# Monthly Client Report — Report Review Sheet

> The report goes out monthly; the review is what stops it from decaying. Use with `monthly-client-report-guide.md`. The keep/stop/start ledger is the compressed version; this sheet is the full one, run every third report or after any renewal conversation.

## How to run this review

- Every third report, or right after a renewal or an angry email — whichever comes first.
- Bring three things: the last three reports, the ledgers, and the meeting notes where the client talked about something other than your report.
- Review the loop, not the layout: did collection, spine, cut, send and ledger each do their job?

## Read the five leaks

1. **Collection drift** — the checklist grew ad-hoc asks; collection became a scavenger hunt again. The hour you save on day 3 you pay back double on day 9.
2. **Spine rot** — sections where the chart arrived before the sentence. The client's eyes glazed at exactly that section; the meeting notes will show you which.
3. **The cut that never cuts** — the report is longer than report one. A chart nobody referenced twice is decoration you are paying yourself to maintain.
4. **Calendar slips** — sent late once, the rhythm broke; now the client asks "where's the report?" and the answer is an apology. Predictability is the feature; the PDF is just its carrier.
5. **Ledger silence** — keep/stop/start lines collected, nothing changed. Three ignored lines teach the client that their feedback is a ritual, not an input.

## The six review questions

1. **The hour count.** How long did assembly take this quarter versus last — and which phase ate the difference? → Targets: loop cost; a report whose cost grows while its readership shrinks is on its way to being an invoice line item.
2. **The so-what test.** Pick one section at random: could the client repeat its "so what" back in the meeting? → Targets: spine quality; the sentence you wrote is real when it survives their retelling.
3. **The dead charts.** Which charts went unreferenced in three consecutive meetings? → Targets: the cut; delete them without ceremony — the section gets shorter and sharper.
4. **The bad-news minute.** When was the last miss that got page one and minute one — and what did it buy? → Targets: trust compounding; buried misses get exhumed at renewal, surfaced misses get forgiven monthly.
5. **The renewal read.** If the contract came up for renewal today, which line of the ledger is the client's argument — yours or theirs? → Targets: the report's real purpose; it exists to make renewal boring.
6. **The next-report change.** One change to the loop for the next report, with the date it lands. → Targets: durability; report five must differ from report one, visibly.

## Failure modes of the review

| Failure mode | Why it happens | The rescue |
|---|---|---|
| Formatting therapy | The review becomes a font argument | Only the five leaks get airtime; colors are not a leak |
| The polite ledger | Client says "it's great", you believe it | Ask "what should we cut next month?" — the answer is the useful one |
| Quarterly amnesia | Ledgers live in the report folder, reviews never happen | The review sits on the same calendar the report sits on — same day, every third month |
| One client, one truth | What works for account A quietly breaks for B | Compare ledgers across accounts; the pattern is the practice's standard |

## What this is not

This is not a quality scorecard and not a way to automate the judgment away. It is the quarterly maintenance on the one asset a retainer really is: the rhythm of showing up, every month, with a sentence the client can repeat. Reports decay silently; this sheet is the noise.