A KPI report that keeps itself current
A KPI report puts a business's few key measures on one page, each against its target, so anyone can see in a minute what is on track and what is not.
What goes on each line of a KPI report?
Seven columns make every line readable on its own. Copy these into a spreadsheet and you have a working template.
| Column | What it holds |
|---|---|
| KPI | The measure, named the way the team says it. |
| Target | What it should be this period. |
| Actual | What it was. |
| Change | Against last period, as a number and a direction. |
| Status | On track, at risk or off track — one word, so the list can be scanned. |
| Owner | The one person who answers for it. |
| Note | One line on why, for anything that is not on track. |
Which KPIs should it track?
Fewer than you think: eight to twelve for a whole business, three or four per team. Common starting points:
| Team | Example KPIs |
|---|---|
| Sales | New pipeline, win rate, average deal size, sales cycle length. |
| Operations | Orders or jobs completed, on-time rate, cancellation rate, cost per job. |
| Finance | Revenue, gross margin, cash on hand, days sales outstanding. |
| Customers | Active customers, churn, repeat rate, satisfaction score. |
A KPI with no owner and no target is a statistic. Leave it off until it has both.
Why do KPI reports stop being read?
Because they arrive late and say the same thing. Somebody pulls the numbers from four systems at month end, the report goes out a week after the period closed, and the notes column is empty because nobody had time to find out why anything moved.
What does hedwigAI do differently?
You describe the report in a sentence and it gets built from the files you already keep, in Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or SharePoint. It refreshes on the cadence you set, marks what changed, and drafts a note for anything off track. Every number shows the file and row it came from.
Share it as a link that always shows the current version, or export it as XLSX, PDF or DOCX.
How do I start one?
This is the whole brief:
“keep a weekly KPI report: each KPI against its target, the change since last week, and a one-line reason for anything off track”
Start with this lineWhat does it cost?
You pay for the runs a workbook takes to build and refresh itself, not per seat. Your first workbook is covered by $5 of usage credit. How pricing works.