Having HubSpot Report Issues? Here’s Why and What to Do

You’re staring at a HubSpot dashboard that looks impressive — but doesn’t actually tell you anything useful. The numbers feel off. Reports don’t match what your team sees in real life. And every time you try to fix it, you end up deeper in the weeds!

If your reporting feels broken, or just a little too messy, you’re probably not wrong. Here’s how to clean up your data, get your team aligned, and finally build reports you can trust.

1. Your Foundational Setup Needs Work

HubSpot’s reports pull directly from the data stored in the CRM—so if you're missing a key property or that property isn't being filled in, the report can't show it. Common culprits include:

• Missing custom properties (like “Product Line” or “Sales Region”) that are specific to your business

• Sales reps skipping fields because they're not marked as required, or because the UI makes them easy to overlook

• Integration tools (like Zapier or your ERP connector) that push partial or outdated data into HubSpot

The fix here is two-fold: audit the properties you need for decision-making, then inspect how reliably those properties are being filled out—manually or via integrations. Like many people in data roles have said for decades in – garbage in, garbage out. If you can’t get it to work, it’s probably a root issue at the foundational level.

2. Your data is scattered across tools and platforms

Reports break down when your data is scattered across tools. For example, if deals live in HubSpot but quoting happens in PandaDoc and only half of the info syncs back, your pipeline reports will be incomplete (but you can watch this video to learn how to integrate them).

By migrating more of your workflow into HubSpot-native tools — like quotes, emails, or customer service tickets — you increase the volume and fidelity of data available for reporting. When total centralization isn’t feasible, you need to close the loop with robust two-way integrations so HubSpot remains the system of record.

Curious about how we’ve solved this? Check out the Simple Strat Solutions Library for examples of this!

3. Report filters are wrong or used incorrectly

A deceptively simple issue. Reports in HubSpot often come pre-filtered, and those defaults might not reflect your use case. For example:

• A sales report filtered to “Create date = this month” won’t include deals created last month that are still active

• A marketing attribution report filtered to one lifecycle stage might skip all the leads your team is actually working

The solution is to audit every filter — especially date ranges, deal stages, pipeline selection, and lifecycle filters — to make sure they match what you think you're looking at.

Expert tip – when embedding reports in dashboards, you can also add a description which helps end users and decision makers know the context with which the report was created. Additionally, if you have a variety of reports on a dashboard and the time intervals vary, make sure to include that in the title so there is no confusion.

4. Consistent processes/SOPs aren’t being followed

Even with perfect properties and filters, inconsistent data entry breaks reporting. If one rep enters “VP Sales” and another uses “Vice President of Sales,” reports grouped by job title will misfire.

Avoid this by:

• Standardizing dropdowns instead of free-text fields

• Training your team on which properties matter and how to use them

• Enforcing rules through required fields, automation, or validation workflows

The goal is data that’s predictably structured, so it can be accurately sliced, filtered, and rolled up in a report.

Expert tip – with the new Breeze actions in workflows, you could even ask AI to help standardize data based on what’s in that field, and then returning a value that better fits your SOPs.

Those are some of the most common reasons why reports run awry. So what can be done to mitigate this? Here are 4 ways to fix this now, and for the future.

1. Make Sure Your Team has a Strong understanding of System Functionality

HubSpot reporting can do a lot—but only if you understand the system’s logic. What was done in one system (let’s say Salesforce or Zoho) is different in HubSpot, and knowing what’s possible is needed for a strong report foundation.

For example:

• You can’t report on properties that don’t exist or haven’t been used yet

• Some reporting types (like custom funnel reports) behave differently than standard dashboards

• Multi-object reports require you to think in terms of associations (e.g., contact-to-deal relationships)

• Reports that come in the analytics suite require that you follow specific best practices (such as meeting outcomes, meeting types, UTMs, etc) in order for them to function as intended.

Getting trained—whether through HubSpot Academy or a HubSpot partner—will help you avoid common mistakes, speed up your reporting workflow, and build dashboards that your execs actually trust.

2. Take Advantage of the Data Quality Command Center

HubSpot has a built-in dashboard that flags messy data—duplicates, missing info, weird formatting, that kind of thing. It’s called the Data Quality Command Center, and it’s your best friend for keeping the CRM clean without having to dig through thousands of records manually.

Once your data's cleaned up, you’ll want to make sure your reports actually reflect it. Here’s a quick walkthrough on building custom analytics views in HubSpot to track the stuff that actually matters to your team:

3. Set Up Guardrails and Validation Rules

If you let people type anything into a field, they will. You’ll get “VP,” “Vice President,” and “V.P.” all in the same column—and good luck reporting on that.

Set up field rules that lock things down: dropdowns instead of open text, required fields where needed, and guardrails for formatting. It keeps your reports from turning into junk.

4. Set and Maintain a Data Cleanliness Practice

Even with great rules, bad data sneaks in. People mistype things. Integrations misfire. Stuff gets outdated.

Make regular data cleanups part of your process. Delete junk records. Merge duplicates. Update stale info. The more often you do it, the less of a slog it is.

Expert tip: When we work with clients, we always set up a data health dashboard that helps drive conversation on things that are becoming issues before they become giant roadblocks. Think about leading indicators that may help you identify an issue before it morphs into a bigger obstacle that impacts your board reporting!

5. Use automation to stay ahead

Just because HubSpot values aren’t filled doesn’t mean you have to painstakingly backtrack. You can set up HubSpot workflows to fix things automatically. For example:

• Auto-assign lead sources based on form fills

• Set default values when reps leave stuff blank

• Send alerts if a field isn’t filled out right

This saves your team from chasing down missing data later.

6. Train your team (and retrain when needed)

Most data issues start with humans. If your team doesn’t know which fields matter or how they’re supposed to use HubSpot, things fall apart. Don’t assume everyone just “gets it.”

• Create a simple internal playbook.
• Give examples.
• Create diagrams
• Show why clean data matters.
• Check-in regularly—especially after onboarding new folks or making process changes.

Ready to make your reports actually mean something?

If you’ve cleaned up your data and still feel like HubSpot’s giving you more friction than insight, it might be time for a bigger reset.

Not a full rebuild — just a smart rework of what’s already there, so your data’s reliable, your team’s aligned, and your reports finally tell the full story.

It’s about getting your existing HubSpot setup to work the way it should — faster, cleaner, and with fewer headaches. We’ll help you:

• Untangle messy setups and surface the data you actually need
• Realign marketing and sales workflows so leads move smoothly through your funnel
• Automate the repetitive stuff and turn HubSpot into a tool your team wants to use
• And yes—we’ll train your team along the way, so they know exactly what to do and why it matters

If you’re ready to stop guessing and start getting value from your CRM, let’s talk.

Book a call and we’ll walk you through how we can fix what’s broken, clean up what’s messy, and rebuild your HubSpot to actually support your growth.