Why Metadata is a Business thing not a Techie thing anymore.

The “Traffic Cop” is FREE

What is Metadata anyway?

For the ears of business people, metadata automation makes it so that reporting is a lot more accurate, controlled and especially affordable.

In techie terms, metadata is essentially the structured information that describes, explains, locates, or otherwise makes it easier to retrieve, use, or manage an information resource.

Here is a very clear picture that gets this all in perspective.

Master data management software is like a traffic cop. The cops job is to enforce the “rules of the road” to keep traffic moving and everybody safe.

Keeping with the traffic example, then:

  • Each pedestrian, bike, scooter, car, truck, bus, rickshaw…are the data elements. Your company no doubt has a variety of different data elements that must “Share the road” just like there are different cars, trucks, bikes…on a road.

  • The traffic lanes are where data elements operate as they move in Approved directions. Staying in the lanes helps keep the data elements from crashing – Our software manages those lanes automatically.

  • The bike lanes, bus lanes, truck lanes, parking spots…represents the reporting roll ups & hierarchies where groups of data elements operate, so business consumers of the data can “see” the data in an accurate way that supports and allows good decisions to be made. Our software manages that as well.

Using spreadsheets, emails and phone calls works fine for a tiny branch office but real life is far more complicated.

Imagine that a city tried to run traffic for a 1-million-person city with only 10 police officers! It cannot be done with no motorcycles and those 10 cops running up & down the street waving their arms and trying to stop traffic with a whistle! That is what you are doing right now if you manage this process with spreadsheets, email and phone calls.

The police need and use automation that comes in the form of cameras that send tickets automatically to speeders, sensors that detect traffic jams, traffic lights that control traffic for most people who follow the law, and AI to read license plates.

The most affordable and powerful metadata & master data automation software you can find is Masterful Data.


Data is growing at over 42% per year and nobody aspires to be a data janitor, so you need software to keep up and to keep jr. people from quitting and to protect the sr. people from being terminated because decisions that were made based on inaccurate data & reporting.


You cannot possibly keep up with metadata or master data using spreadsheets, email and phone calls, you do not have enough staff to do this work, so you must automate, or you will be blamed for something you cannot control.


Data needs a place to operate, and master data management software is the automated police presence making sure that it all works correctly. If this is done manually with spreadsheets and email then it’s going to result in chaos and injury - you cannot possibly work that way, plus it is an expensive mess that leads to bad decisions, career damage, and unhappy customers.

Obsolete metadata leads to mysteries like everything adding up at the summary level but inaccurate at each detail level? This causes career failure because Nobody in “The Business” will trust you if your reporting is “Kind of right”.

Data is growing at 42% each year*, so there is no way to manage it without purpose-built software that automates it.

Our Masterful Data software product is available at no cost = FREE.

Why is Metadata Important for Finance, Supply Chain & Operations?

Metadata ensures that data is consistently interpreted across different systems and processes.

Accurate metadata is crucial for:

  • Financial & Operational Reporting: Ensures that Users can find the correct data sets they need without manually searching through vast amounts of data manually.

  • Compliance: Helps maintain adherence to regulatory standards by providing clear data traceability and governance.

  • Decision-Making: Provides context to raw data, enabling more informed and accurate business decisions that drive margins and avoid expensive mistakes.

  • Controlling Operational Costs: Resolving metadata-related issues requires significant manual intervention, increasing operational costs and reducing efficiency. Up to 16 hours of each staff members work week is spent reconciling data instead of doing the analysis they were hired to do!

Affordable Solutions to Metadata Issues.

The pathetic excuse of “No Budget” is no-longer true.

Budgets have always only been guidelines until a better use of money comes along. As much as some people think they are set in stone for their own self-interests, they are not. Budgets change instantly when an emergency or better use of money appears. It’s usually a matter of that better idea being heard by the leadership.

Master Data Management is a far better use of money, because it helps the Senior Management of your company avoid shame, personal career damage, damaging your brand and shareholders.

On top of that there is no excuse not to fix it because the software to fix it is available for Free.

Unless Master Data is automated, financial & operational reporting can at best be “Kind of Right.” No professional person keeps a job very long if their reporting is “Kind of Right”

Companies Need:

  • A Centralized Metadata Repository: Maintain a single source of truth for all metadata, ensuring consistency across all systems.

  • Automated Data Validation: Use tools that automatically validate and align metadata during data integration processes.

  • A Data Governance Framework: Establish clear policies and procedures for metadata management to ensure accuracy and compliance.

  • Regular Audits and Updates: Periodically audit metadata and update it to reflect any changes in data structures or definitions.

There is only one Master Data Software Solution Company that stands out in terms of its power and value.

Masterful Data Inc. is available at no cost = FREE.

There are modest fees for set up, training, hosting & consulting, but only to the extent you order those services.

An additional and massive cost savings is that Masterful Data does not have trigger fees that then charge by User, record counts or additional systems that are supported, so it is truly affordable on an enterprise scale. No other vendor can compete with this offering.

How Metadata Issues Cause Data Load Failures

In the normal course of business, data moves from group to group just like any product in an assembly line. Like any assembly line, as data flows through every workgroup, that data changes and is often enhanced.

Therefore, the data changes every second, and you cannot keep up with that change using Excel & email to manage it.

The tricky thing is that the mornings agreed “Metadata Truth” will not work in the afternoon of the same day. Every second the data changes and this gets more & more complicated between systems.

It does not matter if the company uses one or ten separate ERP & reporting vendors because as the metadata between those systems moves usually starts wrong each day and needs to be reconciled constantly.

This janitorial task consumes up to 40% or 16 hours of time analysts spend working every week. If you are looking for an ROI, multiply everybody’s salary by 40% and that is the cost of the process per person, so it can easily dominate any budget decision.

Attempting to do this with Excel, email and phone calls does not work. That approach is futile because the data volume is too big, and it grows at a 42% rate every year*.

Managing metadata manually is also a horrible and error prone job to do with Excel, email, and phone calls. This low-tech mind-numbing work causes a great deal of staff turnover. Nobody went to college to be a data janitor!

Errors then impact the leaders of companies because they must deliver accurate data not “Kind of accurate” data to keep their jobs and make good decisions.

When metadata is incorrect, incomplete, or inconsistent, it can cause significant problems during data integration and migration processes.

Here’s how:

  • Hierarchy, Account and Relationship Errors: Financial data often relies on hierarchical structures (e.g., parent-child relationships in accounts). If these relationships are not correctly maintained, it will lead to inaccurate roll-ups and aggregations in financial reports. If accounts are added or deleted between systems, but that is not communicated between groups then data completeness and accuracy are impacted.

  • Data Structure Misalignment: Different formats or structures can lead to data not fitting properly during integration. For example, if one system uses a different date format (MM/DD/YYYY vs. DD/MM/YYYY), it can result in failed data loads or incorrect reporting.

  • Inconsistent Data Definitions: If different systems define financial terms differently, it can lead to mismatched data. For example, one system might record "Net Profit" differently from another, causing discrepancies during data consolidation.

  • Data Lineage Confusion: Without clear data lineage, tracking the origin and transformation of data becomes challenging. This can lead to errors in data reconciliation and reporting.

Fixing and controlling Metadata issues can be a multi-million-dollar effort if you attempt to wrangle it with tools provided by our competitors, which are legacy reporting and ERP vendors.

Our business model is very different, it is completely disruptive, and our tools are very easy to use, so you don’t need to hire teams of specialists to run our software.

We designed it that way because nobody should have to risk their career every time, they send a report or make a business decision based on trusted data.

Feel free to contact our enablement team at 609 750 8887 or set a time / day that fits your schedule. https://calendly.com/meetwjburke/30min?month=2024-04


*Source IDC Global DataSphere Forecast