Top 7 Reporting Tools Every SaaS Business Should Use

For many of us, the term "reporting" conjures images of mind-numbing meetings and stacks of complicated spreadsheets. But when used correctly, reporting tools can help your team work smarter and more efficiently. If you're a business owner or a CTO working in the SaaS space—there are plenty of benefits to choosing the right software to track your data and manage your project's performance. Here are seven popular uses of reporting tools that will help improve productivity at all levels.

1. Improving Productivity

There are countless ways that businesses can improve productivity—from hiring new employees and buying new equipment to getting new product development or installing software on your computers. But some of the most popular tools are actually free, like G Suite and Slack.

With the right tools, you and your team can get more done in less time.

This is especially important for growing businesses that have finite resources but still want to make an impact.

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2. Managing Your Team

Many SaaS businesses are run by a single person. Others, however, have a team of people working together on the same project. They could be working in the same office or spread across the globe for handling the SaaS product development, marketing, research, and more. Project management tools for small businesses are useful for both scenarios. Here's how to use one:

• Create a list of actionable items that you want your team members to complete by the end of each day or week. Then assign them accordingly in your project management tool. The best tools for managing teams include Trello, Connecteam, Resource Guru, Asana and Basecamp. 

• When you assign tasks, be sure to include a description and how it fits into your larger goals. That way, if someone else needs to take over when you're not available, they'll know exactly what they need to do. Additionally, you can use roster apps to help you assign tasks easily.

• Lastly, make sure that all of your team members, whether in-house or remote developers or other teammates, have access. If they can see what's on their plates and can check in to see how their tasks are progressing—it will help them feel more connected and accountable.

3. Tracking Your Budget

It's easy to get swept up with all of the marketing tools out there—and it's tempting to think that more expensive will mean better results. However, a premium product doesn't necessarily make it better than something cheaper or freemium for example.

If you're just starting a business, it's best to keep things simple and use a spreadsheet to track your budget. An excel accounting template can help make it easy for your team to keep track of financial data. As your business grows, you can empower the accounting automation software like QuickBooks to streamline and automate your budgeting. In addition to that, leveraging top CPM (Corporate Performance Management) tools can further enhance your budgeting process. These tools offer advanced features and analytics capabilities that enable businesses to streamline their financial planning, monitor key performance indicators, and make data-driven decisions. Integrating top CPM tools, along with the best accounting software, into your budgeting strategy can provide you with valuable insights and help you optimize your financial management efforts

4. Monitoring Your Sales Pipeline

Monitoring your sales pipeline is a crucial part of running an effective SaaS product business. The sales pipeline is a visual representation of your sales process, outlining the status and progress of each individual opportunity. This tool helps you understand how well you’re doing at closing deals, as well as where to focus your efforts to improve performance.

In order to track your sales pipeline, you need to know how many opportunities there are at every stage of the process. The first step is to determine what your stages are.

For example, you might have five different stages for each deal: Contacted, Interested, Qualified, Negotiating, and Closed. Each stage has its own criteria for moving forward. These can be based on the number of discussions held with a prospect or how far along they are in the sales process.

Once you have your stages defined, it’s time to start tracking your pipeline. You can do this by using a spreadsheet or CRM like Refrens Sales CRM, Zoho CRM or TeleCRM. The goal is to track the number of opportunities at each stage—so that you can see where you are falling short and make adjustments.

Finally, it’s important to make sure that your pipeline is always full. You don’t want to run out of deals while you wait for new ones to come in. To prevent this from happening, you need sales planning and a steady flow of qualified leads coming into your funnel.

5. Determining Project Success Factors 

To ensure you are meeting the expectations of your customers, it’s important to define success factors for each project. This will help you determine how projects should be prioritized and what makes them successful. 

One of the reporting tools you can use here is a project dashboard that tracks your progress on key performance indicators. You can play around with top project management software for a small business—where you can put the date or status and get an instant snapshot of how your projects are doing. You can also consider adding an embedded analytics dashboard to your product.

6. Improving Customer Satisfaction 

Advancing customer satisfaction is key to business success. It’s an indicator of how well a company meets customer expectations, and it can be measured using a variety of tools—including surveys and questionnaires. If you cannot do anything to improve their experience, you can offer them a discount code or coupon as an apology. In that case, create a discount code on Squarespace.

Customers are also more than numbers. They're people with needs that you can help fulfill. And when you keep track of their feedback, you'll be able to make improvements for both them and your business. That's why it's important not just to ask questions but also to put those answers into actionable insights.

With reporting tools like Salesforce, you can track and report on customer satisfaction and see how it impacts your business. You’ll be able to see trends in your data and make informed decisions based on what your customers are saying.

7. Integrating Business Applications

Integrating business applications is a great way to improve your business processes and save time. For example, you want to send an email campaign but don’t want to manually enter all of the addresses by hand. You can use a workflow automation tool such as Zapier. It can help automate that process for you by automatically pulling data from other apps into your email software.

Final Tips

• Get the full picture. There are many different reporting tools available on the market today, and each one has its own unique set of features. Be sure to choose a tool that gives you access to all of the data that’s relevant to your project.

• Understand the tool’s limitations. Even the most comprehensive reporting tools have their limits. So be sure to read up on what your chosen platform can and cannot do before investing in it.

• Choose a tool that will grow with your needs. While it’s important to choose a reporting tool that meets all of your current needs—it’s equally essential to find one that can accommodate any growth you might experience in the future.  

• Look for one with an easy to use interface. When considering which tools are right for you and your team, don’t just focus on their features. Take into account how easy they are to access and use as well.

• Consider whether the tool will integrate with other systems. For example, if your organization already uses a particular accounting or HR SaaS software, it would be helpful to find one that integrates with those platforms so you don’t have to run multiple programs at once.