Use case · Ad hoc reporting
Every ad hoc ask, answered before the follow-up email.
Cube turns ad hoc reporting into a fetch from one clean, decision-ready layer: any question, any dimension, in the tool the asker already uses.
What did we spend on marketing in EMEA last month?
The problem
Every question starts a scavenger hunt.
The ask lands at 4:45 on a Friday, and the data lives in five systems.
Built from scratch, every time
A new export, a new pivot, a new reconciliation, for a question that will be asked again next quarter.
Stale before it lands
By the time the answer reaches the CEO, the number underneath it has already moved.
Finance as the bottleneck
Department heads queue for cuts of data they should be able to get themselves, safely.
One layer
How ad hoc reporting works in Cube
Every source system feeds one clean layer where each metric is defined once. Questions become fetches, and answers show up where the asker works.
Cube
One definition of every metric, every slice traceable to the transactions behind it.
Any angle
Pivot the same numbers into any report.
Rows, columns, and filters are just dimensions. Re-slice by region, department, or entity, and pull the result straight into your report.
| $K | Jan | Feb | Mar | Q1 · Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| North America | 812 | 799 | 845 | 2,456 |
| EMEA | 388 | 401 | 419 | 1,208 |
| APAC | 176 | 182 | 191 | 549 |
| Total S&M expense | 1,376 | 1,382 | 1,455 | 4,213 |
Live data
The Friday-afternoon ask, pulled live.
Sales and marketing spend by region: fetched into a sheet, current, and footed.
| $K | Jan · Actuals | Feb · Actuals | Mar · Actuals | Q1 · Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| North America | 812 | 799 | 845 | 2,456 |
| EMEA | 388 | 401 | 419 | 1,208 |
| APAC | 176 | 182 | 191 | 549 |
| Total S&M expense | 1,376 | 1,382 | 1,455 | 4,213 |
Charted
The same answer, drawn as a chart.
The same governed numbers render as charts, and every bar drills to the transactions behind it.
The payoff
Answer once, reuse everywhere.
No more starting over
Any slice of the model is a fetch away: by region, department, vendor, customer, or entity, without a new export.
Delivered where they ask
The answer lands in the asker's spreadsheet, Slack thread, or AI assistant, synced to the same layer finance controls.
One definition of every metric
S&M expense means the same thing in every answer, and each figure traces to source with cell-level access control.
Adoption
Up and running without ripping anything out.
Finance-led, no-code setup with guided onboarding. Your current stack stays.
Finance-led setup
Configured by your team, guided by ours.
Rip-and-replace
Deploys alongside the tools you run today.
Onboarding
Hands-on setup and a named contact.
Cube in action
Stakeholders ask. The layer answers.
FP&Agents field the questions, on clean, decision-ready data, with finance in the driver's seat.
AI Analyst
Plain-language questions in the browser, spreadsheet, or chat, answered with traceable figures.
The Analyst
Fetches any slice across any dimension, from department spend to cohort revenue.
The Business Partner
Turns a one-off answer into an exec-ready narrative in PowerPoint or Google Slides.
Where you work
One model, on every surface.
Cube delivers the same governed numbers wherever the work happens. Explore the full story on Where You Work.
Cube Workspace
The browser app where finance builds the model, sets permissions, and publishes.
Excel & Google Sheets
Bi-directional sync: fetch live actuals into the sheet, publish plans back.
AI assistants via MCP
Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini answer from your governed numbers.
Slack & Teams
Ask a question in chat and get the governed figure back, with the trace.
PowerPoint & Google Slides
Decks with figures bound to Cube that refresh to the current numbers.
BI tools
Tableau, Looker, and Power BI read from the same model as the plan.
Where it fits
The questions finance actually gets.
CEO & board asks
The quick question before the board meeting, answered with figures that tie to the deck.
Department spend reviews
Cost-center owners self-serve their own cuts, inside their access rights.
Investor & diligence requests
One-off data requests assembled from the same clean layer as the board pack.
Customer & revenue cuts
Cohorts, segments, and ARR movements sliced on demand.
Headcount questions
Who, where, and at what cost, reconciled with the workforce plan.
Variance follow-ups
When the question is why, variance analysis takes over.
See your hardest question answered.
Bring the ask that took a week last quarter, and we'll show you the path to the answer.
Security & governance
Self-serve without losing control.
Cell-level access control
The CFO sees everything, a department head sees their cost center, an auditor sees read-only.
Read-only source connections
Cube reads from your systems without writing back to your ERP.
Full audit trail
Every fetch, edit, and publish is logged and reviewable.
Region & retention
Data residency and retention policies configured to your requirements.
Trace to the source
Every answer opens.
EMEA's March spend is one click from the invoices behind it.
| Mar 04 | Google Ads | EMEA campaigns | NetSuite | $96,300 |
| Mar 12 | demand gen | NetSuite | $54,800 | |
| Mar 21 | Meta | retargeting | NetSuite | $31,150 |
| + 11 more transactions | ||||
Already convinced?
Book a demo and skip the homework. Still researching ad hoc reporting? The rest of this page is the deep end.
The definition
What is ad hoc reporting?
Ad hoc reporting
Ad hoc reporting is the creation of one-off financial reports and analyses on demand, outside the regular reporting calendar, to answer a specific business question as it arises.
The question can come from anywhere: the CEO, the board, a department head, an investor. The difference between a good answer and a risky one is whether it comes from one clean layer or from a fresh export. With Cube, every answer comes from the layer.
The question, wherever it starts
The answer, wherever it's needed
The hard part
Why is ad hoc reporting hard?
Six failure points turn a simple question into a week of work, and each one has a structural fix.
Data in many systems
The answer spans the GL, the CRM, and the HRIS. Cube unifies them into one clean, decision-ready layer.
Exports stale on arrival
A CSV is a snapshot of the past. Cube's sync keeps every answer on live data.
Metric definitions drift
Does revenue include services? It depends who built the file. In Cube, every metric is defined once.
Work is never reused
Each answer dies in a one-off file. In Cube, the fetch is repeatable: change a parameter and re-run.
Self-serve feels risky
Opening raw systems to stakeholders is a governance problem. Cell-level access control makes it safe.
No trail on shared numbers
Figures leave finance in email with no lineage. Cube logs every fetch and keeps the trace to the source.
The layer, not another tool.
Two ways to run it
Manual ad hoc reporting vs Cube
| Manual process | With Cube | |
|---|---|---|
| Getting the data | ✕Exports from each system, stitched together by hand | ✓One fetch from a layer that is already current |
| Slicing it | ✕New pivots for every dimension the asker wants | ✓Any dimension is a parameter, from region to vendor |
| Checking it ties | ✕Manual reconciliation against last month's file | ✓Figures foot by construction and trace to the transaction |
| Delivering it | ✕Attachments that fork into competing versions | ✓Live in the asker's sheet, chat, or dashboard |
| The next ask | ✕Start over from a blank workbook | ✓Change a parameter and re-run |
The landscape
Types of ad hoc reports
The requests vary, and the pattern underneath them is the same: a specific question, a defensible answer, fast.
Spend cuts
Expense by department, region, or vendor, against plan or prior period.
Revenue & customer cuts
Cohorts, segments, ARR bridges, and renewal views on demand.
Headcount snapshots
Open roles, comp, and org changes reconciled to the plan.
Cash & runway checks
Position, burn, and runway pulled current whenever the question comes up.
What-if asks
What happens if we slow hiring? Scenario planning picks it up.
Board & investor one-offs
Diligence and follow-up requests, tied to the same numbers as the pack.
Field guide
Ad hoc reporting best practices
Start from one source of truth
Every answer should come from the same layer as the board pack, so numbers never compete.
Define metrics once
Agree on what revenue, S&M, and headcount mean before the questions arrive, and encode it.
Make self-serve safe by design
Give stakeholders access scoped to their role, and let them answer their own routine questions.
Keep lineage on everything you share
A number that leaves finance should carry its trace to the source with it.
Template the repeat offenders
If a question arrives twice, make it a saved, refreshable report instead of a new file.
Buying guide
What to look for in ad hoc reporting software
Live source connections
An answer is only as good as the data underneath it is current.
A real dimensional model
Region, department, vendor, customer, entity: the cut you need is always one more dimension away.
Spreadsheet-native delivery
The answer should land in the sheet the asker already has open.
Natural-language querying
Stakeholders should be able to ask in plain language and get a traceable figure back.
Role-based access control
Self-serve only works when access is enforced at the cell level.
Trace to the transaction
Any figure you share should open to the transactions behind it.
Never rebuild an answer again.
See ad hoc reporting run end to end on the demo, from the question to a traceable answer in the asker's own tools.
Prefer to explore first? See the product.
