Every analyst we know has sent a report with a mistake in it. A total that did not add up, a client name from the last project, a date range one week off. Nothing disastrous, but you feel it the moment you notice. The client starts to wonder what else is wrong.
We cannot promise to never make mistakes. We can make them rare and small, and the cheapest way is a short check before anything goes out. It takes about two minutes. It has three parts.
Part one: the sums
Pick every total in the report and add it up again from its parts. Not by eye, with a calculator or a spreadsheet. Check that the percentages come from the right numbers and that the pieces add to a hundred.
Then do one more thing. Compare a couple of numbers with the source system, not with your own earlier work. If you copied a figure wrong the first time, checking against your copy will confirm the mistake.
A good habit is to put the sum next to the number in the report itself, so a reader can check it too. When a figure is hard to place beside its sum, treat that as a warning.
Part two: the dates
Dates are where reports go quietly wrong. Look at the date range at the top, and then at each chart and table. Do they all cover the same period? Is it this week, not last week? Has a monthly figure sneaked into a weekly report?
Check time zones, if the data comes from more than one tool. A booking at 11 p.m. in one system can land on the next day in another, and it can shift a total at the end of the month.
Look at comparisons as well. If the report says up from last month, confirm that last month is the one you mean and that both months are complete.
The awkward email costs more than two minutes.
Part three: the names
Read every name out loud. The client, the campaign, the people, the products. Copying from a previous report is the most common source of an embarrassing slip, and there is nothing worse than sending a client someone else's name in the header.
Search the whole file for the name of your last project. If it appears, it should not. Check the file name as well, and the title of any chart or slide, because those are easy to miss.
Get a second pair of eyes
All of this works better when it is not only you. Whoever builds the report knows what they meant, so they read what they meant, not what is on the page. A second person sees the page.
We make it a rule that every report is checked by someone who did not build it. It takes the second person five minutes, and it is the most valuable five minutes in the process.
Keep it where you can see it
A check only works if it happens on a busy Thursday afternoon, when you are tired and a client is waiting. So keep it short and put it where you work: three lines on a sticky note, or the first item in your report template.
Sums, dates, names, second pair of eyes. That is the whole list. Do it every time, even when you are sure, and especially then.
Pass it on
In short.
If you only have a minute, these are the three things to keep.
