With such busy schedules, association executives when asked what reports they need, tend to dump their entire list of report onto the list. Never mind the fact that many of them were created by predecessors and haven’t been accessed for several years.

The problem – AMS providers budget both time and cost to create these reports. If it’s on the list, they’re assuming you need it. This means that the association is paying for reports that will never be used.

Answer some important questions:

What reports do I actually need to be successful in my job? Are any of the reports obsolete? Are there some reports that can be reduced to a single report in the new system? Can I live and work the new standard format?

I also think AMS providers need to get better at explaining the baseline reports. Many times, users don’t even know that a report already exists.

Taking the extra initiative on the front end to answer these important questions will spare everyone additional time and money – two very precious commodities!