Our 5 steps to simplified reporting will increase productivity, strengthen your organization's financial stability, and streamline strategic planning.
Whether you're a one-staff wonder shop or a large multi-department organization, reporting is key to making smart decisions. Access to accurate and timely reports increases your productivity, ensures your organization is financially healthy, and enables better insight into your strategic planning. In some cases, you're required to have accurate reports for compliance to regulatory requirements.
The first step is to assess your current reporting process with honesty. Identifying pain points, shortcomings, and obstacles is a great way to start. Seek out feedback from the main users of your association membership management software such as:
Here are some questions to ask:
The next step is to evaluate your current software and tools currently you use for reporting. Take a candid look at how these tools and systems are working together (or not working) for your organization. Evaluate your full tech stack, including your:
Example: Your email marketing software and membership management software don't talk to each other. This means you're missing out on valuable member engagement data!
Example: Your Learning Management System (LMS) and your membership management software don't integrate. You may end up promoting a course to someone who already completed it.
We'll show you how to find unbiased reviews, identify must-have features, and digitally transform your association.
Streamline as much data collection as you can and automate where possible. Much of the data needed for reports can (hopefully) come from your membership management system.
Tip: Centralize your data so you can have a Single Source of Truth (SSoT). This is the key to trusting your member data.
Go from data silos to a Single Source of Truth (SSoT)
Your membership management system should be able to integrate with other systems such as:
Integrating your systems will help standardize the data formats for easier analysis and exports. Note that this may incur additional costs if the automation or import tools are not part of your membership system.
If your association software has limited integrations, you may have to manually input information. Keying in data from external sources can be tedious and error-prone. If this is necessary, adhere to a consistent data entry guideline. Having a template for reference would be the ideal solution.
I highly recommend verifying data accuracy by having an immediate self-audit process. Even a bit of spot-checking will help identify discrepancies that would cause reports to be inaccurate. Check to see if these can be created in the same place as your reports. Then schedule to do this shortly after new data is added or imported.
Choosing the right software is key to the success of your reporting. Ideally, your reporting is software your association managment software. But if not, ensure a tight integration between the two.
If you've already chosen or committed to a specific software, take the time to learn how to implement reporting. Ensure you have reporting features tailored to your organization’s specific needs. Your staff will ablso benefit from a user-friendly interface and extendable functionality.
What is also important to consider is the ecosystem that your chosen software is in and what type of support you can get.
Tip: Consider adding visualizations to your data such as number tiles, charts, and progress bars. This will help you quickly spot trends (both good and bad).
Tip: If you can display data on a dashboard, the initial investment resources will be returned year after year. Extra credit if you can automate sending the report to your staff and board members.
Easily build reports, interactive dashboards, and data visualizations. You'll be ready to become a learning organization.
Once you have your reporting system in place, don’t forget to regularly review to make helpful adjustments. Implement a continuous feedback cycle to incorporate feedback from your users. The idea is to turn the the continuous feedback into continuous improvement.
Here are some changes you may make:
It is also important to keep up with changes in your chosen reporting tools. If your software has regular updates, make sure to check if there are any adjustments you need to make to your reports. In some cases, a new feature can play an instrumental role in how you collect or display data.
By turning its users into Learning Organizations, modern association software creates a continuous performance improvement machine.
Try these 8 strategies — some you can start today! — to optimize your member engagement and acquisition efforts to better prepare for challenges...
Start with a core platform that can help your association deliver exceptional member value, then build out your tech stack by focusing on 5 key areas.