Why act
Upkeep consumes 40% of the team's capacity
In the example, a 5-analyst team spends two of every five hours keeping 80 reports running, before anyone builds anything new.
Shared source fixes, 24 hrsFixed, whatever the report count
Per-report upkeep, 56 hrs = 80 reports × 0.7 hrsChecks after breaks, fixes, user questions, small tweaks. This is the part that shrinks.
The approach
Six steps, from mapping the work to keeping it clean
STEP 1 · SET UP
Agree decision rights
A one-page charter: scope in and out, success measures, and who approves. Business leaders approve every retirement; the reporting lead recommends.
STEP 2 · MAP THE WORK
Find where time waits
Requests in the example take 13 business days, but only 5 are work. One intake form and a 2-day acknowledgment target cut the waiting, not the build.
STEP 3 · LISTEN AND MEASURE
Pair voice with usage
A questionnaire with a 2-week deadline, then follow-ups with leaders who did not reply and owners of reports no one named.
STEP 4 · DECIDE
Use explicit rules
Keep, merge or retire each report by the same rules, with owner sign-off for anything critical and safeguards on every retirement.
STEP 5 · REBUILD
One entry point
A catalog organized by who uses each report, one template, defined metrics and a named owner on every report.
STEP 6 · SUSTAIN
Gate what comes in
Every new request passes a catalog check. A quarterly usage review flags reports for the owner to confirm or retire.
Calculator
Model the capacity gain with your own assumptions
It opens on the example's base case. Change any input and the results update. Shared fixes do not shrink; each merged report costs more to maintain than the ones it replaces.
Capacity, not cash: freed hours are capacity available to redeploy, not a budget cut. Merged-into reports are new combined reports, counted separately from the ones kept as is. Payback counts weeks after launch to repay setup hours, excluding the project itself.
The worked example
All 80 reports, scored by the same rules
Usage is concentrated: a handful of reports carries most of the views, and a long tail is barely opened. Survey answers are self-reported, so they sit beside usage data, never in place of it.
users answered a questionnaire with a 2-week deadline (60%)
executives and directors covered, by survey or follow-up
follow-ups: 6 leaders who did not reply, 6 owners of reports no one named
| Rank | Report | Level | Owner | Users, 90 days | Views / month | Decision | Outcome |
|---|
Views count interactive use by named users over 90 days. Scheduled distributions and service accounts are excluded and reviewed separately. Click a column to sort.
Decision rules
Rules for speed, owner sign-off for anything critical
Retire · 32
Under 3 named users in 90 days, no scheduled distribution, and the owner confirms no control, regulatory or period-end use.
Review with owner
Low usage, but distributed on a schedule or critical. Never retired without the owner's sign-off.
Merge · 34 into 8
Overlaps another report's core metrics and audience. Fold into one owned report.
Keep · 14
Widely used, distinct and owned. Move to the standard template.
Safeguards on every retirement: 2 weeks' notice to users, a 60-day archive, owner sign-off.
Free tool
Score your own reports
An Excel scorecard that applies the same rules to your report list and estimates the hours you free up. Works in Excel, Google Sheets and Numbers.
- Report review: room for 300 reports, a suggested action that fills in automatically, and an owner-approval column. Incomplete rows are flagged, never counted.
- Summary: potential savings from every suggestion, and approved savings from owner-approved actions only
- Worked example: the 80 reports on this page, already scored, with its own fixed assumptions
About
Find the signal. Tell the story. Guide the decision.
I'm Tony Alunni, a finance and strategy professional based in South Florida. I've led reporting and analytics teams, partnered with business leaders on priorities, consolidated overlapping reports, and worked with IT on source-data issues. Before that, I spent more than a decade in FP&A supporting an alternative investments platform: budgeting, forecasting, new-fund business cases and acquisition analysis.
The same approach on this page applies to management packs, budget reporting and recurring variance analysis. I'm open to senior FP&A and analytics roles, and I take select project work through Alunni Finance & Analytics.
The company, figures and events in this playbook are illustrative. The approach is mine.