Reporting is the most common automation we see at 2pizza.team. An ops manager spending every Monday morning pulling HubSpot data into a Google Sheet, reformatting it, and emailing it to three people. 8 hours a week, every week, for two years. We built a system that does it in 4 minutes at 7am Monday without any human involvement.
Why reporting automation pays off so fast
Reports are perfect for automation because they're completely consistent: same data sources, same format, same recipients, same schedule. There's no judgment involved - just data extraction, formatting, and delivery. A well-built reporting automation runs reliably for years with zero maintenance.
Step 1: Map what the report actually contains
Before building anything, document exactly what goes into the report. Which metrics? From which tools? What time period? What format? What gets highlighted or color-coded? The clearer your spec, the faster the build. Most people discover their reports are messier than they thought - different sources, inconsistent naming, manual adjustments. This is the right time to fix that.
Step 2: Connect your data sources
Make connects to virtually any tool via native integration or API. HubSpot, Salesforce, Stripe, Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, Shopify, Airtable - all have APIs we can pull from. For each data source, you define: which endpoint to call, which fields to extract, and how to format them. This is the longest part of the build - typically 60-70% of the time.
Step 3: Format and assemble
Raw API data needs cleaning and formatting. Google Sheets is usually the assembly layer - we write the formatted data there using Make's Google Sheets modules. Alternatively, the data goes into a Google Docs template (useful for narrative reports) or a Notion database (useful for internal dashboards). Claude can write the narrative interpretation: 'Sales are up 12% this week, primarily driven by the enterprise segment' - using the data as input.
Step 4: Automate delivery
The report runs on a Make schedule - daily, weekly, or monthly. Delivery options: email the Google Sheets link, attach a PDF, post to a Slack channel, or update a shared Notion page. We usually add a Telegram notification to the founder's phone: a one-line summary with the key number, and a link to the full report.
Reports we've automated for clients:
- Weekly pipeline report: HubSpot deals by stage, new leads, deals closed
- Daily sales digest: Stripe MRR, new subscriptions, churn
- Weekly ops summary: order volume, fulfillment time, support ticket count
- Monthly client report: key metrics from 3-4 integrated tools
- Ad performance report: Facebook + Google Ads spend and ROAS
What it costs and how long it takes
A single-source report (one tool → Google Sheets → email) takes 1-2 days and costs $800-1,200. A multi-source report (4-5 tools, custom formatting, narrative from Claude) takes 3-5 days and costs $1,500-2,500. Ongoing cost is just the Make plan ($9-16/month). The payback is immediate for anyone spending more than 2 hours/week on manual reporting.
Tell us what report you're manually compiling and we'll tell you if we can automate it - and what it would cost. Free 30-min call.
Free 30-min audit. We tell you what to automate first and what it would cost.