Financial reporting that actually helps you run your business

A lot of businesses only think about financial reports at tax time. Once the accountant is done, the reports are filed away and forgotten. But smart business owners are starting to see that financial reporting can actually help them run their business better—not just tick the compliance box.

Here’s one way to think about it:
Financial reports are like your car’s rear-view mirror—they show you where you’ve been. That’s useful, but if you only look backward, you’ll miss what’s coming ahead. The windscreen is much bigger than the mirror for a reason. Business owners should spend more time looking forward, planning for what’s next, not just reviewing the past.

We had a client who bought a well-established business. On paper, everything looked great: steady revenue, loyal customers, experienced staff. But within the first year, things started to fall apart. Sales were dropping. Customers weren’t happy. The business started losing money.

That’s when the client came to us.

We didn’t just tidy up their financials. We built a detailed cash flow forecast and tied it to a real business plan. This wasn’t about keeping the tax office happy—it was about giving the owner tools to make better decisions right when they needed to.

Pretty quickly, the reports pointed to the problem. The manager wasn’t performing, and a few staff were driving customers away. Armed with solid information, the owner made the call to change the manager and restructure the team. Revenue and customer satisfaction picked up fast. The business turned around and is now on a growth path.

The ‘tick-the-box’ trap

Most businesses treat financial reporting as something they have to do for tax, banks, or regulators. So the reports get created months after year-end, and they’re already out of date. They show where the business was, not where it is or where it’s going.

That’s why many business owners think reports are a waste of money. But the same financial data can be used in a smarter way—if it’s collected and presented differently.

Reports that help you make decisions

Reports made for decision-making look very different from ones made for compliance:

Timing: You don’t wait until year-end—you run reports when they’ll help you decide something.

Detail: You zoom in on what matters—like certain product lines, customer groups, or locations.

Context: Instead of comparing to accounting rules, you compare to business goals and market trends.

Format: Rather than sticking to standard accounting layouts, you use dashboards or scenario comparisons that actually make sense for your business.

This doesn’t mean ditching the rules—it just means using your financial info in a way that’s more helpful day-to-day.

Ask the right questions

Start by figuring out what you really want to know.

If you run a retail business, you might ask: Which products make me the most money? How do staffing levels affect sales? What’s the best return I’m getting on my stock?

If you’re in a service business, you might wonder: Which clients are the most profitable? Does hourly billing or fixed pricing work better? What happens if I add another team member?

These questions don’t line up neatly with the typical P&L report. But if you start with the question, you can reshape the report to give you a real answer.

Tools that make it easier

The good news is that you don’t need a big budget to get smarter reporting. Today’s cloud tools make it much easier and cheaper to set this up.

Here are a few types of tools that can help:

• Business intelligence: These plug into your accounting system and turn data into graphs, dashboards, and insights automatically.
• Scenario modelling: Let you test different what-if situations before making a decision.
• Dashboards: Show your key numbers at a glance, even for people who aren’t numbers-focused.

You can pick and mix what suits your business and your way of working. Even small improvements often lead to better decisions and better results.

The bottom line

You’ve got a choice. Keep using your financial reports just to meet compliance—and miss out on valuable insights. Or turn them into decision-making tools that actually help you grow and improve your business.

It doesn’t take more paperwork—just a smarter approach to using the numbers you already have. If you’d like to explore how decision-focused financial reporting could help your business, get in touch with Joshua at Gilligan Sheppard. Email joshua@gilshep.co.nz or call +64 21 421 758 to discuss your specific reporting needs.