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MIS Report in Excel? Definition, Types & How to Create

MIS reports are essential when you need to track down what is happening in your business at a Macro level. In this blog, we will explain everything about MIS reports in Excel. We’ll talk about what MIS reports are, the different kinds you might come across, and how you can create them yourself. This post is perfect for anyone, whether you’re new to working with data or you’ve been doing it for a while. By the end of this post, you’ll know all about MIS reports and how to use them to help your business. 

Table of Contents

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What is Excel MIS Report?

An Excel MIS (Management Information System) Report is a document created using Microsoft Excel that helps organize and present important information about a business or project. It usually includes data, charts, and graphs to provide a clear overview of key performance indicators and helps in decision-making by presenting information in a structured and visual format.

Imagine you have an Excel sheet tracking sales, but it shows incorrect numbers. For example, it might display 1000 rupees sales as 10,000 rupees. This misinformation can misguide decisions. This is where MIS report is crucial for accurate insights and better decision-making.

Types of Excel MIS Reports

There are different types of MIS reports in every company. We’ve tried to summarize the most common types of MIS reports that you will find in an organization.

1. Real-Time Reports

Real-time reports are the type of MIS report that gets live updates on your business performance. Instead of waiting for the end of the day or week to see how things are going on, you can access data as it happens. It’s like having a dashboard that constantly refreshes, providing the latest information instantly. This helps managers and decision-makers stay current, make timely decisions, and respond promptly to any changes or opportunities in the business.

2. Ad-Hoc Reports

Ad-hoc reports are like personalized reports that are created on the spot to get specific information. Instead of being scheduled, these reports are made whenever someone needs them, usually in response to specific questions or requests. Ad-hoc reports give flexibility and let users quickly pull out particular data or insights from a system or database whenever they need it.

3. Batch-Processed/Scheduled Reports

Batch-processed or scheduled reports are like regular and automatic reports that come out regularly, like every day, week, or month. They’re different from reports made on the spot because they follow a set schedule. These reports provide information in a structured way and are set up to run by themselves. This means they collect, process, and show the needed data on a regular basis without needing someone to do it manually.

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Why Should You Use an MIS Report?

An MIS report in Excel is a helpful tool for businesses. It takes information from different places, puts it all together, and makes it easy to understand. Here’s why you should use it:

  1. See How Your Business is Doing: It helps you keep an eye on how well your company is growing and what’s happening with your business.
  2. Know What’s Trending in the Market: It tells you what’s popular in the market right now, so you can keep up.
  3. Find Problems: If something’s not going well in your business, the report can point it out, like if people are not working as they should.
  4. Make Smart Choices: You can use the report to make really good decisions for your business.
  5. Plan for the Future: It helps you make plans for the future that fit your business.
  6. Learn About the Competition: You can use it to understand what other companies are doing.

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How to Create an MIS Report in Excel

We will use the dataset provided below to learn how to create an MIS report in Excel.

How to Create an MIS Report in Excel
  • Create a PivotTable: Insert a PivotTable to organize the data clearly.
Step 1 Create a PivotTable
  • PivotTable to be Placed: Choose where you want your PivotTable to show up. You can pick a New Worksheet.
Step 2 PivotTable to be Placed
  • PivotTable Fields: Now, a PivotTable Fields section will appear.
Step 3 PivotTable Fields
  • PivotTable Values: Click on every field available. Automatically, the Sales data will go to the Values section because the Sales column has numbers in the table.
PivotTable Values
  • Sort the Data: Choose the Region and move it to the Columns section to sort the data by region. After you do this, your data will look like the following:
Sort the data

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Inserting PivotCharts in Excel

  • PivotCharts: Click on the cell in the PivotTable you made, and then click on Analyze. Look for PivotChart in the Insert section and click on it.
Inserting PivotCharts in Excel
  • Choose Column: Click on Column, and you’ll see a suggestion to add a Clustered Column (represents data virtually in vertical columns in series); click on that.
  • Creating a Bar graph: A bar graph showing the data you provided will show up. According to the given datasets, we had the highest sales at the end of April in the West region.
bar graph
  • Creating a Pie Chart: You have to click on Pie to create a pie chart (a circular statistical graphic that is divided into slices to illustrate numerical proportion). 
Creating a Pie Chart

The following pie chart illustrates only a specific section in the table, which is graduate courses. It explains that the Machine Learning Course has the highest sales and the Cyber Security Course has the least sales in the given data. Pie chart representation makes it easier for organizations to better analyze the data than tabular representation.

pie chart
  • Creating Line Graphs: Let’s choose Line graphs (commonly drawn to show information that changes over time.).
Creating a Line Graph

The line graph given below discusses mainly two regions with a disposition to the course Cyber Security in subsequent months. The East region shows a sudden decline in sales growth from March to August, whereas the central region shows an upward movement from August to October.

Line Graph
  • Creating a 3D Surface Chart: Let’s add a 3D Surface chart (a surface chart is three-dimensional).
Creating a 3D Surface Chart
3d surface chart
  • Now your data is visually presented in the form of a report.
Collage of All 4 Charts

Things to Keep in Mind to Create an MIS Report in Excel:

  • You need to understand how an MIS report works.
  • Be able to use PivotTables and PivotCharts
  • Know how to create and use charts
  • If you’re making an MIS report, make sure to save a copy of the database for later.

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Frequently Used Excel MIS Reports

Every company has its type of MIS reports, which vary depending on the business. These reports, created from raw data collected by management information systems, reflect different aspects of the business. This data comes from people, processes and transactions. We have summarized the most common types of MIS reports you will find in a company.

1.  Summary MIS Report

A summary report in management information systems (MIS) is like a big-picture report. It takes lots of data about different parts of a company, like divisions, products, and customers, and puts it all together in a way that the managers can easily understand.

2. Trend MIS Report

Trend reports are subsets of MIS reports in your business’s data that help you find repeating patterns and changes in many different areas. These reports are used to compare different products and services and see how well they’re doing. They are often used inside a company to check if things are going as expected and find problems that need fixing.

3. Exception MIS Report

An exception report shows anomalous or unusual circumstances happening in a company. It collects examples of these unusual situations from different parts of the company and shows them to the managers in an easy-to-understand way. Exception reports can help find problems quickly and fix them before they become a big issue.

4. Financial MIS Report

Financial reports help you understand how well a company is doing financially. They contain information about how much money the company has, how much it earns, how much it spends and much more. People like the board of directors, investors, financial experts and even government agencies use these reports to find out if the company is financially strong. Within the company, these reports help with important money-related decisions.

5. Inventory MIS Reports

Inventory reports help you keep track of all the stuff you have in your store. They tell you how many of each product you still have, which products are selling the most, which types of products are selling best, and how sales differ based on who’s buying them. These reports help your company make smarter decisions about what to stock and sell.

6. Sales MIS Report

The sales report is prepared by the company’s marketing and sales teams. It shows what the company has sold in the last few months. They often use expected and actual sales figures to present the sales data. In this report you can find out, for example, how much more or less you have sold compared to expectations, where your products were sold and when the sale took place.

7. Budget MIS Report

Companies use different plans for managing their money. These plans can be for cash, income, expenses, marketing, hiring, production, and more. An MIS budget report contains information from inside your company. It’s used to help your company grow while also keeping your financial situation stable.

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Advantages of Excel MIS Reports

Here is a list of benefits that can help you understand why it’s a good idea to make an MIS report:

  1. MIS reports make your work better and faster.
  2. They show you what the popular trends in the market are right now.
  3. With MIS reports, you can find and fix issues in your business.
  4. You can make smarter choices for your business when you know what’s not working well.
  5. It’s a good way for workers and higher management to talk to each other.
  6. MIS reports help you plan for your business and figure out what it needs.

In addition to these, there are many other benefits to making MIS reports that help your business grow.

Conclusion

This blog helps you understand MIS reports in Excel better. We have looked at a few typical Excel MIS report formats and discussed the reasons Excel is a great tool for these reports. Whether you run a small business, work in finance, or just like working with data, knowing how to use MIS reports in Excel can help you understand and use your data better. The main thing to remember is to know what you need from your data and use Excel’s features to help you do that in the best way.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are the most common errors that can occur in an MIS report generated in Excel?

Common errors in Excel-based MIS reports include data entry mistakes, formula errors, formatting inconsistencies, incorrect data analysis, PivotTable issues, linking errors, and macro problems.

What tools or add-ins are available to automate data cleansing for MIS reports?

For data cleansing, tools like Excel’s Power Query, Data Cleaner, Tableau Prep, and Alteryx are effective.

What tips can I use to create a more efficient workflow for generating MIS reports?

Efficient MIS reporting can be achieved through standardized templates, automating repetitive tasks, implementing data validation rules, regular backups, using PivotTables and charts, creating dashboards, and ongoing Excel training.

What charts and graphs are best suited for visualizing different types of MIS data?

Optimal visualization of MIS data involves using line charts for trends, bar/column charts for comparisons, pie charts for proportions, scatter plots for correlations, histograms for distributions, and dashboards for a detailed overview.

About the Author

Principal Data Scientist

Meet Akash, a Principal Data Scientist who worked as a Supply Chain professional with expertise in demand planning, inventory management, and network optimization. With a master’s degree from IIT Kanpur, his areas of interest include machine learning and operations research.