Translation agency reports that clients read: start from the decision

What to take away

Build it backward

Write the decision first, on a scrap of paper, before you open anything.

"Should we consolidate our product descriptions into one source file?" is a decision. "How much did we spend?" is not; they have that already.

Then work back: what number would let them decide, what data produces that number, and can you actually produce it from your records. If the last answer is no, either fix the records or drop the number. A number you estimate is worse than no number, because it will be quoted back at you.

The shape of a page that gets read

That is the whole report. If it does not fit on a page, the problem is usually that several numbers are there out of habit.

Interpretation is the product

The number is commodity. The sentence explaining it is what the client cannot produce for themselves.

Compare two versions of the same line.

Without interpretation: "Query volume: 42 this period, 26 last period."

With interpretation: "Queries rose by more than half, and most of them came from the new product pages. Those pages use a template that leaves feature names ambiguous, so each linguist has to ask. If the template gets one clarifying line, most of these disappear."

The second version costs five minutes to write and is the reason the client reads the next one.

Say plainly what is yours

Every report should carry a two-column split.

Include your own bad numbers in the left column. A report that only shows client-side delays is a complaint with a chart on it, and clients read it that way.

Reporting on renewal and money

When a report touches renewal or charges, use the same plainness. Say what renews, when, what notice is needed, and how to stop it. Rules on automatic renewal and negative option practices exist.

The FTC account of a case where a risk free trial was neither shows what goes wrong: terms nobody can find, cancellation nobody can complete. A renewal reminder inside a report the client already reads is a good place to be clear.

If the report ends with a request for a testimonial, be careful. Ask every client the same way, disclose material connections, and leave critical feedback in place, which is what the FTC guidance on soliciting and paying for online reviews addresses.

Where an account includes spoken work, report it on its own page with its own measures. Interpreting is scheduled and priced differently from written translation, and the two are separate professions, as the occupational profile covering both describes. Cancellations, notice periods, and no-shows matter there and mean nothing on a written-work report.

Where the data comes from

Everything above depends on the project record being complete: internal hours, subcontractor costs, query logs, and reviewer changes classified when they arrive rather than reconstructed later.

The discipline is described in onboarding and delivery, and the early-warning version of the same measurements is in the four onboarding symptoms. What the numbers mean commercially sits in the reporting and retention guide, unbilled rework shows up in the pricing and profit guide, and rising corrections point back at the hiring and training guide.

Common questions

Should the report include charts?

One, at most, and only where a trend over several periods is the point. A chart of two data points is decoration.

What if the client asks for a report I think is useless?

Produce it, and add one useful number beside it with an interpretation. Over a couple of periods the useful number usually becomes the one they ask about.

Who should write it?

Whoever ran the projects, reviewed by whoever owns the relationship. A report written by someone who was not there reads like it, and the interpretation is the part that suffers.

How do I report a period where we performed badly?

Plainly, first, at the top, with what you have already changed. Clients forgive a bad period reported honestly and remember a bad period they discovered themselves.