When the shape of your data doesn't match what reporting needs.
Transformation is distinct from cleanup. Your data can be perfectly accurate and still be in the wrong structure for the system that needs to consume it. CostCraft™ fixes the structure.
What transformation covers
Restructuring rows into columns (or the reverse). Splitting compound fields. Merging records across sources. Pivoting summary tables into transactional rows. Converting between naming conventions, unit systems or classification schemes.
The output is data in exactly the shape the downstream system expects — whether that's a reporting template, a database, a submission format, or another tool in your workflow.
Same values, different shape.
A summary table, pivoted into one row per result. Illustrative, synthetic data.
Questions
How do I know whether I need cleanup or transformation?
Cleanup is for data that's wrong — duplicates, mismatched units, records that don't reconcile. Transformation is for data that's right but in the wrong shape for what you have to produce. Plenty of jobs need both, and the review tells you which you're looking at.
Can you work to a format we've been given?
Yes. If you've been handed a template or a submission layout, that's the target we build to. Tell us what it has to come out as, and we work backwards from there.
What if the required shape changes next year?
Then we change it. How big a job that is depends on the change.
How is this priced?
Hourly, with an estimate before we start. The free review is what makes that estimate worth anything, because we look at your actual data first. If the work is heading past the estimate, we stop and tell you before carrying on. The first you hear of it won't be the invoice.
What do you need from us to start?
Four things: a sample of the real data, not a tidied version; an example of what you have to produce; a conversation with whoever does it by hand today; and a signed agreement, in place before any data moves.
What happens to our data afterwards?
It's deleted at the end of the engagement unless you ask us to keep it. If we're running your monthly reporting, it stays while that's running.