When a retainer comes up for renewal, the conversation tends to drift back to the one video that was late. Nobody mentions the twenty that went out on the promised day, because nobody wrote them down.
A short report at the start of each month fixes that, and it gives you a regular place to tell the client what you need from them next.
This is a production report, the kind a studio sends a client it makes videos for every month. Views, reach and ad results belong in a different report, usually written by whoever runs the client’s channels.
In short
- A one-page monthly report covers six sections: delivered, in progress, dates kept, reviews, coming up and what you need from the client.
- Write small numbers as a fraction, like “6 of 7”, and give every request a date.
- Compare the client’s review time with the window you agreed, never with other clients, and never name a person.
- Leave out raw hours, internal blame, and views and reach.
- Send it on the same working day every month, a day before a short call.
What goes in the report
Six sections fit on one page. Copy the outline into whatever you write the report in:
[Client] · [Month] report
1. Delivered
count, minutes, list
2. In progress
video · stage · waiting on
3. Dates kept
on time / delivered
4. Reviews
average review time
versions to approval
5. Coming up
shoots and deliveries
6. What we need from you
item · by when
Delivered is the number of videos that reached final approval that month, their total running time and the titles. Pick that definition once and keep it. If the retainer caps the volume, show the count against the cap.
In progress lists every open video with its stage (script, shoot, edit, review) and who it’s waiting on: you, the client, or someone else, like a voice-over artist or the client’s legal team. Use the client’s words for the stages.
Dates kept counts the deliveries that met the date you promised. With small numbers, write the fraction, because “6 of 7” reads better than 86%.
If your contract moves the date day for day when notes arrive late, count against the moved date and say so in a line. That rule is covered in what to do when a client takes too long to approve.
Reviews carries the client’s average time to answer a version and the average number of versions it took to reach approval.
Coming up has next month’s shoot days, with place and time, and the delivery dates already promised (video production timelines shows how review time feeds into those).
What we need from you gets things moving, and every item in it has a date.
A filled-in example
The client and the numbers are made up, and every total adds up. The retainer covers up to eight videos a month, mostly short social cuts.
| Delivered in September | Videos | Running time |
|---|---|---|
| Instagram reels | 5 | 3:45 |
| Customer testimonial | 1 | 2:30 |
| Event recap | 1 | 3:10 |
| Total | 7 of 8 | 9:25 |
Dates kept: 6 of 7. The event recap went out on the 19th instead of the 17th, because we redid the sound mix after the first export.
Reviews: 12 versions went out for these seven videos. Your team answered in 2.5 working days on average, inside the 3 we planned for. Three videos were approved on the first version, three on the second and the event recap on the third, an average of 1.7.
| In progress | Stage | Waiting on |
|---|---|---|
| Product launch | Edit, v1 out Oct 3 | Us |
| Testimonial 2 | v2 with you since Sep 29 | You, notes by Oct 2 |
| Recruitment reel | Shoot planning | You, who we’ll film |
Coming up: interviews at your office on October 9 at 9 a.m., two people, and product footage at the warehouse on October 23.
What we need from you:
- Names and job titles of the two interviewees by October 6, for the lower thirds.
- Notes on testimonial 2 by October 2, so it can go out on the 7th.
- One person to approve the event recap series. Two people sent opposite notes on v2 this month.
Reporting review time without pointing fingers
The client’s review time is the number most likely to start an argument, and the most useful one for planning.
Compare it with the window you agreed, never with other clients. “2.5 days, inside the 3 we planned for” is a fact. “Slower than most of our clients” sounds like a complaint, and a ranking of clients belongs on your own screen.
Count it the same way every month and explain the method once: from the day a version goes out to the day notes or an approval come back, in working days or calendar days. Switching methods can make a normal month look bad.
Use it to plan. “The campaign video has two rounds. At 2.5 working days a round, that’s five working days with your team on top of our eight days of edit and finishing, thirteen in all.”
Talk about the client’s team, never a named person. “Your team took four days” is fine. A sentence naming Marcos, in a document his boss reads, costs you goodwill.
When one person really is the holdup, raise it on the call with a proposal, such as one approver per video (handling conflicting feedback covers how).
Versions to approval works the same way, and the rounds that were your fault count too. If v3 of the event recap only fixed your own sound problem, say so.
What to leave out
Raw hours stay out. On a retainer the client buys videos, and a line saying a 45-second reel took nine hours starts a negotiation about the reel.
Hours belong in your own pricing review (time tracking for video editors). If the contract bills by the hour, that’s an invoice, a separate document.
So does internal blame. “The freelance colorist delivered late” tells the client you don’t control your suppliers.
They hired the studio, so the studio was late. Write what happened and what you changed.
The 40 notes on the testimonial live in the review tool. The report says the video took two rounds and why the second one happened.
And if another agency runs the client’s social channels, views and reach go in their report. In yours they’d make the production side look answerable for a reel’s reach.
How to send it
Send it on the same working day every month, say the second, so the client starts expecting it. Put the headline in the subject line (“September: 7 videos delivered, 3 in progress, 2 things we need”) and keep the page short enough to read on a phone.
Send the page a day before a call of 20 or 30 minutes. The client reads the numbers ahead of time, and the call goes to next month’s shoots and what you need from them. A page sent with no call tends to get skimmed.
Keep every month in one document, newest on top, and use the first report to explain how each number is counted.
How this works in RecReview
In RecReview, each client’s portal has a Metrics tab, and the client sees the same tab you do.
Deliveries over time counts each video once, in the month it was first sent to the client, with the minutes delivered beside it. So a video sent on the 28th and approved on the 3rd lands in the earlier month.
Review pace shows the client’s average review time, from the moment a version is sent until they approve or ask for changes, counted on the clock, nights and weekends included.
The Overdue counter leaves out videos waiting on the client’s review. Only versions the client can open are counted, so the numbers you copy from this tab are the ones the client sees.
The Deliveries tab exports to XLSX, one sheet per project, with each video’s code, title, status, phase, duration, deadline and link. The Recordings tab puts shoot days from the production plans you’ve shared on a calendar, next to delivery dates.
On your side, owners and admins have Metrics, which you can narrow to one client and a custom date range.
The Clients & review tab shows how many videos were approved, sent back or are still waiting on the client, the average versions to approve and the first-pass approval rate, plus a ranking of clients by response time against your studio average.
Hours by client are in the overview, for pricing the next retainer. More on the client portal page.
