The Business Performance Report (BPR) is an AI-powered feature in BrightAP that analyses up to six years of your client's historical nominal ledger data and generates a professional financial performance report — complete with charts, tables, and AI-written commentary.

It is designed to help you move from compliance work into advisory conversations, giving you a ready-made discussion document you can take straight into your next client meeting.

Before you start

Check your permission is enabled

The Trends button will first need permission enabled to access the Business Performance Report.

Note for practice administrators:  This is the most common reason users cannot see the Trends button. Always check the permission first.

Ask your practice administrator to check that the Business Performance Report permission is enabled for your account in Staff and Access Permissions.

To enable the permission:

1.  Go to your practice Staff and Access Permissions settings.

2.  Locate Business Performance Report in the permissions list.

3.  Tick to enable it for each user who needs access.

4.  Save your changes.

Once the permission is enabled, log out and back in for the change to take effect.

Generating your first report

1.  Open the relevant client business in BrightAP.

2.  Click Trends in the left-hand sidebar.

3.  On first use, tick the disclaimer confirming you understand this is a beta feature, then click Proceed. You will only see this once. 

4.  Select Generate a new report.

5.  Wait while the report is prepared — this typically takes 20–40 seconds. During this time, BrightAP is gathering up to six years of nominal ledger data and sending it to the Bright AI platform for analysis.

What your report includes

Your report opens with five default metrics displayed in the main panel, and a further five optional metrics available in the right-hand sidebar.

Default metrics

These appear in every report automatically:

▪  Revenue Trend

▪  Revenue vs Cost of Goods Sold

▪  Revenue vs Operating Expenses

▪  Gross Profit Margin %

▪  Operating Profit Margin %

Optional metrics

These can be added from the sidebar at any time:

▪  Cash and Bank Balances

▪  Debtor & Creditor Balances

▪  Debtor Days & Creditor Days

▪  Working Capital Trend

▪  Break-Even Point

Each metric includes AI-generated commentary describing what the numbers show, with the option to display a chart, a data table, or both.

Tip:  For a full explanation of what each metric measures and how to use it in a client conversation, see the article: Understanding your report metrics.

Important things to know

▪  Read-only: The BPR analyses existing ledger data but does not write back to, alter, or post anything in your client's accounts.

▪  Data quality: The report is based solely on data held in BrightAP. If the underlying ledger contains errors or incomplete years, these will be reflected in the output. We recommend reviewing the trial balance before using the report in a client meeting.

▪  Saving: If you have previously generated a report for a client, you will be offered the option to open the saved version when you next click Trends — or you can choose to generate a new report. Generating a new report replaces the previously saved version. Export to PDF or Word before starting fresh if you need to keep a copy.