Common Mistakes When Building a Members Report

Common mistakes

• Choosing too few columns up front - it's far cheaper to include an extra column you don't end up using than to regenerate the whole report for one missing field
• Forgetting to check Branch scope - a report generated without confirming your active branch, or an explicit Branch filter, can unintentionally exclude or include more members than intended for multi-branch churches
• Assuming a filter combination matched everyone intended - always sanity-check the recipient/record count before treating the output as final
• Using this wizard for data it doesn't cover yet - Attendance, Finance, and Follow-Up specific reports aren't built into this wizard today, use each module's own export instead (see Choosing the Right Report Type)

Regenerating a large Members report because of an avoidable filter or column mistake costs real time, since generation is synchronous, a few extra seconds double-checking your setup before generating is almost always worth it.

Best practice

Treat the Review & Generate step as a genuine checkpoint, not a formality, actually reread your chosen filters and columns there rather than clicking through it on autopilot.