Templates
Client reporting template: the monthly report for the whole client
What goes in a monthly client report
A client reporting template is the one monthly report that covers everything the client pays you for. This one runs in six parts: a three-line summary, money in and money out, one line per ad platform, the other channels in the retainer, the work you did, and next month. Payments that cleared sit near the top, above any platform's claim, because that's the number the client checks against the bank. Each ad platform keeps its detail in its own template. This page is the cover that holds them together.
For agencies with clients on Stripe checkout
This template keeps a payment line because ad platform columns can't show what cleared. To fill that line from real payments, see Thexly for agencies.
The template
Copy it into a sheet or a doc. The third column says where each number comes from, so anyone on the team fills it the same way. Drop any section the client doesn't pay you for.
| Section | Line | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Header | Client, month, dates and time zone | One date range and one time zone for every section |
| 1. Summary | What changed | One sentence from the account lead |
| 1. Summary | Why it matters | One sentence, tied to a number in section 2 or 3 |
| 1. Summary | What we recommend next | One sentence, with the decision you need from the client if there is one |
| 2. Money in and money out | Payments that cleared | The client's payment processor, same dates |
| 2. Money in and money out | Refunds | The payment processor, same dates |
| 2. Money in and money out | Total ad spend | Spend from each ad platform, typed in and added up |
| 2. Money in and money out | Net payments ÷ total ad spend | Payments after refunds, divided by total ad spend. Label it "blended, from payments" |
| 2. Money in and money out | Payments from paid campaign visits | Payments matched to a visit from a paid campaign, if you track this |
| 3. Paid channels | Google Ads: Cost and Conv. value | As Google Ads reports them. Detail goes in the Google Ads report template |
| 3. Paid channels | Meta: Amount spent and Purchases conversion value | As Meta Ads Manager reports them. Detail goes in the Facebook Ads report template |
| 3. Paid channels | Do not add | The platforms' conversion values are never added together |
| 4. Other channels | Organic search | Clicks, from Google Search Console |
| 4. Other channels | Campaigns sent, from the email tool | |
| 4. Other channels | Organic social | Posts published, from each network |
| 5. Work done | Changes, with dates | The team's change log |
| 6. Next month | Plan | Three items at most |
| 6. Next month | Needed from the client | Approvals, assets or access, each with a date |
Prefer a sheet? Download the template.
Section 3 is short on purpose. Two lines per platform is enough for the cover. The full columns, settings notes and change notes live in the Google Ads report template for clients and the Facebook Ads report template. If the client runs both, the PPC report template puts them side by side with its own payment block. Attach whichever fits as page two.
Section 4 has no money column, and that's deliberate. Search Console counts clicks and an email tool counts sends. Neither of them saw the payment. If organic search or email brought in sales, those sales are already in section 2 as payments, and that's where the client should read them.
A filled example
Illustrative example: round numbers for a made-up skincare store selling through Stripe checkout. Not a customer and not a benchmark.
| Section | Line | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Header | Client, month, dates and time zone | Made-up skincare store, 1 to 31 October, Europe/Dublin |
| 1. Summary | What changed | Net payments held at €18,000 while Meta spend fell by €400 against September |
| 1. Summary | Why it matters | The same money came in for less spend |
| 1. Summary | What we recommend next | Approve the Black Friday offer by 6 November |
| 2. Money in and money out | Payments that cleared | €18,600 |
| 2. Money in and money out | Refunds | €600 |
| 2. Money in and money out | Total ad spend | €6,000 |
| 2. Money in and money out | Net payments ÷ total ad spend | 3.0 (blended, from payments) |
| 2. Money in and money out | Payments from paid campaign visits | €11,000 |
| 3. Paid channels | Google Ads: Cost and Conv. value | €3,200 and €9,600 |
| 3. Paid channels | Meta: Amount spent and Purchases conversion value | €2,800 and €8,400 |
| 3. Paid channels | Do not add | Not added together |
| 4. Other channels | Organic search | 4,100 clicks |
| 4. Other channels | 4 campaigns sent | |
| 4. Other channels | Organic social | 16 posts |
| 5. Work done | Changes, with dates | Paused two Meta ad sets on 9 October. Started a brand search campaign on 14 October |
| 6. Next month | Plan | Black Friday campaigns on both platforms. Refresh the two best-selling product pages |
| 6. Next month | Needed from the client | Offer approval and product photos by 6 November |
Now read section 3 against section 2. Google claims €9,600 and Meta claims €8,400. Together that's €18,000, the same as net payments for the whole month, so it looks tidy. But only €11,000 of payments came from paid campaign visits. In this example the rest came from search, email and people typing the address in. So about €7,000 of what the two platforms claim sits on payments that trace back to other visits, or on orders both platforms counted. The template doesn't pick a winner. It puts both views on one page and labels each one.
Building the money section by hand every month?
Thexly matches each payment to the campaign visit behind it, so the payment lines are ready when you open the report. Start a 14-day free trial, no card needed.
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Why money in and money out goes near the top
An r/PPC thread from August 2026 asked agencies what their clients read. One reply: "95% of the time clients only care about money-in vs money-out." The same reply went on: "They want to see how much they spent, and how many leads/sales/opportunities/etc came out of it." Another suggested the first page hold just "what changed, why it matters, and what you recommend doing next." (r/PPC, August 2026) That's sections 1 and 2.
A commenter who said they were on the client side added: "This info is only useful when I combine it with my sales data." That's why section 2 uses payments and not the platforms' conversion value. Google reports its main conversion columns "based on the time of the click, not the time of the conversion" (Google Ads Help: conversion columns). Meta counts results under the ad set's attribution setting, which defaults to "7-day click, 1-day view and 1-day engagement conversion" (Meta Business Help Center: Results). Both are useful. Neither is money in the client's account.
One source per line
A May 2026 reply in r/marketingagency put it in one line: "Pick one fixed source of truth for each metric." (r/marketingagency, May 2026) The template does this in its third column. Payments come from the payment processor. Spend comes from each ad platform. Platform claims stay labelled as the platform's. Clicks come from Search Console. Once a line has a source, keep it for the year, or month-on-month comparisons stop meaning much.
Pull the numbers a couple of days after the month closes. Meta says running figures "may be an approximation, since it can take up to 48 hours for ad results to be processed" (Meta Business Help Center: Amount spent). On the Google side, conversions keep landing on last month's clicks for as long as the conversion window runs, so a report pulled on the 1st can grow by the 5th.
Sending it
An r/DigitalMarketing thread from May 2026 asked how long client reports take. One reply said most clients read "the summary paragraph at the top, the main KPI numbers, and the 'what's next' section." Another: "clients don't pay for report length. They pay to know if their money is working" (r/DigitalMarketing, May 2026). So keep the cover to one page and put the platform templates behind it. Send it a day before the monthly call, so the call can be about section 6.
On a bad month, say what went wrong in section 1, show it in section 2, and put the fix in section 6. The same r/PPC reply that led with money in and money out said that when results dip, "clients want solutions."
If the retainer mixes SEO and paid, our guide to SEO agency reporting software covers the organic side. For whether to send a PDF or a live link, see live link versus PDF client reporting. And if both ad platforms claim the same order, this guide walks through why.
When the sheet takes longer than the work
The template works fine in a sheet for a handful of clients. Section 2 is the slow part: payments for the exact dates, refunds taken out, spend typed in from each platform, then which campaigns the payments came from. That last line is the one most sheets leave blank, because the payment processor doesn't know about campaigns and the ad platforms don't see payments.
Which line in your client report takes you longest to fill?
Ecommerce clients on Stripe checkout
Send the client a live link instead of this month's PDF. Thexly for agencies shows which campaigns brought in payments that cleared.
FAQ