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      How to use Aider's Report Pack

      Deliver impactful reports to clients with different needs, at scale and with ease.

      Updated: 10 February 2025

      Benefits of Aider's Report Pack

      Aider's Report Pack offers: 

      • Customizable report templates:
        create as many as you need to speed up report generation for diverse customer needs
      • Generic template out of the box that is small-business friendly:
        get started quickly by using it as is, or tweak and save as your own custom templates
      • AI tools to help you write better, and add actionable summaries or details automatically
      • Quick and easy to customize and use
      • Better data quality with the help of Aider Period Close tool

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      Now you can realistically offer simple performance reports to support advisory services to a larger portion of your client base - including those who currently don't benefit from your advanced advisory services.

      Save time generating value-add reports and train your less experienced advisory staff in delivering this foundational advisory service with Aider's AI-powered Report Pack.

      How to use Aider's Report Pack

      Creating custom report templates

      1. Go to any client's “Performance Report” tab.
         
      2. Choose the template that is closest to what you want and customize it.
        Use the “Performance Report (Aider Default)” template to start with.
        Once you have created your own templates, you can use any of them as a starting point for more templates.
        1. Add or delete pages 
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        2. Add, edit or delete page content such as…
          1. Rich text & Title block - headings, lists, links. You can also insert data points that update dynamically when you choose a different period or client. Title block is used for the report title on the cover page. The text will be assigned the Word Title style in the downloaded Word report.
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          2. AI generated text - add extra details that update automatically such as “Top 5 Operating Expenses” by saving the prompt (instruction) to the template. You can also save the AI generated content to the template instead of the prompt - useful for generic text that doesn't change from report to report, such as caveats, glossary, generic guidance.
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          3. Graphs - select from the available insight graphs.
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          4. Data table of graph data - use this to show the raw numbers from the graph. You can choose which dataset to include in the table - e.g. only monthly numbers, or also year-to-date numbers for select years.
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      3. Click the “Save As New Template” button to save your changes as a new custom template.
        • You can quickly create more templates by tweaking any existing one and save as a new template. 
        • You can create templates for clients in different industries, new businesses with no historical data, etc. to speed up generation of custom reports for diverse needs.

      Editing custom report templates

      1. Go to any client's “Performance Report” tab.
         
      2. Choose the template that you want to edit and make the changes you want.
      3. Click the “Save Changes” button to save your edit to the selected template.
        The only template that you cannot modify is the “Performance Report (Aider Default)” template. Instead, make the changes you want and click “Save As New Template”. You will then be able to edit your version of this template in the future.

      Generating reports using report templates

      At the end of a reporting period, use the Aider Period Close Checklist to check that the data for the period is complete and accurate enough for reporting. You can use the Period Close Dashboard to help you prioritize and monitor this process across all clients.

      💡  Don't wait until the data is perfect to deliver your report!
            A late report is not so useful

      The key to engaging performance report is succinct actionable insights, delivered in a timely manner.

      Unlike compliance, accuracy to the cent is less important. Businesses need to see the broad trends that require operational actions WHILE they can still take actions. Don't delay report delivery if the data is complete and accurate enough to see the broad trends. Just add caveats if some data still needs to be double-checked and finalized.

      Once the data quality is in good enough state:

      1. Go to a client's ‘Performance Report’ tab.
      2. Select the report template you want to use for this client and the correct report period
      3. Download the Report as a Word document.
        You can easily brand it with your brand colors and text styling using Word's Design Style Set. How to customize your report branding >

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      4. Save as PDF or print out the report to share with your client.
      5. If required by your firm's process, save a copy to your firm’s document repository.