Stating the purpose

What is the overall purpose of the report?

Reports are management tools. Their purpose is to help you quickly grasp the essential elements and relationships found in raw data, to help you make effective decisions. For a report to be effective, it has to present the correct data in a logical way. If it presents the wrong data, or if it presents the right data in a haphazard manner, the report may slow the decision-making process or may even encourage incorrect decisions.

A good starting place in the development of a report is to write out the purpose of the report in a sentence or two. The purpose statement helps you focus on your primary needs, and it gives the report both a starting point and a goal.

Here are some examples of purpose statements.

Defining the purpose of the report before you start is a critical step in the overall process.

Who is going to read the report?

A single report is often used by many individuals. A detailed, company-wide sales report, for example, may be used by sales representatives, the regional sales manager, the national sales manager, and the Chief Operating Officer (COO).

These individuals will be interested in different aspects of the report:

Since each user of the report has different interests, it is important to plan the report so it includes the information each user is looking for.



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