How to Find Customers Who Are Buying Less Than Last Year

Every business owner knows their biggest customers.

Far fewer know which customers are quietly spending less than they did a year ago.

For many SMEs, these customers represent one of the biggest opportunities to increase revenue. They’re already familiar with your business, they already trust your products or services, and in many cases, winning back their previous level of spending is far easier than finding completely new customers.

The challenge is identifying them before it’s too late.

Why This Is So Difficult

Most ERP systems, including Sage 50, Sage 200, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Exchequer, Xero, Pegasus Opera, Dynamics NAV, SAP Business One, Brightpearl and many others, contain all the information you need.

The problem isn’t the data.

It’s turning that data into meaningful insight.

Most standard reports will show:

Sales this month
Sales this year
Top customers
Customer balances
Outstanding invoices

Useful information—but they don’t automatically tell you:

Which customers have reduced their spending by 10%, 25% or 50%.
Which previously loyal customers are gradually buying less.
Which accounts have stopped purchasing specific product lines.
Which customers have changed their buying habits over the last twelve months.

Finding those answers usually means exporting data into Excel and spending hours comparing different periods.

The Spreadsheet Trap

We’ve seen businesses where the sales manager produces the same report every month.

Export customer sales.

Export last year’s sales.

Merge the spreadsheets.

Create pivot tables.

Build comparison charts.

Highlight declining customers.

Email the report.

Repeat next month.

One Sales Director from a manufacturing business told us:

“We knew we were losing customers—we just couldn’t see which ones until it was too late.”

That story is more common than many businesses realise.

Why This Matters

Imagine a customer who spent £120,000 with you last year.

This year they’ve spent £95,000.

Next quarter it could be £70,000.

By the end of the year they may have disappeared completely.

Unless someone spots the trend early, the decline often goes unnoticed because it happens gradually.

Now imagine identifying that customer the moment their spending starts to fall.

Your sales team can make a phone call.

Arrange a meeting.

Understand what’s changed.

Offer an alternative product.

Resolve a service issue.

Strengthen the relationship.

That’s the difference between reactive reporting and proactive reporting.

A Real Customer Story

One wholesale distributor approached Illuminis Insight Software because their sales team believed they needed more new customers.

After reviewing their reporting process, we discovered something different.

The business had hundreds of existing customers who were quietly spending less than the previous year.

The information existed within their ERP system, but nobody had a report showing the trend.

Our consultants reviewed the spreadsheets they were already producing, understood how they analysed customer performance and recreated the reporting process inside Octelas.

The new dashboard highlighted:

Customers spending less than last year.
Customers whose average order value was falling.
Customers buying less frequently.
Customers who had stopped purchasing specific product ranges.
High-value accounts showing early warning signs.

The sales team received an updated report every morning.

Within weeks, they had recovered several valuable customer relationships simply because they contacted customers before they were lost.

The Sales Director later told us:

“We expected better reporting. What we actually got was a completely different way of managing customer relationships.”

The Return on Investment

Another customer estimated that recovering just two long-standing accounts covered the cost of the entire project within months.

That isn’t unusual.

Most SMEs focus significant time and money on generating new business.

Very few invest the same effort into protecting the customers they already have.

Better reporting changes that.

Every Business Measures Customer Activity Differently

Some businesses compare against the same month last year.

Others use rolling twelve-month periods.

Some want to analyse by customer.

Others by product group, branch, region or salesperson.

That’s why Illuminis Insight Software doesn’t offer generic reports.

We start by understanding your business.

We review the reports your team already relies on.

We analyse your Excel spreadsheets, management packs and KPIs before recreating the reporting logic inside Octelas.

The reports are built around your business—not around fixed software templates.

More Than Just Business Intelligence Software

Many businesses investigating customer reporting consider tools such as Microsoft Power BI.

Power BI is an excellent visualisation platform.

But dashboards alone don’t solve reporting problems.

Someone still needs to:

Understand your business.
Build the data model.
Recreate years of spreadsheet logic.
Maintain the reports.
Update calculations.
Support users.
Implement future changes.

For many SMEs, that quickly becomes expensive and difficult to manage.

Your Long-Term Data Partner

This is where Illuminis Insight Software is different.

We don’t simply install software and leave you to work everything out.

We become your long-term reporting and data partner.

We learn how your business works.

We understand the reports your management team depends on.

We recreate your existing reporting processes inside Octelas and continue supporting you as your business evolves.

Need another report?

We’ll build it.

Need to analyse customer trends differently?

We’ll configure it.

Need to integrate another ERP, CRM or warehouse system?

We’ll take care of it.

Need new KPIs before your next board meeting?

We’ll add them.

As your business changes, your reporting changes too.

Turn Customer Data Into Growth

Most SMEs already have the information they need to protect valuable customer relationships.

The challenge is seeing it early enough to act.

Octelas, developed by Illuminis Insight Software, automatically analyses data from Sage, Microsoft Dynamics, Xero, Exchequer, Pegasus Opera, SAP Business One, Brightpearl and many other ERP systems to identify customers whose spending patterns are changing.

Instead of spending hours building Excel reports, your sales and management teams receive meaningful insights that help them retain customers, increase revenue and make better business decisions.

That’s why businesses across manufacturing, wholesale, distribution, construction, engineering, hospitality and professional services choose Illuminis Insight Software as more than a reporting software provider.

They choose us as their trusted long-term data partner, helping them transform business data into measurable growth.