🎄 Advent Calendar Day 18: Run, Hide, or… Automate? Taming the "Lion" of Annual Cost Reports

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SaaSJet Advent Calendar

Can you feel it? The end of the year is just around the corner… and creeping up quietly behind it, like a predator stalking its prey, are the Annual Cost Reports! 😱

We’ve all seen this movie before (or perhaps lived it): the panic, the frantic data gathering from different spreadsheets, the sleepless nights trying to reconcile hours and expenses. It feels exactly like that picture of the scared cat running from a lion — you’re running as fast as you can, but the reports are catching up!

You can run, you can hide, or… you can start collecting data automatically right now — otherwise, financial chaos will find you! 👀

P.S. “Future You” will thank you if you start using Time & Cost Tracker today 🏃💨. It collects time and expenses automatically, so reports don’t have to be scary anymore!

🛡️ Turn Panic into Clarity: The Power of Cost Reports

The secret to surviving the end-of-year rush isn’t running faster; it’s having the right tools. Time & Cost Tracker turns your daily Jira activity into ready-made financial documentation, saving you hours of manual work.

1. Effortless Cost Reports

Creating a financial report in the app is incredibly easy and eliminates the risk of human error in Excel formulas. Reports are generated based on three key components:

⏱️ Logged Time
The app pulls data directly from the time logged by your team in Jira issues.

💵 Hourly Rates
You can set flexible hourly rates for different users, roles, or groups. The app automatically calculates costs based on time spent.

🧾 Expenses
Need to include travel costs, software licenses, or contractor fees? You can add them as Expenses directly in the app.

Why this saves time:
Instead of spending weeks manually cross-referencing timesheets with rate cards, you get accurate cost reports in just a few clicks. You gain immediate visibility into project profitability and budget consumption.

📖 Read more about setting this up: Cost Transparency in Jira: Streamlining Financial Reporting

🧩 See the Whole Picture with Project Portfolios

If you’re a Manager or C-level executive, looking at a single project’s cost isn’t enough for an annual report. You need the 30,000-foot view — and that’s where Project Portfolios change the game.

2. Portfolios: Aggregating the Data

The Portfolio feature allows you to group multiple Cost Reports together to see a holistic view of expenses for the year (or any custom timeframe).

How it helps you organize:

🏢 By Department
Group all projects related to Marketing or Development to see total annual spend per department.

👥 By Team
See exactly how much a specific cross-functional team cost across multiple projects.

🚀 By Client
If one client has five different Jira projects, group them into a single Portfolio to analyze total account profitability.

The benefit:
Portfolios let you slice and dice financial data to answer tough questions instantly — no more manually merging PDFs or spreadsheets.

✨ Stop Running, Start Managing

Don’t let the “lion” of annual reporting eat up your holidays. By setting up Time & Cost Tracker now, you can turn that scary beast into a harmless kitten.

❓ How do you usually handle end-of-year reporting panic? Do you have any tips for staying organized? Share them in the comments!