Welcome to the Quarterly Analysis Report
The Quarterly Analysis Report (or QAR) is a user-friendly dynamic Excel data dashboard. Moreover, users of any level can work with this reporting tool. Overall, QAR is clean and very easy-to-use.
QAR works with different types of data. For example, you can work with sales data or other metrics associated with the performance of your programs. Although we call it a quarterly report, you enter data monthly. Thus, the QAR showcases its flexibility, and opens space for enhancements.
Table of contents
Overview of the Quarterly Analysis Report
The QAR is a one sheet Excel data reporting dashboard. It contains two sections – the main report and data page. Even though we go through all components of the QAR in the video, we think you would like to see it here also.
Note: We suggest you have automatic calculations on in Excel. When you update the data, the report will update automatically.
Main report
So, the main report is where you view your raw data in a more visual manner. Overall, it contains a navigation bar, main report selector, and three reporting modules.
Navigation bar
Main selector
Program summary
Quarterly summary
Monthly breakdown
Data page
So, the data page is also clean-looking, and user-friendly. It is the engine of QAR. Therefore, simply update the data and watch the report go. To point out, make sure you have automatic calculations on. Otherwise, you will have to manually (Shift + F9) refresh QAR.
Altogether, there are three sections on the data page. However, you only need to work in two sections – reporting data and references. Both sections contain a brief how-to summary.
Reporting data
Overall, the reporting section allows up to 1000 rows of data. This provides you enough room for 5 years of data, including space for 5 programs/drivers. Of course, you do not need to use all the space.
To update your reporting data, you can either enter your data each month. Or, you can cleanly paste your data in as values, from another source. Keep formatting to a minimum. So, there is no need for monetary units, comma separators, etc. However, you can put them in. It is a barebones, flexible report.
Updating the metrics data
Right next to the Year, Month, and Program columns are the metrics. These titles appear in blue. So, you can update them.
Altogether, you can have up to five metrics. When you update the data, make sure you have the correct column names. For example, instead of sales, you may want to use revenue. After you update the column title, you will be able to use that metric in the report.
References
The video
Check out the video below that showcases the beta version of QAR, including errors, which we discuss in the release section.
Stable release
So, we expect to have a stable release of the QAR available in January 2025. Of course, we will keep you posted.
Versions releases of the QAR
December 12, 2024 – Beta version of the QAR. Errors – Average was not calculating correctly. Also, the monthly and quarterly lows did not display correct numbers. These errors were fixed.
Sample report
To demonstrate how QAR works, we include a sample report in the distribution of this tool.