REPORTING DEFINITION AND ACCEPTANCE TEMPLATE
Horizon Dynamics | Version 1.0 | 27 September 2026
Companion guide: https://www.horizon-dynamics.tech/blog/business-reporting-integration

Define one report or measure at a time with its business owner. Adapt the
example below to your own report.

REPORT / OWNER / VERSION
Report name:
Business owner:
Technical/data owner:
Date and definition version:
Decision this report supports:
Person responsible for acting on the result:

1. MEANING
Unit represented by one row (for example: order, line item or shipment):
Measure and calculation:
Included records and exclusions:
Statuses and their meanings:
Date used, time zone and cutoff:
Currency, conversion date and rate source if relevant:
Treatment of amendments, cancellations and missing data:

2. SOURCES AND IDENTITY
Repeat per source:
- System and data owner:
- Stable key and mapping to other systems:
- Fields supplied and authority over those fields:
- Available interface or export:
- Transformation and reconciliation rule:
- Treatment of unmatched records and out-of-order updates:

3. ACCESS AND USE
Who can see the report?
Which locations, customers or fields must each role be restricted to?
Can users drill into the supporting records, and with what permissions?
Does an export preserve the same access limits?

4. FRESHNESS AND FAILURE
Required freshness and business reason:
Expected refresh schedule / source limitations:
Where the last successful update is visible:
How a stale, incomplete or failed refresh is shown:
Who investigates and how missed records are recovered:

EXAMPLE DEFINITION - LATE OPEN ORDER LINES
Decision: which unshipped lines need the operations team's attention today?
Grain: one order line identified by an ERP order ID and line ID.
Example rule: include active lines with remaining quantity above zero and an
agreed promised date earlier than the daily cutoff in the chosen time zone.
Exclude cancelled lines. A missing promised date goes to a separate exception
list rather than silently being treated as on time.
Source authority: ERP for ordered/shipped quantity; the agreed order-management
system for promised date. A revised promised date must remain explainable.
A partial shipment leaves the remaining quantity open. Counting order lines
is different from counting distinct orders; label both measures accurately.

Your owners approve the rule, source of truth, timing, statuses and
rescheduling policy.

5. ACCEPTANCE EXAMPLES - REPEAT PER SCENARIO
Scenario / input records:
Expected rows and measure value:
Actual rows and value:
Source evidence / reporting evidence:
Expected role-based visibility:
Result and explanation of differences:
Reviewer / owner / date:

Include: complete, partial, cancelled, amended and unmatched records; duplicate
events; stale sources; cutoff boundaries; unauthorised access; empty results.

6. RECONCILIATION AND SIGN-OFF
Sample period and source dataset versions:
Counts, totals and record-level samples checked:
Intentional differences from the old report:
Unresolved exceptions and responsible people:
Business approval / technical approval / date:
What source/schema/definition changes require retesting?

Discuss reporting: https://www.horizon-dynamics.tech/contact?source=reporting-template
You may adapt this template for your own project planning.