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Reporting Health Check

Pick one report your team relies on. Spend about 10 minutes checking what works, what is unclear, and what to improve first.

Use a monthly program report, fundraising dashboard, finance summary, or another report that matters to your team. Answer based on what you can verify today. “Not sure” is useful: it identifies a question to resolve.

Print a blank or completed two-page worksheet, or choose Save as PDF. The print layout is designed to omit browser-added dates and URLs. Your worksheet answers are not submitted to Borrowed BI or saved by this page; keep a copy before leaving.

Check the basics

1. Purpose

We can name the decision this report supports and who uses it.

2. Definitions

People use the same definition for each key number.

3. Sources

We know which system or file is the source of each key number.

4. Trust

We can explain differences between this report and other reports.

5. Freshness

The report shows when its data was last refreshed.

6. Manual work

The steps to prepare the report are documented, including spreadsheet edits.

7. Checks

Someone checks for missing, duplicated, or unexpected data before sharing.

8. Ownership

A named person owns the report and a backup knows how to run it.

9. Access

The people who need the report can access it with appropriate permissions.

10. Maintenance

The team knows what to do when a refresh fails or a source changes.

Choose one next step

This is a conversation starter, not a formal audit or a score. Review your “No” and “Not sure” answers. Prioritize anything that could lead to a wrong decision, a missed deadline, or inappropriate access before cosmetic improvements.

What to do with your answers

  • Mostly clear: keep the documented steps current and agree when to check again.
  • Definitions or totals are unclear: trace one important number back to its source before adding more reporting.
  • Manual work or ownership is the issue: document one reporting cycle and identify where it breaks down.

Need help finding the cause?

A Reporting Reality Check is a paid review of your reports, definitions, sources, and workflows, with written findings and a prioritized action plan. This worksheet can help you prepare for that conversation. Repairs and automation are scoped separately.

Tell us what you found. Share a summary, not donor records or other sensitive data.

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