A good monthly report has six sections, in this order: the headline numbers against target, what changed and why, sales and demand, operations, people, and what's coming next month. It's three to six pages, it looks the same every month so people can read it fast, and the numbers in it come from systems rather than from someone's memory. The template is below. The better half of the post is about the "updates itself" part, because a monthly report that takes three days to assemble is a monthly report that arrives late and gets skimmed.
The thing is, most monthly reports are already good enough in structure. What holds them back is production. The person writing it spends the first two days gathering numbers and the last afternoon writing, when it should be the other way round.
What should a monthly report include?
Here's the template, with what each section holds and where the numbers usually live. The "source" column matters, because it's the list of systems the automated version will connect to.
| Section | What's in it | Length | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Headline numbers | Revenue, gross margin, cash, and the two or three operational KPIs that define the business, each against target and the same month last year | Half a page | Accounting system, operational systems |
| What changed | The two or three things that explain the month: a big order, a price change, a lost customer, a cost that landed | Half a page | Written |
| Sales and demand | Orders or bookings, pipeline or enquiries, top customers, anything moving in the mix | One page | CRM, sales ledger, booking system |
| Operations | Delivery, service, stock, utilisation, quality: whichever two or three numbers describe the engine | One page | Operational systems |
| People | Headcount, starters and leavers, vacancies, absence if it matters | Half a page | HR or payroll |
| Next month | What's expected, what's at risk, what's been decided | Half a page | Written |
Two rules keep it readable.
Same layout every month. The value of a monthly report is comparison, and comparison needs familiarity. If the reader has to work out where the margin figure is this month, they're not reading, they're searching. Fix the layout and change it deliberately, maybe once a year.
Numbers in the sentences, not just in the tables. "Revenue was £312k, 6% ahead of budget and 11% ahead of last August, driven by two large orders in the Midlands" is a monthly report. A table of numbers with "see table" beside it is a spreadsheet with a cover sheet.
Who is the monthly report for?
Usually the leadership team, sometimes the board, sometimes the wider company in a lighter form. The audience decides the length and the tone but not the structure. A company-wide monthly update might be two pages and skip the cash section; the board version might be six pages with an appendix. Both come from the same numbers, and that's the argument for building the numbers once.
The distinction worth making is between the monthly report and the management accounts. The management accounts are the financial pack (P&L, balance sheet, cash) produced by finance. The monthly report is the business narrative: it uses the headline financials and adds sales, operations and people. In a well-organised SME the management accounts feed the monthly report, and if the accounts are automated the monthly report gets its financial section for free.
Why does the monthly report take so long to produce?
Because the numbers are gathered by hand. The sales figure comes from an export from the CRM. The revenue figure comes from the accounting system. The operations numbers come from two different tools and a spreadsheet the ops manager keeps. The people numbers come from an email to HR. Each one is a request, a wait, an export, a paste, and a check, and each one is a chance to copy across the wrong number.
By the time the numbers are gathered it's the fifth working day and the writing gets squeezed. The commentary, which is the only part that needs a human, is written last and fast. The report arrives on the eighth, the month it describes is already a week old, and it gets skimmed because the leadership team has moved on.
None of that is a writing problem. It's a data-assembly problem, and data assembly is exactly what can be removed.
How do you build a monthly report that updates itself?
Take the "source" column from the template and connect to each system once. The accounting system for revenue, margin and cash. The CRM for pipeline and orders. The operational tools for delivery and utilisation. The HR system or payroll for headcount. Each of those has a route into Power BI (directly, or by a scheduled export), and once connected they refresh on their own overnight.
The report becomes a set of pages laid out exactly like the template. The headline numbers page shows this month against target and last year. The sales page shows orders, pipeline and top customers. The operations page shows the engine numbers. The people page shows headcount and movement. On the first working day of the month, all four pages already show the closed month, because the sources refreshed overnight and the model calculated the comparisons.
That leaves two sections for a person: "what changed" and "next month". Those are the sections that were being rushed. Now they get the two days that used to go on gathering.
Some practical notes:
- It can still be a document. Power BI exports a page set to PDF and can email it on a schedule. The monthly report can arrive in inboxes on the first of the month as a PDF with the numbers filled in and two blank commentary boxes, or the commentary can be written in a small table the report reads. Either way the reader gets a document.
- Targets and budgets are just tables. Load them once and every "against target" comparison is automatic, every month, on every number.
- The comparisons are consistent. "Same month last year" means the same thing on every page because it's calculated in one place, not in twelve spreadsheet cells by four people.
- Existing reports can be moved across. If the monthly report is currently a well-loved Excel workbook, it can usually be rebuilt page for page. I do that as report migration at £600 per report, no minimum, which is a low-risk way to start with the one report that hurts most.
- Licensing is small. Microsoft's published UK price for Power BI Pro is £10.80 per user per month as of September 2026, paid yearly. A leadership team of six is under £65 a month.
For a report drawing on three or four systems, the build is a well-shaped fixed-price job. My Reporting Sprint covers up to three sources modelled into one system, eight report pages, a reconciliation pack proving the numbers match the sources, and a runbook so your team owns it. A monthly report of the shape above fits inside that comfortably, and the same model usually serves the board pack and the weekly dashboard too.
What makes a monthly report actually get read?
Three things, and none of them is design.
It arrives on time. The first or second working day of the month, while the month is still fresh and the decisions it prompts can still affect this month. That's only achievable if the numbers assemble themselves.
It says what changed. The reader wants to know the two or three things that explain the month. A report that's all numbers and no explanation makes the reader do the analysis; a report with a clear "what changed" section does it for them. This is the section to spend the saved time on.
It's short. Three to six pages. The temptation is always to add a page because someone asked a good question once. Resist it, or put it in an appendix. A report that grows every month becomes a report nobody finishes.
Common questions
What is a monthly report?
A monthly report is a regular summary of how a business performed over the previous month: headline financial numbers against target, what changed and why, sales and demand, operations, people, and what's expected next month. It's written for the leadership team, the board or the wider company, and it's most useful when it arrives in the first few working days of the new month.
What should a monthly business report include?
Six sections: headline numbers (revenue, margin, cash and the key operational KPIs against target and last year), what changed and why, sales and demand, operations, people, and next month. Three to six pages, the same layout every month, with the numbers written into the sentences rather than left in tables.
How is a monthly report different from management accounts?
Management accounts are the financial pack (profit and loss, balance sheet, cash, aged debt) produced by finance. The monthly report is the wider business narrative that uses the headline financials and adds sales, operations and people, with commentary. The management accounts usually feed the monthly report.
Can a monthly report be automated?
The numbers can, almost entirely. Connecting the accounting system, CRM, operational tools and HR system to a reporting model means the financial, sales, operations and people pages refresh overnight and show the closed month on the first working day. The commentary sections (what changed, what's next) stay with a person, who now has the time to write them properly.
Is there a monthly report template?
The table in this post is the template: six sections with what each contains, how long it should be, and where the numbers come from. It works as a document layout in Word or as a set of report pages in Power BI; the structure is the same in both. The difference is whether the numbers are typed in or arrive on their own.
How long should a monthly report be?
Three to six pages for the main report, with an appendix for anything a reader might want to dig into. Longer than that and it stops being read at a sitting. The commentary sections should be short paragraphs, not bullet lists, so the reader gets the story rather than a set of fragments.
How much does it cost to automate a monthly report?
It depends on how many systems feed it. Moving an existing report page for page is £600 per report with no minimum through my report migration service, and a full build across up to three sources is the fixed-price Reporting Sprint. Power BI Pro licensing is £10.80 per user per month at Microsoft's published UK price as of September 2026, and the cost guide has the wider range.