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Reperta
Reporting Estate Assessment
Meridian Financial Group
Prepared 12 May 2026. Fictional client, demo data.
Sources connected
- SharePoint (Finance, Operations, Sales)
- OneDrive (12 user accounts)
- Network drive F:\Reports
- SQL Server (SQLPROD-01, SQLPROD-02)
- SSRS (ReportServer01)
- Power BI tenant (Meridian Analytics)
- Shared mailbox (finance-reporting@meridian)
Executive Summary
Meridian Financial Group's reporting estate contains 466 discovered assets across seven connected sources. The estate is heavily concentrated in Excel, with 73 workbooks used for recurring business reporting. Of these, 21 are classified as business-critical based on access frequency, downstream dependencies, and the sensitivity of the metrics they contain.
The most significant finding is the fragmentation of revenue reporting. Seven separate workbooks and four SSRS reports calculate revenue-related metrics using different source queries, date logic, and aggregation methods. This creates a material risk of conflicting numbers reaching senior leadership. The most critical of these workbooks is maintained solely by one analyst in Finance and is accessed daily by 14 users across three departments.
Two further patterns sit outside any governed platform. Nine Access databases quietly feed downstream reports, including the commission calculation used for sales payouts, and eleven recurring report packs are distributed by email rather than through a controlled channel. Combined with 42 stale assets in active locations and three single-owner reports with no documented handover, the recommended immediate actions are consolidating the revenue cluster, documenting the single-owner assets, and bringing the Access commission logic into a governed source.
Estate Overview
Assets by type
Assets by department
Critical Assets
| Asset | Type | Dept | Owner | Criticality | Owner risk | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue Consolidation Master.xlsx | Excel | Finance | Sarah Chen | Critical | Critical | High |
| Monthly P&L Pack.xlsx | Excel | Finance | Sarah Chen | Critical | Critical | High |
| Sales Pipeline Tracker.xlsx | Excel | Sales | James Morton | Critical | Medium | High |
| rpt_DailyRevenue | SSRS | Finance | DBA Team | Critical | Low | High |
| Ops KPI Dashboard | Power BI | Operations | Priya Sharma | High | High | Medium |
| Board Reporting Pack.xlsx | Excel | Finance | Mark Thompson | High | High | High |
| Regulatory Submission Model.xlsx | Excel | Risk & Compliance | Anna Kowalski | High | Critical | Medium |
| sp_CalcMonthlyCommissions | SQL | Sales | DBA Team | High | Low | High |
| CommissionRates.accdb | Access | Sales | James Morton | High | Critical | High |
Risk Assessment
Single-owner reports
critical3 assetsThree business-critical assets are maintained exclusively by one person with no backup, documentation, or shared access. If any of these individuals were unavailable, downstream reporting would break within 24 hours.
Conflicting revenue metrics
critical6 assetsSix separate calculations of monthly revenue exist across Finance, Sales, and Operations. They use different date cutoffs, inclusion rules, and source queries, producing figures that differ by up to 8% in any given month.
Manual CSV dependencies
high8 assetsEight reports depend on manually uploaded CSV files. These uploads are performed by hand on varying schedules, with no validation or alerting when a file is late or malformed.
Stale assets in active locations
medium42 assets42 reports have not been accessed in 180+ days but sit alongside active files. This makes it difficult for new team members and auditors to distinguish current from obsolete reporting.
Undocumented SQL logic
high12 assets12 stored procedures and views used by downstream reports contain no comments, naming conventions, or documentation. Their logic can only be understood by reading raw SQL.
Shadow Access databases
high9 assetsNine Access databases hold saved queries, linked tables, and VBA that feed downstream reporting. The commission rates database links to a spreadsheet on one analyst's personal drive and has no backup owner.
Email-distributed report packs
high11 assetsEleven recurring report packs are distributed as email attachments, including the monthly board pack. Recipients work from point-in-time copies with no version control, and distribution stops if the sender is unavailable.
Duplication Analysis
Revenue reporting
- Revenue Consolidation Master.xlsx
- rpt_DailyRevenue (SSRS)
- Sales Revenue Summary.xlsx
- Revenue by Region.xlsx
- rpt_MonthlyRevenue (SSRS)
- Finance Revenue Recon.xlsx
- vw_RevenueByProduct (SQL)
Seven assets calculate revenue using different date boundaries (trade date vs. settlement date), different product inclusion lists, and different FX rate sources. The SSRS daily report and the Excel consolidation diverge by 3-8% monthly.
Commission calculations
- sp_CalcMonthlyCommissions (SQL)
- Commission Tracker.xlsx
- Sales Bonus Model.xlsx
The SQL procedure uses contract sign date while the Excel models use payment received date. In months with large deals closing near period end, these produce materially different payout figures.
Headcount reporting
- HR Headcount.xlsx
- Ops Staffing Model.xlsx
- FTE Tracker - Finance.xlsx
- rpt_HeadcountByDept (SSRS)
Four separate headcount reports use different definitions of active employee. HR includes contractors, Finance excludes them, and Operations counts part-time as 0.5 FTE while others count as 1.
Client profitability
- Client P&L Analysis.xlsx
- Top Client Revenue.xlsx
- Client Margin Report (Power BI)
Three reports analyse client profitability with different cost allocation methods. The Power BI report uses a simplified allocation while the Excel analysis applies full activity-based costing, producing different margin rankings.
Transformation Readiness
Overall readiness:
LowHigh concentration of critical assets with single owners and no documented handover. Three reports would fail within 24 hours if their sole maintainer were unavailable.
Most reporting logic is undocumented. 12 SQL procedures have no inline comments and 21 critical workbooks have no written runbooks or data dictionaries.
Significant overlap in revenue, commission, and headcount reporting. Four distinct clusters of duplicate or conflicting assets identified, with revenue being the most fragmented.
No central register of reporting assets. File naming, folder structure, and access controls are inconsistent across departments. 42 stale assets remain in active locations.
The estate is functional but fragile. Daily operations depend on manually maintained spreadsheets and CSV uploads with no validation, alerting, or fallback processes.
Recommended Actions
Consolidate revenue reporting
Unify the 7 revenue assets into a single governed source. Agree on date logic, product inclusion rules, and FX rate source. Retire the redundant workbooks and redirect users to one authoritative report.
Document single-owner assets
For the 3 critical single-owner reports, create written runbooks, add a secondary maintainer, and store working copies in a shared location. This is the highest-urgency risk item.
Retire stale reports
Review the 42 stale assets with department heads. Archive confirmed obsolete files to a clearly marked archive folder. Target: remove at least 30 assets from active locations within 4 weeks.
Automate CSV uploads
Replace the 8 manual CSV dependencies with scheduled extracts or direct database connections. Prioritise the 3 CSV files that feed business-critical reports.
Standardise commission logic
Align the SQL procedure and Excel models on a single date convention (recommend contract sign date to match CRM). Validate payout differences for the last 6 months before switching.
Document SQL reporting logic
Add inline comments and a data dictionary for the 12 undocumented stored procedures. Prioritise the 4 procedures that feed daily SSRS reports.
Rehome Access commission logic
Migrate the saved queries and linked tables in CommissionRates.accdb into governed SQL views. The database currently links to a spreadsheet on a personal drive and has a single owner.
Asset Register
Showing 18 of 466 discovered assets, sorted by criticality.
| Asset | Type | Dept | Owner | Crit. | Own. risk | Conf. | Users |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue Consolidation Master.xlsx | Excel | Finance | Sarah Chen | Critical | Critical | High | 14 |
| Monthly P&L Pack.xlsx | Excel | Finance | Sarah Chen | Critical | Critical | High | 11 |
| Sales Pipeline Tracker.xlsx | Excel | Sales | James Morton | Critical | Medium | High | 8 |
| rpt_DailyRevenue | SSRS | Finance | DBA Team | Critical | Low | High | 22 |
| Ops KPI Dashboard | Power BI | Operations | Priya Sharma | High | High | Medium | 19 |
| Board Reporting Pack.xlsx | Excel | Finance | Mark Thompson | High | High | High | 6 |
| Regulatory Submission Model.xlsx | Excel | Risk & Compliance | Anna Kowalski | High | Critical | Medium | 3 |
| sp_CalcMonthlyCommissions | SQL | Sales | DBA Team | High | Low | High | 4 |
| Commission Tracker.xlsx | Excel | Sales | James Morton | Medium | Medium | High | 5 |
| rpt_MonthlyRevenue | SSRS | Finance | DBA Team | Medium | Low | High | 16 |
| Client P&L Analysis.xlsx | Excel | Finance | David Liu | Medium | High | Medium | 4 |
| HR Headcount.xlsx | Excel | HR | Lisa Park | Medium | Medium | Medium | 7 |
| vw_RevenueByProduct | SQL | Finance | DBA Team | Medium | Low | High | 3 |
| Ops Staffing Model.xlsx | Excel | Operations | Tom Bradley | Medium | High | Medium | 4 |
| Sales Bonus Model.xlsx | Excel | Sales | James Morton | Low | Medium | High | 3 |
| FTE Tracker - Finance.xlsx | Excel | Finance | Mark Thompson | Low | Medium | Medium | 2 |
| Daily Cash Position.csv | CSV | Finance | Ops Team | Low | Low | Medium | 6 |
| rpt_HeadcountByDept | SSRS | HR | DBA Team | Low | Low | High | 9 |
| CommissionRates.accdb | Access | Sales | James Morton | High | Critical | High | 3 |
| Monthly Board Pack.pptx | PowerPoint | Finance | Mark Thompson | Medium | High | High | 9 |
End of assessment. Generated by Reperta.
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