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 For every company, big or small, one critical rule applies:

To measure is to know.

Computers and computer systems are the best way of keeping track of anything that needs to be measured. When the right reports are created, a knowledgeable business owner or manager will have birds eye view on how the company is doing, what areas need improvement and what areas are excelling.

When reporting properly, many people find that the figures do not line up with the expectations they have in their minds. We have all been there: We think that a job is highly profitable and assign all available resources to complete this job as smoothly as possible. However, when the final check comes in and the balance is made up, the profit margin is lower then what was expected.

With dynamic reporting, a snapshot of the companies pluses and minuses can be made available at any given time. This snapshot can be made available by email, web browser or reporting tool.

A 'quick report' or snapshot should be set up as an overview with only as much information as necessary. If applicable, colors can be used to show a more-then-average increase or decrease in the number, giving you a crisp and clear view of what needs attention.

As good practice, one can report on KPI's (Key Performance Indicators). In short, KPI's are measurable units that tell you how a certain aspects of your business perform. In order to effectively use KPI's, you have to set a baseline to work from or a goal to work towards. This way, you can immediately tell if those aspects of your business that you are measuring, are performing the way they should. For example: If your company handles orders and you have set a goal of 4 hours from the moment that the order was placed to the moment that the order leaves your warehouse, you can set up a KPI that shows you the percentage of shipments that are late. Obviously, you want to work towards a late percentage of 0%, so your report should reflect any anomalies. The report can be configured to show the KPI in different colors, based on the reported 'late percentage': 0-3% in green, 4-10% in yellow and more then 10% in red. This way, you can tell immediately that something is going wrong and address the issue.

This is one very good reason to invest in software packages that can be accessed by multiple users at the same time and that allow for reporting using third party reporting tools. Reports can be generated from practically any type of information source: text files, Office documents, anything that contains structured information. The best way of mining data, however, is by using a database application.

Database applications come in many versions, sizes and prices, each with it's own type of usage. If you have Microsoft Office installed, chances are that you have the lightweight database Access installed. This is an all-in-one database application with front-end, that is best to be used by one singe person. It is ver possible to use this database and share it so multiple users have access concurrently, but this often creates problems.

Other examples for database applications are: Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and SAP. These applications are full featured, heavy on resources and expensive. In light of the open source movement, MS SQL has come out with the 'desktop edition', which misses the nice interface and has a limit of 5 concurrent users. Oracle also offers a free edition of their software, which has some limitations to the database size and the hardware specifications - only 1 processor and up to 1GB of memory are supported.

Both SQL Desktop Edition and Oracle Express Edition are great alternatives to the fully featured, fully priced full versions of the software, when used in small, personal or development environments.

At the same time, the open source community has not been sitting still and has put out some great database solutions. The most widely used open source database is MySQL. MySQL is used all over the internet, mostly as the back end for web-based applications. As is the case with open source, MySQL is free to download and free to use. However, as a professional company, MySQL does offer a commercial version of the MySQL database that offers the identical software with extensive service and support.

What ever type of database you choose, thery are all ODBC-compliant. ODBC stands for Open Data Base Connectivity, a client independent way of connecting to a database system and manipulating data. Basically, ANY software that supports ODBC can be used to 'talk to' any ODBC supported database. This is great news, because in many instances when the software you choose supports ODBC, you can choose the database backend you want to use.

The database is, however, only half of the equation. The other half is the front end, the actual reporting tool.

MS Access can be used as a reporting tool for its local database as well as for ODBC sources, but so can most other Office programs. These tools are however, with the possible exception of Access, not purely meant for reporting.

A great, professional solution for reporting is Crystal Reports, also know as Business Objects. Datavision and OpenRPT are open source alternatives to Crystal Reports.

The reports that any of these tools put out, can be used to check on the status of jobs, projects, financials, turnover and profit at any given time. My favorite solution is to have my basic reports set up as the homepage in my browser. That way, they do not get lost in the daily email shuffle and everytime I open my browser, I am confronted with red and green indicators, telling me what I need to focus on.