Bring sanitized sample data
Use made-up rows, or a few real rows with anything sensitive removed.
Sound like a conversation you’ve had?
- 1A few days of cleanup and rebuilding, every cycle
- 2One person who knows the steps, and no easy cover
- 3Two reports that look different, and no clear answer on which is right
Try it with a sample template
Free for 14 days in your browser. Nothing to upload, nothing to install.
Compensation report
Management and the HR team
Management: Why does the compensation report take so long?
HR: The HR system export needs cleaning before I can use it, then I rebuild the charts and formatting. It takes me a few days.
Management: Could someone else on the team take it while you’re away?
HR: They could, but they’d need a walkthrough first. The workbook has a lot of steps I’ve worked out over time.
Management: The last report looked different from this one. Which one is right?
HR: Sorry, that’s on me. There are a couple of versions of the workbook around and the layout has drifted. I’ll check which one is current.
Management: By the time I read the numbers, they’re already stale. And the leadership team sees this file too. If a figure is wrong, that’s on us.
HR: I know. I check every figure by hand before it goes out, which is part of why it takes so long.
Management: Can we put it in a tool that builds it for us? Or ask IT?
HR: It’s individual salaries and bonuses, which are personal data. If it leaks after we upload it to the cloud, that’s a data protection problem and we’d be the ones answering for it. And IT is booked up for weeks.
Management: Hmm. There has to be a better way.
Now picture the next reporting cycle
Management: Is the report ready yet?
HR: Nearly. I loaded the new CSV into our template and the layout, charts and tables were already there. I’m spending the time checking the figures.
Management: Does it look the same as the last one?
HR: Every time. The template holds the layout, charts, tables and calculation definitions, so a new colleague loads the CSV and gets the same report.
Management: Did you need IT for this?
HR: No. It’s one HTML file with no install and no server. When we wanted a new chart, I added it to the template myself in the online editor, and every report since has it.
Management: And the salary data? Did it go to another vendor?
HR: No. The CSV was loaded in the template on my own computer, and the template doesn’t send it back. I decide where it lives.
Management: How do I know a figure is right?
HR: You can check. The PDF includes all the records that make up the report. And I keep the HTML file, where I can click any figure and trace it back to the data.
Management: Good. Let’s do it this way from now on.
