Using Reports to Make Better Business Decisions

Reports Are for Decisions, Not Just Numbers

Seeing a margin percentage is not useful by itself. The value of reports is in the decisions they prompt. This article walks through four decisions that CrafterBy's reports are specifically designed to inform, using a candle business as a running example.

Decision 1: When to Raise Prices

Price increases are uncomfortable. Without data, they feel like guesswork. With data, they become obvious.

Raise prices when:

• Your Margin Trends report shows a declining margin over two or more consecutive months.
• A material cost has increased and you have not yet updated your selling prices.
• A production order's actual cost is higher than your product specification cost — your cost estimate was too optimistic.
• Your gross margin has dropped below your minimum acceptable threshold.

Example: A candle maker's Margin Trends report shows margin falling from 46% in January to 34% in April. The Revenue and Cost Report shows COGS increasing each month while revenue per unit stays flat. The artisan checks their material costs and finds that fragrance oil prices have risen 22% since their last cost update. They update the cost in CrafterBy, recalculate product costs, and find they need a 12% price increase to return to their target 44% margin. They raise prices in May and the Margin Trends chart confirms the recovery by July.

Decision 2: What to Make More Of

Not all products deserve equal attention. Producing more of the wrong thing wastes time that could be spent on the right things.

Use the Top Products report to identify your highest-profit-per-unit products. Then estimate production time per unit to calculate profit per labour hour. This is the most actionable metric for an artisan business where time is the real constraint.

Example: The candle maker analyses their range:

The data shows that standard pillar candles and luxury soy candles earn between €14 and €17 per labour hour, while tea lights and gift sets earn around €3 per hour. The artisan restructures their range: discontinues tea lights, reduces gift set volume, and focuses production on pillar candles and luxury soy candles.

Decision 3: What to Discontinue

Every product in your range has a cost: setup time, materials to stock, customer questions to answer, and brain space. Products with low margin, low volume, and low profit per hour are absorbing resources without adequate return.

Use the Top Products report (sorted by gross profit, ascending) and the Category Breakdown report to identify candidates for discontinuation. Before removing a product, ask:

• Is the margin problem a pricing problem (too cheap) or a cost problem (too expensive to make)?
• Does this product bring in customers who then buy higher-margin products? (Loss leaders can be intentional.)
• Has it ever had a good margin, and if so, what changed?

If the answer is "it has always been low margin, it does not drive other sales, and I cannot raise the price without losing all customers" — it is time to discontinue it.

Decision 4: When You Are Ready to Grow

Growth — hiring help, renting a workshop, buying equipment — requires financial justification. Reports give you that justification.

You are ready to grow when:

• Revenue is consistently growing month-on-month (Revenue and Cost Report).
• Gross margin is stable or improving (Margin Trends).
• You are turning away orders or experiencing stock-outs because you cannot produce fast enough.
• Your top products are consistently generating profit well above your minimum acceptable margin.

Example: The candle maker's Revenue and Cost Report shows revenue growing from €2,800/month in Q1 to €4,400/month in Q3 at a stable 44% margin. They are regularly running out of luxury soy candles before the end of the month. The data clearly supports hiring a part-time assistant: the incremental revenue from the additional production capacity far exceeds the labour cost of an extra 8 hours per week.

The Monthly Review Habit

The businesses that benefit most from reports are those that review them regularly — not just when something goes wrong. A 10-minute monthly review of the Revenue and Cost Report and Margin Trends is enough to catch problems early, confirm improvements, and make the data-driven decisions that keep a craft business growing profitably.