number of reports that do not tell management anything or make them think that the worker is not coping with the functions assigned to him. At the same time, a particular employee can be a real hard worker and exceed his plan. The culprit is an incorrectly compiled report on the work done. A sample of such a document is given below.
“To: Head of the planning department Ivanov P.M.
From: 1st category economist of the planning department Yu. R. Petrov.
Type of document: report on the work done for the period from 02/15/16 to 02/19/16.
The following was done:
- the working hours of the production workshop were timed;
- the timing results were entered into the work program;
- new time standards have been calculated;
- responded to requests from labor safety inspectorates, as well as several clients;
- took part in a conference on improving labor efficiency at the enterprise.
Date of compilation: 02/19/16
Signature: Petrov Yu. R.”
If an employee draws up a report on the work done in this way, then management will consider that he is not busy enough.
Main components of the report
The employee's report must contain the following mandatory items:
- surname, first name, patronymic;
- job title;
- department or division;
- types of work performed (can be indicated both in quantitative and percentage terms, with a mark on the time of completion);
- indication of work according to plan or above plan;
- customer of the work;
- task completion status (completed, partially completed, not completed);
- result (with or without document indication);
- the fact of transfer of the result;
- other employees who were involved in performing the work;
- compliance of actual indicators with planned ones;
- the date of the report and the period for which the report was completed.
All these points can only be called conditional, since in each specific case they can be changed (new parameters are added or existing ones are adjusted).
Some enterprises may develop and implement a system for providing daily reports to employees on the work they do. In this case, it makes sense to use a short form of the report, which will indicate all the most basic facts about the work, and filling out this report will not take much time from the employee.
A simplified version of the report may contain the following items:
- Full Name;
- job title;
- place of work;
- work performed according to plan and above standard;
- the date of the report and the period for which the document was compiled.
Important. All reports drawn up by an employee must be certified by himself, as well as by a superior manager.
What are the mistakes?
The above example clearly shows standard errors when drawing up documents of this kind.
The main ones are:
- lack of a list of tasks that were set for execution;
- there are no plans for the next reporting period;
- lack of specifics;
- there is no analysis;
- The employee’s lack of initiative is emphasized by the lack of proposals in his field of work.
The above requirements must be used both when preparing weekly forms and when generating a report on the work done for the year.
Why do we need a Universal Report and who can work with it?
The universal report allows you to create your own report using 1C data. This is a lifesaver for cases when none of the 1C reports are suitable for displaying the necessary information. Using the Universal report , you can:
- build your reports using any directory, document and program registers;
- check compliance with the conditions for accepting expenses under the simplified tax system;
- analyze filling out form 6-NDFL;
- identify stuck VAT;
- receive hidden information using details automatically filled in by 1C itself, from directories, documents and registers;
- and much more.
A universal report in the program can be opened from the following sections:
- Reports - Standard reports - Universal report.
- Administration - Maintenance - Reports and Processing - Administrator reports - Universal report.
Users with :
- Full rights (user profile Administrator );
- right to use the Universal Report .
connect the right to Use the Universal Report by clicking the Create in the user profile: section Administration - Program Settings - User and Rights Settings - Access Groups - Access Group Profiles link.
The created new profile with the right to use the Universal Report can then be added to users who do not have full rights: section Administration - Program Settings - Users and Rights Settings - Users - link Users - Access Rights button.
Suitable option
It is likely that you will not be able to produce a high-quality report the first time. To make it easier for you to do this, we give an example of how it was necessary to write a report to the manager on the work done, indicated in the first example:
“To: Head of the planning department Ivanov P.M.
From: 1st category economist of the planning department Yu. R. Petrov.
Report on labor results for (02/15/16-02/19/16)
For the reporting week, I was assigned the following tasks:
- Carry out timing of work in the production workshop for which current time standards are missing or outdated.
- Based on the measurements taken, prepare for approval new standards for the work of the relevant structural unit.
- Take part in a conference on improving labor efficiency at the enterprise, scheduled for February 18, 2016, prepare questions and suggestions.
All assigned tasks were completed, namely:
- 5 timing tests were carried out and the same number of new standards for the work of the production workshop were drawn up;
- took part in the conference, a memo with proposals is attached.
Work was also carried out with incoming documentation, namely:
- 2 responses to IOT requests were compiled.
- Answers were given to letters from gr. Yuryeva A. A., Zhakova S. I., Mileeva K. B.
A business trip is planned for the period from 02/22/16 to 02/26/16 to check the work of the structural unit of the Pechersk branch.
Date of compilation: 02/19/16
Signature: Petrov Yu.R.”
Agree that this version of the report is better read, and management can see how well one of the employees is working.
How should reports be stored?
If a report on the employee’s work has been compiled, it must be stored at the enterprise, regardless of whether a unified form was used for its preparation or whether it was compiled randomly. Another question: how long should it be stored at the enterprise? The legislation on this topic is silent, again for the reason that it does not provide for mandatory completion of reports by employees.
Often, the management of an enterprise, in its actions regarding the storage of reports, is guided by a list of archival documents, according to which the following document storage periods should be adhered to:
- employee reports on the work they performed, except for travel documents, must be kept for 1 year;
- Summary reports of departments or divisions on work performed must be kept for 5 years.
Maximum volume - 1 sheet of A4 format
At the same time, it is worth trying to enlarge the information somewhat so that the result fits on 1-2 pages. In the event that the organization does not hold weekly results, but you are required to create a report on the work done for the year, do not panic and become hysterical.
All the information is available around you: look at the history of messages in document logs or in email, open the folder with your reports, study travel sheets. All this will help you remember the feats that you accomplished during the working year.
A cash flow statement will help:
understand what is happening with the company’s money:
Money comes and goes from the company - this process shows that the business is working. When the flow of money is not controlled, it can suddenly stop, and life in the company comes to a standstill. When an entrepreneur knows everything about the money that circulates in his business, he is in control of the situation. DDS shows where the company’s money comes from and where it goes; how many there were and how many are left.
An example of a cash flow statement prepared using a template.
On the “Operations” sheet of the template DDS we entered payments from buyers and settlements with suppliers, loan tranches and transit transfers. Here you can immediately see when the transaction took place, in what size and form, from whom the money came or to whom it was paid.
Everything is transparent and understandable. It took 20 minutes to prepare this data.
determine what is draining funds from the business:
Not all of a company's cash flow relates to its ongoing operations. There are operations that divert money from the business, but have no effect on the final result of the work - loan tranches, dividends, purchase and repair of equipment. DDS helps to identify among monetary transactions those that reflect the real operation of the business.
The types of activities are clearly shown by the “Analytics” sheet, which is generated automatically.
In the DDS template, we divided operations into three types of activities - operating, investing and financial. Operations are the actual work of the business: purchasing goods, paying customers, and paying wages. Investment - long-term operations: purchase and repair of equipment, creation of websites and construction of new warehouses. Financial - calculations for loans and taxes. We will tell you more about the types of activities in a separate article.
combine different areas of work:
Often an entrepreneur operates several related areas: a soap manufacturer sells it retail and wholesale, a coffee shop sells grain via the Internet, a barbershop owner sells franchises. DDS will show how different areas of business work and earn money.
Template report business direction switcher.
In a template DDS, already familiar types of activities are divided into areas. The “Analytics” sheet shows that although operating activities in all areas generate positive cash flow, investment costs for repairing coffee shop equipment eat up part of the money of a profitable online store. You lose it somewhere, you find it somewhere.
Don't get confused about payment methods:
Cash flow is diluted when a business has more than one payment method—customers pay in cash, into accounts at different banks, or through e-wallets. A small company with one payment method can live without DDS - its functions will be performed by a bank account statement and electronic cash register analytics. For larger businesses, the report will help collect all cash flows into one.
In order to have time to transfer money between accounts, you need to calculate the balances in a breakdown.
In the template report, the “Account Balances” sheet will help you compare cash flows across different accounts. It is generated automatically and shows what is happening with the money in the cash register, in the current account and in the business as a whole. To check the accuracy of the report, count the money in the cash register and compare the amount with the one that appears in the report. If the amounts differ, then either there is an error in the report, or someone is missing something.
predict cash gaps:
In addition to payment methods and business lines, the entrepreneur has to monitor settlements with counterparties. Someone asked for an advance payment, someone agreed on a deferment, someone has been waiting for money for a long time. DDS will help you compare the timing of receipts and expenses and prepare for a cash gap.
The payment calendar is already familiar to us.
DDS compiled for a future period is called the “Payment Calendar”. The entrepreneur sees future cash flow in it. A negative value indicates a cash gap. In the template, we showed how this planning gives you time to prepare for future problems.
Let's sum it up
Above we have given some examples of how to write a progress report. The main thing is to describe the operations performed, indicating quantitative characteristics (so many times or such and such a number of pieces, etc.). This way, you will let management know exactly how much work you have completed.
We must not forget to indicate at the beginning of the report a list of specific tasks that you were given to complete. An important part is the completion of the report. Be sure to write down what you want to implement at work in the near future. This will show that you look more broadly than just the area of your immediate responsibilities and functions that must be performed according to the job description.
You can also consider the example above.
To make it easier to prepare such reports, you can write down the work done daily in a notebook or electronic document. You will spend only 3-5 minutes a day on this little thing. It's not that much. However, thanks to such records, you can easily create a report on your work for any period in the future.
Employee refusal to prepare a report
Sometimes managers have a question: what to do in a situation where an employee refuses to draw up a report? Can he be punished for refusing? Regarding this, there is an article in the Labor Code that provides for the liability of employees for failure to fulfill their official duties and subject them to disciplinary action. This article, as becomes clear from the description, can be applied only if the provision of a report is part of the employee’s job responsibilities, that is, this is stated in his job description or in the employment contract.
For violation of labor duties, the employer has the right to apply the following types of disciplinary punishment: reprimand or reprimand. The penalty is applied depending on the severity of the consequences of the offense.
But in practice it has a slightly different picture. Typically, employers do not punish in this way employees who disobeyed their order and did not draw up a report by the specified time or completely refused to draw it up. As a rule, what is important to employers is not even the report itself, but the employee’s obedience in performing this or that type of work. And therefore, employees who ignored the report have problems not with the report in particular, but with the fulfillment of the tasks of senior management in general. Therefore, it is much easier for an employer to apply disciplinary punishment not for refusal to work with a report, but for improper performance of an employee’s job duties.
Why is it important to keep records?
Let's imagine Semyon, who owns a plumbing store. While it’s warm, people are actively renovating, changing toilets, bathtubs, and faucets. Semyon has a lot of orders, money falls into the cash register and accumulates in the company’s account.
Semyon wanted a new iPhone and MacBook. I withdrew 200 thousand from the store’s bank account and bought it.
The entrepreneur gave the employees salaries and paid rent. But then the supplier called and reminded me that tomorrow was the payment day for the delivered goods. Semyon turned on the computer, went into the online bank, and there was 300 thousand missing. I had to borrow.
Semyon did not write down that he must pay the supplier 30 days after shipment. Then he did not yet understand that if we take a deferment from a supplier, then we are, as it were, keeping his money with us, and under no circumstances should we spend it.
And this is just one of the possible situations. Some entrepreneurs are working in profit, but do not see the money because it is buried in reserves. Others give too long delays and live on bread and water until the client finally pays.
Five Useful Tips for Creating Reports
Use special presentation software
The most popular program is PowerPoint. It allows you to create a series of slides with text and visual blocks, add a company logo, and use different fonts and colors.
Google Slides is the most popular cloud service, available on any device, simple and easy to use. It is possible to collaborate on a presentation online; large selection of templates and branded fonts.
For iOS device users, Keynote is an application for creating presentations in a pre-selected template. You can choose a background, a non-standard arrangement of objects, use your own templates, save presentations in PDF or pptx format.
Work with templates
A beautiful, visually pleasing report can be created without the help of a designer, simply by choosing the appropriate template for the presentation. For example, slidescarnival.com has free templates on a variety of topics - commercial, technology and creative teams will find a suitable option for their presentations. These templates can be used in both Google Slides and Power Point.
Keynote has a ton of built-in templates for stores, designers, exhibitions, editorial offices, musicians, and tech companies.
Check your texts carefully for errors
When preparing a report for a client, make sure that you have not made mistakes not only in calculations, but also in the text. Competent written speech is an indicator of professionalism and serious attitude to business. It will be unpleasant if the client notices basic mistakes in words: this will show your negligent attitude towards the preparation of the report and the work in general. If it is not possible to hire a proofreader, use services that can replace him.
Spelling is a spell checking web service. Just paste a piece of text into a special window and click the “Check” button, and all stylistic and grammatical errors will be highlighted in the appropriate color. All you have to do is rewrite the text based on the service’s recommendations.
The editor-in-chief helps make the text as informative and understandable as possible.
Make the most of Excel
If the report requires adding an upload to Excel, try to reduce the level of manual data processing in tables as much as possible by entrusting this to formulas. Use the function of automatically highlighting a large volume of numbers in color so that the client can visually navigate the data. Here is a detailed description of how to create a Gantt chart in Google Sheets, which will allow you to visualize the amount of resources spent on a project or a separate process within a project. But this video shows in detail the creation of pie charts based on data from a table.
Other information
Here are the data you can also include in your report:
1. Round or stage of a tournament, for example “round 6” or “1/8 finals”. This will allow you to understand, for example, that you are better at predicting the outcome of matches at a later stage. By the way, this is very likely, since then there is already a huge amount of data from previous games. And at the beginning of the competition, you don’t know in what form the team is approaching the tournament.
2. Prediction time. Some bettors write down the number of hours or minutes they spent making the forecast and/or the time of day they did it. This allows them to determine the optimal time at which they can make the correct prediction and the most productive time, for example, in the morning or evening. This way, they can understand when it's best to make predictions and when it's better to do something else.
Where to write?
The easiest way is to use Microsoft Excel. In this material we will use exactly this software. But, let’s say right away, we provide only the basis; you can independently add the data that you consider necessary.
Why do we recommend Excel?
The advantage of Microsoft Excel is that you can easily carry out calculations. For example, you are using a strategy in which you need to bet 1% of the bank each time. In order not to calculate how much this is from the amount you currently have manually or on a calculator, you can simply enter the formula “=[current bank value]/100*1” into Excel. For example, if the bank is in cell A2, enter “=A2/10000*1”. This formula is entered directly into the cell; it is very important not to forget to put the equal sign. It is he who notifies the interface that what will now be entered is not text, a number, a percentage or something else, but a formula, and after entering it is necessary to display its result.
Tip: In Excel, you can easily repeat a formula. Select cell B2, right-click, then Copy or Ctrl + C, then paste it into cell B2 by right-clicking and Copy or Ctrl + V. You will see that instead of A2 there is already A3. That is, the software itself understands that for the calculation it is necessary to take data from the same line. There is no need to enter the same thing every time.
Of course, you can easily use a notepad, a piece of paper, or any other text document, be it in Microsoft Office, OpenOffice or similar. But it is still much more convenient to carry out calculations in tables.
As you understand, the first thing you need to write down is the size of the bank and other information about finances. Next we will list the data that is definitely worth entering into the table and will start with financial information.
We recommend placing it here!
Bank and bet amount
It is imperative to write down how much money you have now and how much you need to bet next time. This will allow you to see the original amount of money and how much you have already lost. Such reporting is especially useful in strategies where the amount of the next bet depends on previous results. For example, if we are talking about catching up, you need to double the bet amount if the previous one lost. Let’s say you see that you’ve lost a lot lately and want to win back with one bet. This situation is reflected in the screenshot below.
In our example, we only have 500 rubles left (line 4). There are two options here. The first is to take a high coefficient, more than 4. The second is to invest more money. The second option looks safer. Let's say we deposited another 2,000 rubles into the account and now have 2,500 in our account. We bet them with odds of 2 and win 5,000. How much will the net win be? 5000 minus the bet amount minus the lost funds, that is, 5000-2500-1500 = 1000 rubles. Reporting helps you see all this!
Important: Don't forget to count your net profit! The winning amounts may be misleading. In the example above, the player might think that he won 2500 rubles, but in fact this amount was equal to 1000, because previous losses must be taken into account. Without reporting, it is almost impossible to keep everything in mind.
To add net winnings to the table, you need to add a “Loss Amount” column. Its value will be equal to the bank minus the bank after calculation. That is, the formula will be equal to “=D2-B2”. But the problem is that we can have not only a loss, but also a win. If we win, the loss will be equal to 0, and if we lost, the profit will be equal to 0. To tell the Excel program about this, we will use the conditions. Step-by-step instructions for adding them are as follows:
1. Place the cursor in the cell where the value will be. In the menu at the top, go to the “Formulas” tab and select “Logical”, then “IF”.
2. A window for entering values will appear. In the “Log_expression” line we indicate “(B2-D2)>0”, that is, if the bank minus the bank after winning is greater than 0, that is, if there is a loss, we count its amount or “B2-D2” (enter this in the “Value_if_true” line And in the line “Value_if_false” we indicate 0. That is, if there is no loss, then in the “Loss Amount” column there will be 0.
3. Copy the formula to the remaining rows of this column, that is, to E3, E4.
4. Now let’s calculate net profit in the same way. We open the IF function input window and indicate that if the bank after calculation minus the bank is greater than 0, that is, we have a profit, we display its amount (bank after calculation minus the bank minus the amounts of previous losses), and if not, we display 0. This is how it is looks.
With this display of losses and gains, you can actually see if the strategy you've chosen is working. It all depends on the approach, in some cases one win is enough to cover a series of failures. But in most cases you need to have at least 60% wins to be constantly in profit. This is also true for catching up. Consider the amount spent on bets. Provided that events with odds of 2 are constantly used, even if half of the bets turn out to be winning, you will simply end up with 0. To have at least some profit, you need a pass rate above 50%. This is what can be seen using the table.
If your strategy does not involve replenishment, you can use charts to display your bank. In Excel they are located on the “Insert” tab at the top. For example, you can highlight the first three bets in our example (just before the account is replenished) and build a graph. Let's take a scatter plot as an example. Select the values and click on the desired shortcut at the top of the Excel window.
Of course, there is nothing to analyze with three bets, but over a long distance you will be able to analyze whether your bank is growing or falling.
Important! The website support.office.com contains a wealth of instructions on using Microsoft Excel. There you will find detailed materials about conditions, graphs, diagrams and other software features. Study them to see what you can use.
But for a full analysis, recording only your bank is not enough. It is necessary to have information directly on the rates. Let's look at what we're talking about.