What is MIS Report & How to Prepare It [In Tally & Excel]

MIS report is one of the most important tools for any business. It gives you a clear picture of where your business stands and where it needs to improve. In this blog post, we’ll inform you everything about reports on MIS and how to prepare an MIS report in Tally and Excel.

Full form of MIS report: MIS stands for a management information system. Executives and top-tier management from all departments rely on the MIS reports that our team creates after collecting, comparing, and analyzing data related to daily tasks and overall business processes. If you were searching for what is MIS reporting and what are its types, then this blog might help you.

What is MIS Report?

MIS Report full form is Management Information System Reports, which means summarizing and providing a bulletin view of different verticals that you need to monitor for the proper functioning of your business. The primary use of this report is to take set parameters and compare them to the performance of business operations.

How Does MIS Report Work?

MIS reports provide a concise view of a company’s performance in terms of revenue, orders, customer queries, HR indices, employee performance, and attrition. It helps identify problems, pressure points, and bottlenecks.

It helps in determining the business performance by comparing the achieved target against the planned target for a specific period. By analyzing the difference between the estimated target with the results achieved, businesses can adopt new practices that would result in higher performance. The primary contribution of these reports is to condense disparate figures to provide insights into the business model.

Types of MIS Reports or Management System Reports Type

There are different types of reports that come under the management information system. You can easily generate these MIS reports in Excel and Tally. Some of the most common MIS reports are sales, accounting, budget, production, cashflow, funds statement, abnormal losses MIS reports, and so on.

Here is the detailed enumeration of different types of MIS reports:

• Sales MIS Reports: Sales and marketing departments create and manage the Sales MIS report for transactional analysis of various products and services. The analysis relies on variance, which represents the difference between the estimated sales and the actual sales.
• Accounting MIS Report: These reports in accounts provide details regarding assets, liabilities, expenditures, and income. Developed by manufacturing, marketing, sales teams, etc. for multiple purposes. A few good examples are cash flow statements, production reports mentioning production targets, and sales variance reports.
• Budget Reports: In any business, creating a budget report is necessary to manage allotted finances and minimize expenses. Some common budget reports that can be generated include production budget, expense budget, cash budget, etc.
• Production Reports: Manufacturing department is responsible for the creation of production reports which include the comparison of set production targets and the final production count. Variation between the targeted and achieved production helps in quantifying the overall process efficiency.
• Cashflow Statement Report: With this Management Information System report, the business operations department can analyse the inflow and outflow of cash, to check the overall transactions at a certain period. It also helps in tracing fund sources that have been utilized for the outflows.
• Funds Statement Report: Funds Statement Report is processed by the accounting and finance team to keep track of the fund sources. It is also created to check where the funds have been utilised.
• Profit Report: Profit reports are created by the accounts department to check the difference between actual and estimated profit (or loss) at a certain time span. It also accounts for the factors which led to the profit or loss.
• Income Statement Report: An income statement report shows an organization’s revenue, profitability, and loss over a certain period. It is also called a profit-and-loss (P&L) statement and an earnings statement.
• Abnormal Losses Reports: Coming under the umbrella of the manufacturing department, the report on abnormal losses can help businesses reduce expenditure. Some of the abnormal losses include manufacturing defects, spillage or breakdown of machinery, defects in raw material, or natural calamities.
• Costing Reports Cost reports are one of the most important aspects of MIS. Whether it is a small business or an enterprise, overall costs incurred by different departments are analyzed to see if they can be reduced. Moreover, they also help in presenting information to clients about the actual project cost incurred and the forecasted one during the project delivery.
• HR MIS Reports: These help in analysing the performance of employees at a certain time. It calculates the total amount of tasks, assignments, or projects completed by different employees in that duration.
• Inventory Reports: MIS provides inventory reports as to which raw material is in surplus and which ones need to be replenished. It also helps in keeping the daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly production and stock statements.
• Statistical publications: Various kinds of statistical information are collected by an organization, both by published sources and unpublished ones. These reports are helpful in decision making and control within an organization. Statics help organizations to gain deeper insights into the workings of their company.
• Orders in hand report: This kind of report is created by those in the marketing and sales department. Orders in hand reports are essential for maintaining the ratio between production capacity and the order received for products. It includes data like sales invoices, order received vs inventory capacity, items exchanged info, etc.
• Report on ideal time: This type of MIS report highlights the time spent by every worker on different tasks and the idle time due to a lack of required resources or materials. Reports on idle time are created at the shop floor level of a manufacturing unit using time booking records.
• Machine utilization report: This MIS system report enumerates the number of hours for which a machine was utilized and the amount of time it stayed idle. It is often prepared in manufacturing divisions by the superior in charge.
• Summary Reports: Summary reports aggregate all information and present the data to showcase a clear picture of finances. Some good examples include reports on the value of all new purchases made and detailed insights into sales.
• Trend Reports: These types of reports allow companies to view the trends and patterns for different categories of data. Trend reports help compare past performance with present performance. Such reports indicate how a business unit or product category is performing. Such types of management information system reports are important to compare the actual performance with the estimated numbers.
• Exception Reports: Exception reports make it clear where exactly things went wrong and why the performance couldn’t be up to the mark. One good example could be assessing why a particular year’s expenses are higher than the stipulated budget.

Types of MIS Reports in Excel 

There are various types of MIS Reports in Excel to structure and analyse data. Here are some of the most common reports MIS in Excel that you can use for analyzing data:  

• Real-Time Reports: This type of report helps you to monitor and report the data in real-time. It is most useful for departments or businesses where there is a requirement to take instant actions based on data analysis. Therefore, the supervisors take action against any spike or dip witnessed in the business data that might impact profitability. 
• Scheduled Reports: Scheduled reports are those reports that are created at a specific time, like quarterly, monthly, or annual basis. You can set parameters like when you need to view the report and on what metrics and it will be automatically generated during that period.  
• Ad-Hoc Reports: These types of reports are created only when the need arises and do not actually rely on real-time data. These are generated on a monthly or quarterly basis to analyse data. 

Types of MIS Reports in Tally 

There are several types of MIS reports that you can generate with the help of Tally like accounting, financial, inventory, and management control reports. Let’s look at each report in detail below:

• Accounting Reports: For gathering information on the financial position, operational efficiency, and economic activities of your business, MIS accounting reports are used. 
• Financial Reports: This type of report is created to ascertain the financial condition of your business as needed by the creditors, shareholders, and government entities. 
• Inventory reports: Inventory reports can help you get an overview of all the information related to your stocks at one place. The data presented through these reports can be used for performing Stock Query analysis, Stock Ageing analysis, and so on. 
• Management Control Reports: These types of reports help in properly utilizing the budget and analyzing costs to manage business activities.

Why You Should Use an MIS Report?

MIS reports are important to enhance organization’s effectiveness and efficiency. It helps the management team to track progress, recognize challenges, and take data-driven decisions. Moreover, with the use of software and automation, the procedure of generating accurate and precise MIS reports has become more efficient.

MIS reports can be used to store historical data for a longer period. You can use these reports to analyze the revenue, productivity, performance, expenditure, and investment of your company.

After the analysis of these reports, you can easily identify the strengths and weaknesses of your company and create short- and long-term plans for your organization’s growth.

How to Create an MIS Report in Excel?

Another popular method of generating reports is through Excel format. However, it is necessary to have a good knowledge of Excel to create an MIS report in Excel. 

The best part about generating MIS reports in Excel is that users can create graphs and charts, manipulate the data, and share the entire trail of reports in electronic format. 

Steps to Generate MIS Report in Excel

To generate MIS in Excel, you need to open the spreadsheet and generate a new table. Next, create a pivot table and select the table location. After that, you need to insert MIS field details as per your requirement. Here is the step-by-step breakdown of the complete procedure:

Step 1: Open the Excel Sheet and Generate a New Table

Create a new table with the necessary data.

Step 2: Create a Pivot Table

Generate a Pivot table to systematically organize the data via clicking on the Pivot table within the insert tab.

Step 3: Choose the Location

Next, choose the location in Excel where your created table would appear. Here, we have chosen G2 column and also selected the entire table as shown below. Next, click over the existing worksheet and choose a column in the sheet to complete this step.

Step 4: Choose MIS Report Fields

Next, select the pivot table fields that you need to add in MIS reports. After that, you need to drag columns, rows, and filters appropriately in the report.

Step 5: Check Results

Next, you need to check results over the sheet’s columns that you have selected. It should look similar to the image below.

Step 6: Open the Insert Tab and Select Pivot Chart

Select the pivot charts from the tool bars to add charts to the created sheets. A dialog box would appear. From there, click on any chart of your choice. For example, you can choose a clustered chart.

Step 7: Choose the Chart Type and Insert it Into the Sheet

In the next step, move charts into a different sheet by selecting and moving charts to the analyze tab. After that, a dialogue box would appear where you can mention the sheet name and get results.

Step 8: Preview the Outcome

Lastly, you can preview the results of created spreadsheet as shown below.

MIS Report Examples in Excel 

Some MIS report examples in Excel include:  

• Financial Reporting Use-cases 
• HR Reporting 
• Sales Reporting
• Resource Reporting 
• Abnormality Reporting 

Tools to Use While Preparing MIS Report in Microsoft Excel 

Reporting through Excel is mostly dependent on tools and formulas. Here are some of the most popular tools in MS Excel that help users to prepare robust reports: 

• Pivot Tables: Pivot tables are one of the most powerful features in MS Excel. It allows us to summarize and analyze data in a tabular format. We can use pivot tables to create MIS reports from data in a matter of minutes. 
• Data Filters: Data filters are used to extract specific information from a large data set. We can use data filters to filter data by date, month, year, product, region, etc. 
• Data validation: Data validation is used to ensure that only valid data is entered into a cell. For example, we can use data validation to ensure that only numbers are entered into a cell. 
• Data Consolidation: Data consolidation is a feature in MS Excel that allows us to combine data from multiple sources into a single worksheet. This is useful when we want to create MIS reports from data that is spread across different worksheets or files. 
• What if Analysis: What if Analysis is a feature in MS Excel that allows users to analyze data based on certain assumptions. It allows users to analyze multiple scenarios based on data, set goals to know the variables and much more.
• Charts and Graphs: You can use Charts and graphs to visually represent data. They help us to understand data more easily. 
• Macros: Users can use Macros to automate repetitive tasks. You can use them to generate MIS reports from data in a matter of minutes. 

The Five Formulas for MIS Reporting in Excel 

• Converting text in lower cases into a first letter capitalized case [=Proper(__)]

• Converting mixed case text into upper case [=UPPER(A1)]

• Deleting all extra space extreme ends and middle of a text phrase. [=Trim()]

• Match the details with specific Text [=Vlookup()]

• Calculate the length of characters in a cell [=LEN()]

Components of MIS in Excel and Tally

Here are a few components of the management marketing information system that you will find in Excel and Tally: 

• People: Users who use the information system to record day-to-day business transactions. 
• Data: It includes data from different departments to generate MIS like sales figures, salary data, bills, etc.
• Hardware: Hardware refers to various devices, machinery, and equipment used to process information. For example, computers, printers, and networking devices are all hardware. 
• Software: Software is used to handle MIS reports data like spreadsheets, databases, etc.
• Business Procedures: These procedures include all the practices that an organization implements to store, process, and analyze data.

Things You Should Know Before Creating MIS Reports in Excel 

An MIS report can help you compare your projected targets against the actual outcomes. If you also want to create an MIS report, make sure you keep the following points in mind:  

• You need to have a deep understanding of where the data is coming from and the relationship between data variables.
• Advanced knowledge of Excel and formulae is required  
• You must understand your target audience and prepare the report accordingly by including only relevant metrics. 
• Make sure that the details presented in the report are easy to view and read  
• You must use a data-gathering tool for consolidating data from different sources.
• Make sure you cleanse the data to remove unnecessary information before generating reports. 

How to Prepare MIS Report in Tally?

There can be an unlimited number of reports that could be generated from Tally for management. However, it can be categorized into two major types depending on how you generate the report and the specific needs of the report.

Generic/Preset MIS Reports

These are standard reports that are widely used by top-level management to analyze business performance. It is easy to prepare these MIS reports in tally as users can directly land into the report through the tally windows. Some of the most popular standard MIS reports are Balance sheets, Profit and loss Statements, Inventory Valuation, Ratio Analysis, and much more, etc.

Steps to Generate Standard/Preset MIS Report in Tally Prime

Sign up in the software and go to Gateway of Tally. Next, choose the MIS report type and time to generate reports. After that, configure the report settings and your report will be generated. Let’s look at the complete procedure in detail below:

To generate MIS report in Tally, follow the below steps:

Step 1: Sign up to the TallyPrime and open the company tab for which the MIS report will be created.

Step 2: Open the Gateway of Tally and choose the required MIS Reports like Ratio Summary, Exception Reports, Account Balance, etc.

Step 3: Next, select F2 and choose the period for which you want to create a MIS report.

Step 4: Select F12 to configure the settings and press Enter.

Step 5: After that, the MIS report will be created and displayed. You can print it by pressing “Ctrl +E” or export by Pressing ”CTRL +E”.

Customized MIS Reports

Reports that are generated to provide specific details of an item, ledger, account, or balance are customized MIS reports. To prepare a customized MIS report in Tally, one needs to first understand the business requirements and then accordingly design the report in tally.

For example, Debtors with a due balance of more than 6 months, Negative Account Payable balances, Sales/ purchases of particular items, etc.

Steps to Generate Customized MIS Reports in Tally Prime

To generate customizable MIS reports in TallyPrime, you need to sign up and open “Gateway of Tally”. Next, select the required account books and add the required period.

After that, configure the required specifications and press enter to complete the procedure. Here is the breakdown of the complete procedure:

Step 1: Sign up to TallyPrime and open the company tab for which the MIS report will be generated.

Step 2: Open the Gateway of Tally and choose Display

Step 3: Choose the required account books, day books, vouchers, and so on.

Step 4: Select F2 and add the required period for which you are generating report.

Step 5: Select F12 and configure the needed options as per your requirements and select Enter.

Step 6: Click Alt + F12 and to create the required specifications via the filter.

Step 7: Lastly, press Enter to generate the required report.

Examples of MIS Reports in Tally

MIS reports in Tally ERP 9 help with effective decision-making as well as strategic planning. Some MIS reports examples in Tally are:

• Comparative and exception reports in a multi-columnar format
• Debtors’ payment performance
• Stock aging and movement analysis
• Ratio & job costing analysis
• Scenario management
• Income and expenditure statements

Factors to Keep in Mind While Developing MIS Reports in Tally

While developing MIS reports in Tally, you must be familiar with using an Excel spreadsheet and prepare easy to read MIS templates.

Moreover, you must collect all the important data from different departments. Look at all the factors in detail below:

• Develop report templates in Excel and ensure that you know how to properly use an Excel spreadsheet
• Prepare MIS report templates that are easy to understand for your staff members
• Gather all the important data from relevant departments to develop MIS reports
• Mine this collected data to remove irrelevant data
• Use Excel formulas to connect this data with MIS templates.

Things You Should Know Before Creating MIS Reports in Tally

• When you are creating MIS reports in Tally, make sure you keep the following points in mind:
• Create MIS templates that are easy to understand for the staff and upper management.
• Make sure you collect data from all the departments before creating an MIS report.
• You must have a good knowledge of how to use Excel sheets.
• Always remove irrelevant data inputs and only keep the relevant ones.
• Utilize the Excel formula to connect the data within the MIS report template.

Various Types of MIS Report Templates in Tally & Excel

Tally has preset templates for various types of MIS reports. Four major categories can divide most of these reports.

• Accounting: All the different kinds of reports mentioned above that are used by the accounts department fall in this category. Reports such as Profits and Fund Statements can be processed with the help of Tally ERP 9’s accounting templates. These reports provide the details of the financial aspects of the business activities.

• Finance: Managed by the finance department, these reports help in managing the investments and assets of shareholders and creditors. This category includes reports such as financial and fund statements.

• Inventory: With the help of the inventory MIS report in Tally, tasks related to manufacturing, stock management, and order reports can be managed. It helps in comparing goods and machinery that users can procure, sell and bring, for manufacturing.

• Management Control: This category of MIS report in Tally helps in creating reports for various tasks related to management control such as statistics, costing, budget, and sales, to name a few. This category of MIS reports helps in the efficient management of logistics in the business.

Using the preset MIS templates provided in Tally, you can create specific reports for various departments such as sales, & HR MIS reports, etc. Just fill in the particulars that you require in the report.

Next, simply connect the back-end database (Excel spreadsheet or any other DBMS) where you can store the data with the help of formulas in Tally. The formulas fetch the unsorted data from the spreadsheet to Tally and you can compile your report according to the requirements.

MIS Report Format Example

The main objective of the MIS report is to measure the key performance indices of different operations & multiple units. Here is another MIS Report Sample with various macro & micro-level indicators.

Click the link to check and download MIS Report Format PDF.

Benefits of MIS Reports

Management information reporting is an integral part of business management. It can benefit the organization in plenty of ways like improved decision making, employee performance monitoring, resource optimization, risk management, etc.

Here are some of the advantages of reports for Top Level Management.

• Informed Decision-Making: Management information systems make use of mathematical tools to help with data management, analysis, and storage. Such data offers offers detailed insights for analyzing trends, strategic planning, and business forecasting.
• Goal Setting: Setting goals is easier with MIS reports as you get access to detailed data insights and analysis. Detailed reports help analyze current market trends and predict future outcomes.
• Performance Monitoring: MIS system reports help with calculating the working hours of the workforce and the functioning hours of a machine. These reports also mention the idle hours of both the machine and the workforce. Thus, in case of any problem regarding resources, work hours, or time management, MIS reports are handy.
• Increased & improved efficiency: MIS reports help increase the efficiency of the machinery and workforce. Starting from sales, inventory, production, and cashflows to profits, losses, etc., everything can be tracked.
• Reduced costs & errors: MIS reports are based on OLTP or online transaction processing that helps with fast data collection and processing. This in turn helps companies save data processing time and costs, which in turn leads to quicker decision making as well as goal setting.
• Resource Optimization: With the help of MIS reports, you can allocate resources more efficiently like finance, human resources, and materials. This will help in better resource allocation and optimization.
• Risk Management: MIS reports can help businesses in identifying and mitigating risks by analyzing data trends. This will help in creating strategies to combat risks and reduce business losses.
• Regulatory Compliance: These reports are used in regulated industries to demonstrate compliance with industry-specific standards. The reports provide documentation of procedures and activities.

Key Takeaways 

Creating an MIS report can help you in analyzing all your company’s data to understand how it is performing. Moreover, it also helps in fostering communication between employees and stakeholders as all the information can be analyzed from one place. The information presented via MIS reports can be of great help to identify issues across different procedures and take necessary steps to resolve them.  

FAQs Related to MIS Reports