Change can be tough. That’s part of why so many of us find joy in throwback activities like collecting vinyl records or sewing clothes at home. But there’s nothing nostalgic about inefficient, outdated processes when new tools can relieve so many of the common pain points.
Are you ready to ditch the old ways of writing technical reports with Word templates and manual data entry? Find out if your company is showing one of the 5 signs that you should invest in Technical Report Software.
1. Inefficiency
Most companies never take the time to measure how long Reports take to write, edit, and finalize. But it’s not surprising to hear that the full process—formatting, data entry, uploading photos, adding captions, slicing irrelevant information from a previous Report, and spot-checking every last detail—is time-consuming. Not to mention when clients ask for revisions!
There comes a point when writing a technical Report becomes a headache, and an important service line starts feeling more like a loss leader.
Technical Report Software can automate many of the time-consuming tasks involved in creating technical Reports. This means that you and your team can focus on the content of the Report, rather than the tedious details.
2. Inconsistency
When different team members are responsible for writing Reports, inconsistencies seem inevitable. But you want to build a reputation for reliably compiling Reports in a certain format and style. Consistent formatting across a single Report—or even across multiple Reports—matters. It makes your firm look more professional and can save you time in the long run.
Many technical Reports start with a previous Report Template that may not represent the most up-to-date version of your current project. This means old data may be overlooked, and some sections may be left out entirely.
If you are still spending time editing other writers’ word choices, sentence structure, or data formatting, there’s a better way. Technical Report Software can help ensure that every report looks and feels like it came from the same cohesive team, even if different team members and subcontractors worked on different sections or contributed different components.
3. Errors
There’s no room for error in technical report writing—a single mistake can jeopardize your project or even your firm’s reputation. Missteps in data entry, misspellings that appear multiple times, or technical inaccuracies can all make you look bad to clients. Even if your editors catch these errors, they can appear multiple times and can take precious time to find and eliminate throughout a Word document.
Technical Report Software can help you avoid human error by automating data entry throughout a document to minimize the chances of mistakes. If data needs to be corrected, you’ll only need to fix it once, rather than having to find and fix every instance. Technical Report Software can also lock down text that shouldn’t change (like legalese or boilerplate language), allowing you to focus your writing and review time on the remaining areas of the report.
4. Lack of Collaboration Ability & Accountability
Sharing a document among colleagues who need to write a component or edit a piece is somewhat straightforward. Sharing it with clients, subcontractors, and any other key stakeholders isn’t always so simple. Small edits can mess up the formatting of a Word document. And subcontractors may not have easy access to your company’s best practices to ensure they are meeting expectations.
Good Technical Reporting Software allows you to overcome these obstacles by having a common platform where all stakeholders view, write, and edit the document. All changes are tracked so that you can see who made what edits and when. When you’re in charge of who can edit what in a cloud environment, you’ll never have to reconcile 10 versions of the same document again!
5. Cost of Labor
Hiring new employees in-house is expensive, and many employees’ expertise can and should go to better things than formatting text or typing and retyping repeated information. (After all, no one went to school to major in “Editing Word Docs.”)
Additionally, retaining talent is far more cost-effective than hiring new employees—and future generations of workers understand and expect technology to assist them in the workplace. With the right tools, employees feel like part of a company that’s leading the pack rather than plodding along like everyone else.
With Technical Report Software like Quire, you invest in your people, helping them to save time by automating tedious tasks like formatting and styling. Use of Quire’s WordBank for approved wording snippets not only reduces time spent editing grammar, but reinforces your process and methodology. When Report writers have the WordBank to choose from they’re reminded of key Report attributes, which means less time spent training and editing. Quire’s Report Tags, lockable text, and Track Changes functionality streamline writing and review, allowing you to create consistent, top-quality reports in significantly less time, and that means a reduction in labor cost. Ready to see Quire’s innovative Technical Report Software in action? Request a demo to get started today!
