7-Day Report Rescue Scope
What counts as “one report”
Without scope, “7-day rescue” turns into a multi-month rebuild. This page defines the boundary.
Definition
A “report” is one recurring output that answers one business question for one audience.
All of these must be true
- It runs on a schedule: daily, weekly, or monthly.
- It pulls from 3 source systems or fewer (spreadsheets do not count against the limit).
- It has one metric definition set that we lock with your team on Day 1.
- It has one final format: a sheet, CSV, table, or basic visualization.
- You provide access and sample data within 3 business days of kickoff.
Good fits for Rescue
Examples of what we’ll treat as “one report”:
- Monthly close pack: Revenue, margin, A/R, cash, and key reconciliations that leadership challenges
- Billing accuracy report: What should have been billed vs what was billed, with clear variance reasons
- Customer SLA report: Delivery metrics that drive renewals, penalties, or escalations
- Utilization / capacity report: The numbers that determine staffing decisions and pricing confidence
- Collections / cash report: Inputs leadership relies on for cash decisions (not “pretty charts”)
- Inventory / fulfillment report: Operational truth that must match finance truth
Typical source systems:
- ERP/accounting (NetSuite, Dynamics, QuickBooks, etc.)
- Billing / payments
- CRM
- Operational systems (PSA, ticketing, logistics, etc.)
- Spreadsheets used as glue or “final truth”
What “done” means
- The report runs repeatedly without manual steps.
- Definitions are documented: what each metric means, where it comes from, how it is calculated.
- Key totals reconcile to your current outputs. We explain every difference.
- The report fails loudly when something breaks instead of shipping wrong numbers silently.
- You get the root-cause map and a 30/60/90 plan to stabilize the rest of your reporting.
Not included in Rescue
- Dashboards, BI tool selection, or “analytics strategy”
- Company-wide data modeling or “fix everything” programs
- More than 3 source systems for the rescued report
- Permission rebuilds, vendor negotiations, or access blockers that take weeks
- Making it pretty. Rescue is reliability, not design.
- Ad-hoc analysis. If it does not recur, it is not Rescue.
If you need those things, you are describing the next phase, not the Rescue.