Using a daily, weekly, and monthly sales report with your team may be the single most powerful action you can take to increase your team’s performance and generate powerful sales results. Modern sales analysis reports provide managers and sales representatives with a detailed overview of all relevant sales processes to optimize performance and ensure healthy business growth. The best part is sales reporting has never been easier. Thanks to the rise of modern sales reporting software that facilitates businesses lives by providing interactive reports in the shape of professional dashboards that are easy to create and understand for everyone without any need for technical skills.
To help you dive into the world of sales data analysis, this blog post will focus on the power of these reports by presenting the definition and a list of examples of daily, weekly, and monthly sales reports. Additionally, we will discuss exactly how to report sales, its importance, and the creation process so that you can find out the story behind each report and use them as templates or inspiration to generate your own.
The Complete Guide to Writing Effective Sales Reports with Examples
Crafting an insightful sales report may seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. With the right strategy and tools, you can quickly put together a stellar sales report that clearly communicates key data and trends.
In this comprehensive guide we’ll walk through everything you need to know to create sales reports that drive growth including
- What is a Sales Report and Why It Matters
- Key Elements to Include in a Sales Report
- Sales Report Templates and Examples
- Tips for Creating Visually Appealing Reports
- Tools to Build Sales Reports in Minutes
So let’s dive in and uncover how to write sales reports that inspire action!
What is a Sales Report and Why It Matters
A sales report summarizes a company’s sales activities and performance over a specific period of time, usually a week, month, quarter or year.
The report typically includes metrics on
- Revenue generated
- Number of products/services sold
- Sales growth
- Sales representative performance
- Sales pipeline status
- Customer retention
- And more…
Sales reports provide critical insights that help sales managers, executives and reps:
- Identify opportunities for growth and improvement
- Spot sales process bottlenecks
- Forecast future performance
- Track team and individual progress
- Assess campaign and initiative effectiveness
- Make data-driven decisions to boost sales
In short, comprehensive sales reports give stakeholders an accurate picture of what’s driving (or hindering) revenue so they can optimize strategies accordingly.
Key Elements to Include in a Sales Report
While sales reports can be customized to meet specific business needs, most include the same core set of metrics.
Here are important elements to incorporate:
Headline Numbers
- Total revenue generated
- Revenue growth rate (YoY, QoQ, MoM)
- Average deal size
- Average sales cycle length
Pipeline Status
- Total number of leads/opportunities
- Value of opportunities by stage
- Win/loss analysis
Sales Team Performance
- Total sales and revenue per rep
- Average number of calls made per rep
- Lead conversion rates per rep
Customer Overview
- Total number of customers
- Average revenue per customer
- Customer acquisition costs
- Customer retention rate
- Customer lifetime value
Product/Service Analysis
- Total sales per product/service
- Revenue breakdown by product/service
- Top and bottom performing offerings
Campaign Results
- Number of leads generated per campaign
- Conversion rates of campaigns
- ROI of campaigns
Present these metrics in an easy-to-digest visual format using charts, graphs and tables. This allows readers to quickly identify trends and opportunities.
Now let’s look at some sales report template examples.
Sales Report Templates and Examples
Rather than creating a sales report from scratch, save time by using a pre-made template. Here are a few easy-to-use options:
Daily Sales Report Template
This simple Excel template tracks daily sales activity including:
- Number of sales
- Revenue per sale
- Total revenue
- Sales rep name
- Product sold
It quickly shows sales patterns on a granular level so you can spot when sales slump and address issues immediately.
[Insert image of daily sales report template]
Monthly Sales Report Template
This template summarizes monthly sales performance with metrics like:
- Monthly revenue total
- Monthly revenue growth
- Sales per region
- Top performing products
- Sales per rep
- New customers acquired
- Customer retention rate
The clean, organized format allows managers to view sales outcomes on a broader scale and identify opportunities to improve processes.
[Insert image of monthly sales report template]
Executive Sales Report Template
This visually compelling PowerPoint template is perfect for updating company executives on sales progress. It highlights key metrics in an easy-to-digest way, including:
- Revenue growth chart
- Sales by region/product pie charts
- Sales rep leaderboard
- Net promoter score
- Sales pipeline analysis
- Customer retention graph
- and more!
The focus is on big picture takeaways so leaders can make smart strategic decisions.
[Insert image of executive sales report template]
Now let’s move on to tips for creating visually striking reports.
Tips for Creating Visually Appealing Reports
Well-designed visuals are crucial for reports that engage readers and quickly relay insights. Follow these best practices:
Use Charts Strategically
Charts allow readers to consume data faster. But use them strategically to highlight key metrics and trends. Don’t overloaded readers with endless charts.
Some types that work well include:
- Bar charts to compare metrics
- Line charts to illustrate trends over time
- Pie charts to show revenue/sales breakdowns
- Scatter plots to reveal correlations
Focus on Data-Ink Ratio
Data-ink ratio refers to the amount of ink used to convey data compared to the total amount of ink on the chart. To create clean charts, maximize data-ink and minimize unnecessary elements.
For example, this revised bar chart removes gridlines, legend and borders to spotlight the sales figures:
[Insert image comparing ineffective and effective bar chart]
Make 1 Message Per Visual
Each visual should communicate one clear insight. Don’t try to cram multiple ideas into one chart. Instead, use multiple simple charts to represent key findings.
Pick Meaningful Colors
Use color strategically to direct attention and reinforce meaning. For example, red and green can respectively indicate negative and positive trends.
Watch Out for Chart Junk
Avoid embellishing charts with unnecessary details that don’t add value. Every element should enhance understanding. For instance, 3D effects usually create visual clutter.
Now let’s explore tools that make building sales reports refreshingly simple.
Tools to Build Sales Reports in Minutes
Manually creating sales reports in Excel or Google Sheets is tedious and time-consuming. But business intelligence tools like Google Data Studio, Klipfolio and Sisense make it fast and easy.
These platforms connect directly to your data sources like Salesforce and Google Analytics so you can instantly build reports with up-to-date information. They provide pre-made report templates, drag-and-drop components and interactive features like filtering and drill-downs.
Some advantages include:
- Customizable dashboards to view multiple reports
- Automated daily/weekly/monthly report generation
- Real-time data
- Dynamic filtering and segmentation
- Charts that automatically update
- Version control and record keeping
- User access controls
- APIs and integrations with existing tech stack
Let’s look at an example using Google Data Studio.
With Data Studio, you can:
- Select from pre-built report templates
- Drag-and-drop charts, tables, filters and text
- Connect live data sources like Salesforce
- Create an interactive sales dashboard
- Refresh reports to always show latest data
- Quickly filter reports by date, sales rep, product etc.
- Schedule and email PDF versions of reports
- Collaborate by sharing editable reports or view-only links
This makes assembling insightful sales reports an absolute breeze!
[Insert images showing Google Data Studio interface]
The Takeaway
Developing sales reports that engage audiences and spark action is achievable with the right preparation. Define your core metrics, leverage templates to organize key data, sharpen your data visualization skills and use efficient reporting tools.
With these tips and resources, you can create sales reports that both inform stakeholders and provide the insights needed to continually boost revenue.
13 Weekly Sales Report Samples And Templates
A weekly sales report is a measurement tool used by companies and individuals to track sales performance and essential KPIs, such as lead-to-opportunity ratio, lead conversion ratio, sales volume by channel, and total sales per region, among many others, every week.
A week is arguably the perfect period to measure individual sales rep performance. A month is often too long, leading you to miss out on course correction opportunities until after the fact. And a single day is often too short to see any meaningful, outcome-dependent information. Of course, the perfect period to measure sales rep performance also depends on your business model as well. You can also check our resources to expand your knowledge using a business report template.
Here, we will look at specific reports and KPIs you can track weekly from a B2B and retail perspective.
How To Make A Successful Sales Report: Tips & Reporting Best Practices
Generating reports can be tricky for both sales teams and managers. To clearly compose your data to tell a story, you should follow these tips and best practices.
When you generate a report, you need to keep your final objectives in mind. To master report writing, there are a couple of crucial questions that you need to ask yourself: who are you reporting for, and why? Is this a weekly check-up or an assessment of a situation or a campaign project? What is the time period of the report? What is the main message you want to share?
Once these questions are answered, you can easily articulate your report accordingly. Here’s how to do it:
- Identify your goals: There is no point in creating a solid reporting process for sales if you don’t have a goal. Define specific questions you need an answer to, and tie all the metrics that correspond to your final destination. This is a crucial point as it will help you define the kind of data that you need to collect and prevent your analysis from becoming overcrowded with unuseful information.
- Define your audience: Before working on the report, consider who will read it and what they need to know. Consider their background and if they are familiar with the jargon you might use. It’s not the same if you write for a specific sales audience than to a general one. Taking care of this aspect will help your reports be more engaging and readable.
- Define the purpose of your report: Sharing monthly advancement with top management or just having the weekly overview and analysis of the sales objectives with your team. Both reports will have a different structure, and the info you will share will also be very different. You can also benefit from report automation and schedule a specific time for your reports to be produced and shared.
- Decide on a time period: You can create a daily and a monthly report or choose to display the data of the last quarter or year. Whichever you choose, it is important to think about it beforehand as it will help you gather the correct data and plan accordingly. You can also customize templates based on your own goals, departmental structure, or C-level management requirements.
- Gather the right data: Now that you have defined your goals, audience, and time period, you should have all the necessary information to collect your data. With the help of professional online BI tools, you can easily connect multiple data sources and visualize them all together in interactive sales analysis reports. The best part is the sources will be automatically updated, meaning you will always have fresh insights available.
- Tell a story: As you learned from the different types of reports we presented above, each type tells a different story based on the goals we have predefined. In this area, you also need to look at the bigger picture. If your goals aren’t being met, there is a reason behind it – does your customer or client have a rough business patch that resulted in lower sales volumes?
- Visualize and communicate your findings: Once you have analyzed and dug out insights from your data, the most important part is to convey this information to your audience. In the past, reports were mainly in written form or using static visuals. Today, it is all about interactivity and visual analytics. A professional business intelligence dashboard is a highly visual tool that offers a centralized location for your most important sales KPIs.
- Create an unforgettable presentation: Humans are visual creatures, and by visualizing all the numbers and correlations on a single screen, you enable faster insights, pattern recognition, easy-to-spot trends, and interactivity with data. A simple sales presentation with visualized data is much more digestible and effective when it’s done through the power of online data visualization.
- Provide context: An aspect often forgotten when we are deep in the reporting mindset is that numbers never tell the full story. Provide some background and a bigger picture of the figures, especially if you are presenting weekly sales report templates. For instance, how has the situation been this month or this quarter? Is the general trend going up or down?
- Take advantage of sales forecasts: One of the most crucial tips we can give you is to utilize sales forecasts to be able to make better and more informed business decisions, predict future performance, and give insights on how to manage your sales strategies, like in our example below:
This example shows an intuitive user interface of modern business intelligence software like datapine that allows you to analyze and visualize sales data with a few clicks and take advantage of advanced analytics features such as predictions, intelligent alerts, and conditional formatting.
11. Identify patterns in your data: An important tip to consider when using company sales reports for your online data analysis process is to act on results. Often, organizations react when the numbers are negative. However, the true value of reporting lies in providing a deeper look into your business. Once you get your sales management reports done, examine the data carefully, and find trends and patterns to understand why something is happening. Like this, you will not only fine-tune your sales strategies but will find new opportunities that will lead your business to grow.
12. Share your findings: Whether you need to input your colleague or show your sales manager or board of directors achievements and current insights, these kinds of reports should be easily shared. That way, you empower collaboration and increase productivity between stakeholders. For instance, datapine’s business dashboards can be shared and exported in multiple formats, including print, PDF, live URL, automated email, and more.
13. Use automated tools: One of the main benefits of sales reporting is to help businesses deal with their sales data the most efficiently. To do so, sales business intelligence tools provide automated features that will autogenerate your reports with just a few clicks. By investing in these business intelligence solutions to leverage your sales data, you can leave the pains of manual reporting in the past and benefit from interactive dashboards filled with real-time data ready to extract fresh business insights.
14. Get creative! When building your report, add a bit of fun or a more personal touch to catch your audiences attention and make you more confident while presenting! Sales analytics tools, like datapine, offer white-label reporting features to allow users to customize reports to meet any design needs they might have.
These tips will help you create a powerful business sales report to share with your colleagues and key stakeholders. To keep digging deeper into the process, below we will discuss some tips to present a report to your boss.
