What is custom business reporting?
Custom business reporting means building reports that are designed specifically for your organization — your data, your business rules, your audience, your format. Not the generic reports that came built into your ERP. The reports that tell you what you actually need to know, in the format you actually need it, delivered to the right people at the right time automatically.
When do you need custom reporting?
You need custom reporting when your existing system’s built-in reports can’t do what you need — whether that’s combining data from multiple systems, applying your specific calculation logic, consolidating across multiple entities, or delivering formatted reports automatically to 50 different people on the same morning every month.
Let’s Start With the Real Problem
Here’s what we hear from almost every client before they call us:
“We’ve been running this report in Excel for three years. Someone spends two days every month pulling the data, reformatting it, checking for errors, and emailing it out. We know there has to be a better way, but we haven’t had time to fix it.”
Or this one:
“Our ERP has an aging report. It shows us what’s open. But it doesn’t show us which invoices have discount windows closing this week, which customers are on credit hold, or what our DSO trend looks like over the past 12 months. Every time we ask the vendor if it can do that, they say ‘put in a feature request.'”
Or:
“We have 200 LP investors. Every quarter we manually prepare 200 investor statements in
Excel, check each one, and email them individually. It takes three people a week and a half. There has to be a way to automate this.”
There is. That’s what ReportingGuru does.
We build custom reports. Not consulting strategy decks. Not software licenses. Not promises that the platform will eventually support what you need. We build the actual report — connected to your actual data — that produces the actual output you need, automatically, on schedule, every time.
What “Custom” Actually Means
Custom doesn’t mean complicated. It means built for you specifically.
Sometimes that’s a single SSRS report that takes your job cost data from Sage 300 CRE and formats it exactly the way your project managers need to see it — with committed costs, cost to complete, and projected final margin in one view, sorted by project manager, emailed to each PM every Monday morning automatically.
Sometimes it’s a Power BI dashboard that pulls from your ERP, your CRM, and your payroll system simultaneously — showing revenue, pipeline, headcount costs, and margin on a single screen that your CFO reviews every morning before 8 AM.
Sometimes it’s a full investor reporting system: 200 LP statements, a capital account schedule, a waterfall calculation, and a fund performance report — all generated from Investran or Geneva, all formatted consistently, all delivered by email in a single batch run the same afternoon every quarter.
And sometimes it’s replacing a Crystal Reports library that someone built 12 years ago on a platform that’s being retired — preserving all the business logic, rebuilding it in SSRS or Power BI, and adding automated delivery so nobody has to run reports manually anymore.
The scope varies. The approach is always the same: understand what you actually need, build it on top of your existing systems, make it run automatically, and document it so you own it.
The Systems We Connect To
We don’t require you to move to a new platform. We connect to what you already have.
ERP and Accounting Systems SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics 365 (Finance, Business
Central, Great Plains), NetSuite, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage X3, Epicor, Infor, QuickBooks
Enterprise, Sage Intacct, Deltek Costpoint, Deltek Vision/Vantagepoint
Construction and Project Accounting Sage 300 CRE (Timberline), Viewpoint Vista, Spectrum, Procore, Ajera
Fund and Investment Accounting Investran (eFront), Allvue, Geneva (SS&C), Yardi
Investment Management, Juniper Square
CRM Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM
Warehouse and Inventory Manhattan Associates, Blue Yonder, Fishbowl
If your system stores data in SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, or any database — or exports structured files like CSV, XML, or Excel — we can connect to it. In most cases we’ve connected to it before.
The Platforms We Build On
SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) Best for: scheduled report delivery, formatted financial statements, parameterized operational reports, investor packages, anything that needs to be automatically emailed or exported on a defined schedule.
This is the workhorse. SSRS generates professional, consistently formatted reports — PDF, Excel, or Word — and delivers them automatically. A set of 200 individualized investor statements. A weekly job cost summary to every project manager’s inbox. A monthly financial package to the board. All automated. Nobody runs them manually.
Power BI Best for: interactive dashboards, real-time operational visibility, executive scorecards, anything where the audience wants to explore data rather than just receive a formatted report.
We build Power BI data models connected to your SQL Server or directly to your ERP, build the dashboards and visuals your team actually uses, and set up automatic refresh so the data is always current.
Crystal Reports Best for: organizations already running Crystal Reports that need new reports built, existing templates that need to be fixed or extended, or legacy libraries that need to be migrated to a modern platform.
Crystal Reports is deeply embedded in many ERP ecosystems — Sage, Infor, Epicor,
Viewpoint, SAP Business One. We develop, maintain, and modernize Crystal Reports implementations. If your business runs on Crystal Reports and you need someone who genuinely understands it, that’s us.
SQL Server The foundation beneath everything. We design the databases, views, stored procedures, and data pipelines that turn your raw source system data into clean, reliable reporting data. This is the work that determines whether your reports are accurate or not.
Excel Automation For audiences that need data in Excel — finance teams building models, boards that want spreadsheets — we build live-connected Excel workbooks that populate themselves from SQL Server. No manual ERP exports. No copy-paste. The file opens with current data already in it.
Who We Typically Work With
Private equity firms and fund administrators who need investor reporting — LP statements, capital accounts, waterfall calculations, fund financials — at scale, on deadline, to an audience that scrutinizes every number.
Multi-entity businesses — holding companies, franchise groups, real estate operators — who need consolidated financial reporting across multiple entities and cannot get it from standard ERP consolidation modules.
Construction and specialty contracting companies running Sage, Viewpoint, or Procore who need job cost reports, WIP schedules, and change order tracking that the built-in reports cannot produce in a useful format.
Distributors and manufacturers who need inventory, purchasing, and sales reporting that combines data from their ERP and WMS — since the two systems don’t talk to each other’s reporting modules.
Finance and accounting teams at PE-backed portfolio companies who are being asked for monthly management reporting at a level of detail and consistency their current processes cannot sustain.
Professional services firms — law firms, accounting practices, engineering firms — who need matter-level profitability, utilization, and realization reporting their practice management systems won’t produce.
If you’re producing reports manually in Excel when they should be automated — or if your business has outgrown the reporting your current systems can deliver — that’s the situation we fix.
The Reports We’ve Built
Every link below is a dedicated page describing what we build in that area — how it works, what it includes, and how we automate it.
Cash Management & Banking Pages
Cash Management & Banking Reporting Hub, Cash Flow Forecast
Purchasing & Procurement Pages
Purchasing & Procurement Reporting Hub
Job Cost & WIP Pages
Job Cost, WIP & Project Reporting Hub, Job Cost Summary, Work in Progress (WIP) Report
Financial & GL Reporting Pages
Balance Sheet, Statement of Cash Flows, Trial Balance, Budget vs Actual,
Inventory & Warehouse Pages
Inventory & Warehouse Reporting, Inventory On Hand, Inventory Valuation
Investor & Fund Reporting Pages
Financial Statements & KPI Reporting, Fund Performance Reporting
How an Engagement Works
We keep it simple.
First conversation: You tell us what you’re trying to report on, what system your data lives in, and what you’re currently doing instead. We ask questions. We tell you honestly whether it’s something we can build, how long it typically takes, and roughly what it costs. No proposal theater.
Scope and estimate: If it makes sense to move forward, we document what we’re going to build — the specific reports, the data sources, the delivery mechanism, the timeline, and the cost. You review it and say yes or ask questions.
Build: We connect to your systems, build the data layer if needed, and develop the reports iteratively. We show you progress. We incorporate feedback before we call anything done.
Delivery and automation: We configure the scheduling and delivery — SSRS subscriptions, Power BI refresh schedules, batch generation — so the reports run automatically going forward. No manual steps left for your team.
Documentation and handoff: We document what was built and how it works. You own it. You can modify it, hand it to a new team member, or engage us for changes as your needs evolve.
Ongoing: Many clients stay engaged for new reports, changes, and annual updates. Many don’t need to. Either way is fine with us.
Honestly, Why ReportingGuru
We’re not the only people who can build an SSRS report. Here’s what actually makes a difference:
We’ve done this specific thing many times. A WIP schedule that ties to the GL. LP investor statements from Investran. Job cost reports from Sage 300 CRE. AP aging with GR/NI accrual automation. We have built these exact reports, in these exact systems, for clients with these exact problems. That experience shortens the time it takes to understand the requirement, build the right solution, and avoid the mistakes that come from doing something for the first time.
We understand the business, not just the code. The hardest part of building a financial report is knowing what it’s supposed to say. A job cost summary that shows actual costs but not committed costs is incomplete. A WIP schedule that doesn’t reconcile to the GL creates audit problems. An LP statement built on the wrong allocation method creates legal exposure. We know what correct looks like in these reports because we understand the business context, not just the SQL.
We build on your systems. We are not trying to sell you new software. We are not trying to replace your ERP. We connect to what you already have and make it produce what you need.
You own what we build. We document everything. We hand it over. Your team can run it, modify it, and extend it without us. We don’t build dependency into our work.
FAQ
Do we need to buy any new software?
No. We build on your existing systems — your ERP, your database, your reporting platform. If you already have SQL Server, SSRS is included. If you already have Microsoft 365, Power BI is likely available. We scope based on what you already have.
What if we don’t have SQL Server?
SQL Server is the foundation we build on for most custom reporting. If you don’t currently have it, we’ll include it in the project scope — it’s an affordable, widely-used database platform, not a major infrastructure investment.
Will our IT team need to manage this after you’re done?
That depends on your preference and your team’s capability. We document everything clearly and train whomever you designate. Most of our clients have their own IT or finance operations teams run the system after handoff. Others prefer ongoing support from us for maintenance and changes. We’re flexible.
What if our data is a mess?
It usually is. Data quality issues — inconsistent coding, missing fields, timing differences between systems — are the most common complication in custom reporting projects. We identify them in the data assessment phase, document them, and work with you to address them as part of the project scope. A report built on bad data is worse than no report. We don’t skip this step.
Can you work with our internal development team?
Yes. Some clients have internal developers who do some of the work — we handle the parts requiring deep expertise in the reporting platform or the specific ERP system. We collaborate well with internal teams.
How do we get started?
Call or email us. Tell us what you’re trying to do. We’ll tell you whether we can help and what it involves. The first conversation costs nothing.
Talk to Us
Phone: 1-800-921-4759 Contact: ReportingGuru Contact Page Address: 5114 Balcones
Woods Dr #307-408, Austin, TX 78759
We respond to every inquiry. Usually the same day.