Powerful Reporting Inside Sage 300 CRE
Among the most important aspects of having powerful accounting software like Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate are the reporting capabilities. Over time, as users come and go, reporting needs change, and custom reports accumulate. That’s when the beginnings of a Reports Monster can emerge!
Critical info at your fingertips
While the ability to store huge quantities of diverse data is significant, the true value is in the ability to provide timely, accurate, and often critical information to decision-makers at every level throughout the organization to support them in their work.
Sage 300 CRE comes installed with literally hundreds of reports! Most fit the management and financial reporting needs of construction-type operations. Many companies, however, have preferential reporting needs. They typically end up adding a myriad of custom reports to the host of canned reports already present in their reports menus.
Do you have a Monster lurking?
You can tell you have a Reports Monster living in your system when you:
- Spend precious time searching for the right report
- Not sure which reports in your system are custom and which are standard
- Receive error messages when you try to launch certain reports
Three tips for keeping a Reports Monster at bay:
- Don’t mix custom reports with canned reports in the reports menus. When you add custom reports to a reports menu, create a menu group separate from the ones installed with the system.Easily add a menu group such as “Custom Reports” by typing the name into the Menu Group field in the Reports Manager window. Reorganize existing menu groups simply by using the Reports Manager to change the menu group for a custom report. Be sure you’re not changing the menu group of a canned report!
- Identify custom reports and canned reports by using the Print button in the Reports Manager. As a best practice, store custom reports in a folder separate from the system-installed reports. In any application’s Reports Manager, you can view the report design location by clicking the Print button. The resulting report will show you four details: the menu group (sub-menu) where the report is located, the report title, the design type, and the report design name. For report designs not stored in the default location, the path to the report design will appear before the report design name. For a full reports cleanup, print the report lists to .txt files for each Sage 300 CRE application. Then, import the lists into Excel to track which reports need to be moved, retired, updated, or modified.
- Error messages can appear when the system can’t locate a report design. Report designs created by in-house users are sometimes stored outside of the recommended location for custom reports. If the designs get moved or are not included in a server migration, the tip above can be used to find the last known location of the design so that it can be moved to the proper folder and relinked in the Reports Manager.
Learn more about Report Designing for Sage 300 CRE here!
by Kyle Zeigler, Sage Certified Senior Consultant