Give Trustees, Donors and Directors One Set of People Numbers
Each reader of your people figures wants something different: the donor wants staff cost by project, the board wants headcount and vacancies, and the director wants to know which roles end and when. When each report is built separately, the numbers disagree. We help you define each measure once, build a monthly pack from that single source and set up a short review where somebody reads it and decides something. What the numbers mean, and what to do about them, stays with your leadership.
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Share your requirementsThe starting point
Does Every Report Give a Different Headcount?
In small HR teams, time goes into compiling figures and little is left for using them. Without agreed definitions, nobody can explain why a figure changed, and a trustee's simple question can take a week to answer.
We help you decide what to measure, define it clearly and report it in a form each reader can use.
You may be experiencing:
- Headcount that includes or excludes consultants, interns and volunteers depending on who is asked.
- A single turnover percentage that blends ended grants with voluntary exits.
- Staff cost by project assembled by hand from several sheets for every donor report.
- Field attendance available only as a monthly summary.
- Reports showing only the current position, with no trend across months or grant cycles.
- Different numbers presented to the board, the donor and the director in the same quarter.
- Figures that nobody can trace back to a source when they are questioned.
What we can help with
Our HR Analytics and Reporting Services for NGOs and Social Enterprises
Measure Definitions
Write down what each measure means and where its data comes from: who is counted in headcount, how a vacancy is defined, what separates a grant-end exit from a voluntary one, and how time worked is calculated.
Headcount and Roles by Funding
Show employees, consultants, volunteers and fellows separately and together, each against the grant or core budget that supports them, with the date funding is confirmed to.
Staff Cost by Project
Produce people cost by grant and by period from payroll and allocation records, so the donor view and the finance view agree and can be repeated every month.
Roles Ending and Starting
Chart the roles ending and beginning by quarter, so the director and the board can see the funding cliff and the hiring that is coming.
Attendance and Field Days
Summarise attendance, leave and field days by programme and district, with a view of late entries, so that gaps in field reporting are visible before month end.
Hiring and Turnover Analysis
Report time to fill, open vacancies and exits, with grant-end and voluntary exits shown apart and the reasons recorded where they are known.
Training, Safeguarding and Performance Coverage
Show who has completed mandatory sessions, which policies are acknowledged and which reviews are done, by programme, so that coverage gaps are visible to those who can close them.
Reporting Cycle and Review Meeting
Set a monthly timetable for the pack, a short agenda for the review and a list of decisions made, so the numbers are read and acted on.
The deliverables
What You Receive
Depending on scope, the work can produce:
- A measure definition sheet with data sources.
- A monthly HR pack for the board and leadership.
- A staff cost by project view built from one source.
- A roles-ending-and-starting chart by quarter.
- An attendance and field days summary by programme.
- A turnover view that separates grant-end and voluntary exits.
- A dashboard or sheet specification for your system.
- A review agenda and a decision log, with reports configured on your system or on GullyHR.
Step by step
How We Work
Collect the Questions
We ask the board, the director, finance and programme heads what they most need to know, and which figures they have been given so far.
Define and Reconcile
We agree definitions and reconcile the current figures, showing where and why they differ.
Build the Pack
We draft the monthly pack and the project cost view from your data, keeping it to the pages people will read.
Run One Cycle With Leadership
We take the pack through one monthly review and adjust what is unclear or missing.
Hand Over and Revisit
We train the people who will produce it and look again at the baseline measures after a few cycles.
The difference
Replace Competing Numbers With One Version
A defined reporting routine helps your organisation:
We do not promise outcomes. We record a baseline before work starts, covering the time taken to produce the monthly figures, the number of headcount versions in circulation and the measures that can be traced to a source, and report against it, so you can see what changed and what did not.
- Use one definition of headcount in every report.
- Produce staff cost by project without a rebuilt sheet.
- See roles ending and starting in advance.
- Read turnover with its causes separated.
- Spot gaps in field attendance and mandatory sessions early.
- Give trustees a regular, consistent view.
Find your fit
Who This Service Is For
NGOs Reporting to Several Donors
Produce staff cost and time records from one source.
Boards and Trustees
Receive a short, consistent people report each month.
Executive Directors Planning Ahead
See the funding cliff in roles and cost.
Social Enterprises With Mixed Workforces
Report staff, workers and volunteers on agreed definitions.
How it usually shows up in ngos and social enterprises
Reporting on people in the sector is usually assembled for a particular reader. A donor wants staff cost by project and evidence of time worked. The board wants headcount, key vacancies and turnover. The executive wants to know how many roles end and when. Each report is built separately from separate sheets, so numbers differ. Headcount may or may not include consultants, interns and volunteers, and the figure changes with the person asked. Attrition is reported as a single percentage that mixes ended grants with voluntary exits. Attendance for the field is available only as a monthly summary. Trends are invisible because each report shows only the current position. Small HR teams spend time compiling figures instead of using them, and measures are not defined, so a number cannot be explained when questioned.
Common challenges
Where it goes wrong in ngos and social enterprises
Headcount has several answers
Whether consultants, interns and volunteers are included varies, so two people quote different totals.
One turnover figure hides the cause
Ended-grant exits and voluntary exits are blended, and the board draws the wrong conclusion.
Each reader gets a separate build
Donor, board and executive reports are assembled by hand from different sources.
Only the current month is shown
Without a trend, a rising problem looks the same as a steady one.
A better process
What a working version looks like
- 01
Define each measure
A one-page note saying what counts as headcount, funded role, vacancy and exit, and which group is included. The HR reporting and analytics work starts here.
- 02
Build a short monthly pack
Headcount by programme and engagement type, roles by funding source, contract ends, vacancies, field attendance and exits, on a few pages.
- 03
Split exits properly
Show funded-end and voluntary exits side by side, with the programme and role.
- 04
Generate donor views from the same data
Cost by project and days worked produced from the record, supported by HR reports automation where it fits.
- 05
Review it with leadership
A fixed monthly slot where the pack is read and two or three actions are agreed.
What to check this week
- Ask three people for the current headcount and compare answers.
- Check whether volunteers and consultants appear in the reported figure.
- Find which contract end dates fall in the next two quarters.
- See how long the donor cost report takes to build.
- Look at the last pack and note which decisions it led to.
What this looks like in ngos and social enterprises
The parts of hr analytics and management reporting that are specific to this sector, rather than general.
Donor Reporting Readiness
Records that support the grant report.
What this coversHide
Donor Reporting Readiness
Records that support the grant report.
What this coversHide- Staff cost allocation by project
- Timesheet practice where required
- Attendance evidence
- Contract and appointment records
- Training records
- Policy acknowledgements
- Audit-ready employee files
- Record retention practice
NGO HR Dashboard
People, projects and cost.
What this coversHide
NGO HR Dashboard
People, projects and cost.
What this coversHide- Headcount by programme
- Staff vs consultants vs volunteers
- Roles by funding source
- Contract end dates approaching
- Field attendance
- Attrition by programme
- Open positions
- Training and safeguarding completion
- Staff cost by project
- Record completeness
Questions on this, in ngos and social enterprises
Report them separately and together, with clear labels. Employees, consultants, interns and volunteers are different relationships, and a single figure that mixes them cannot be explained. We help you agree the definitions in writing.
Show grant-end exits and voluntary exits as separate figures, and add the number of exits you would have wished to avoid. Together they tell a truer story than one percentage.
We help you design the data and the layout so you can produce what your funders request from one source. What a funder will accept as evidence is for your finance lead to confirm with that funder.
Not always. A clear monthly pack on a few pages, read in a short meeting, often does more than a dashboard nobody opens. Where a live view would help, we can specify one for your system or configure reports on GullyHR.
Report in groups and totals, not names, and limit who sees person-level data. We design the structure of the reports accordingly. Your obligations on personal data are for a qualified professional to confirm.
Fewer than you think. A small set of well-defined measures, reviewed regularly, is more useful than many that no one reads. We help you choose a first set and add more only when a question requires them.
Headcount by programme and engagement type, roles by funding source, contracts ending, open positions, field attendance, exits split by cause and training completion. Keep it short.
So every report counts the same way. If headcount sometimes includes volunteers and sometimes does not, trends and comparisons mean little.
From a single record showing each person's cost shares by project, so the donor view and the internal view agree. Hand-built allocations tend to differ.
Monthly for the pack and quarterly for deeper topics such as exits and pay. A regular rhythm matters more than a long report.
Let Your Numbers Agree With Each Other
If a simple question about people costs a week of compiling, begin with definitions and one monthly pack. Tell us what you report today and to whom.
Prefer to talk first? Call +91 80958 58589 or write to hello@gullyhr.com.
Book a Reporting Consultation
Tell us about the people numbers you produce and who reads them.
The general method — what hr analytics and management reporting covers, the questions it answers and what an engagement produces — is the same whatever the sector, and is set out on the hr reporting and analytics page. What is above is the part that differs for ngos and social enterprises.
To run this in a system rather than on paper, see reports, analytics and automation.
Other HR topics for ngos and social enterprises
Where to start
Most engagements begin with a review of how this runs in your business today, then a written process and the sequence to implement it.
See all HR topics for ngos and social enterprises, or another industry.