In a professional services business, which delivers its services on a per-project basis, projects can, and frequently do, change very quickly. Changes including new client requests, changing budgets and project team requirements mean that it can be a challenge to track the status of a project, keep tabs on revenue and ensure that the project is profitable. This is particularly true where your project reporting consists of disparate reports from different spreadsheets or systems that are used to run any given project.
Ideally, your project reporting should be consolidated, up-to-date and readily available so that your project teams can make better decisions, informed by the most reliable data, covering resources, budgets, change requests and billing. This helps to ensure that projects are delivered on time and on budget, ensuring your cash-flow and customer retention.
Common problems with project reporting
Unfortunately, many service based businesses still manage projects with spreadsheets and disconnected systems, which can lead to a number of challenges.
Information is contained in silos
Project data that’s contained in multiple locations, such as several spreadsheets or different, unconnected systems can make reporting difficult, as all the different data sources need to be brought together to make a meaningful report. Without a centralised source of project data, a project team doesn’t benefit from a holistic view of a project. This in turn can generate project inefficiencies, such as increased administration and a potential for duplicated data. Disconnected systems can also prevent the flow of information between all of the resources employed on the project, leading to decreased operational efficiency.
Manual processes delay reporting
Employing manual processes can sap project efficiency as a lot of time and effort is used up on compiling the data, rather than acting on it. The use of spreadsheets is probably the most inefficient way to store and share data as compiling the data is time consuming and prone to containing errors. Without automated project workflows, everytime there is an update to a project, the spreadsheets being used go out of date and need to be updated. Given the complexity and speed of change in some projects, this is highly inefficient and delays sub-tasks within a project. Given that inaccuracies are likely, as well as slowing a project down, the project team could also be using inaccurate or out-of-date data to make decisions.
Outdated information impacts project delivery
To run a successful project, that project’s data must be up to date. And given the speed of change in many projects, data often needs to be in real-time. Outdated data affects planning, scheduling and implementation decisions. For example, if a project is only updated by the project manager every other day, a resource waiting to start work on an implementation segment may not be notified until later in the week, leaving those resources underutilised and thus delaying the completion of the project.
Poor project financials visibility
Difficulty linking project activity with your company’s financial data can significantly impact the profitability of project. Project managers rely on project reporting to accurately bill customers and report revenue. If the systems used for a project are disconnected from the business’ financials or run from disparate spreadsheets, project managers don’t have an accurate way to understand whether their project is meeting the goals and revenues targets set.
NetSuite’s centralised data and real-time dashboards improve project performance
NetSuite centralises all project and financial data into a single database, allowing for much greater operational efficiencies. Project collaboration is improved too as every stakeholder has complete visibility of the team and project. Project managers can monitor and manage revenue, expenses and profitability more efficiently over the life of the project. With that data, you can use the in-built reporting and analytics tools to quickly and easily deliver insights, freeing up time for employees and improving margins.
NetSuite project reporting and analytics deliver a real-time view into your services organisation’s project and financial performance. Service-centric businesses gain visibility into areas like project profitability with easy-to-read graphs and reports, better insights into revenue and forecasts, and improve budget accuracy. Because project and financial data are connected within NetSuite, businesses can also set standardised billing rules at the beginning of the project for better efficiency.
NetSuite project reporting provides data in a series of dashboards so that management can view key performance indicators (KPIs) with up-to-the-minute results.
NetSuite project reporting organises data from across the system into one dashboard so that project managers can view their projects at a glance and take proactive steps to correct any problems. The dashboards also allow management to view key performance indicators (KPIs) with up-to-the-minute results. With the additional functionality of NetSuite’s new Project 360 dashboard, project managers can more effectively monitor, report and analyse overall project performance to make data-driven decisions and adjust projects as needed for more efficiency and profitability.
Personalised dashboards, reporting and roles
Our development team can also mould NetSuite’s reporting for your individual business. We can develop bespoke roles, dashboards, reports and searches, tailored specifically to your business and individual user’s job roles. Not only will you benefit from enhanced reporting, but your system reflects your business, and your staff can use a familiar user interface. With personalised ‘by exception’ reports, developed specifically for your business, you’ll also gain better control of all business processes, and thanks to a single data source, we can develop new reporting features that simply aren’t possible with disparate systems.
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