Feature of the Month April 2004

Versions 7 and 8

Determining the Type of Report

Generally speaking, the type of report that you may want will be hidden from you until you make some decisions about the following:

            What do you want to see on your report?

            What level of detail is to be seen on the report?

            How many different documents will it take to make the report?

            Is the information merchandise specific?

            Do you need information that summarizes document information?

Starting with the simplest decision – If you want to see a list of customers, vendors, departments, or employees, that makes it simple:  LISTS focus only on customers, vendors, departments, or employees.

But the above statement can be misleading:  “I need to see each receipt a certain clerk created today” – While it is true that the clerk is an employee, the LIST will not work because the information is about more than the employee.  The key words in the report specification are receipt and each.  Whenever you need to see “each” or “every” document on a report, and there would be a need to see each document individually, then a JOURNAL REPORT would be indicated.  Because you want to see receipts, then it would specifically be a SALES JOURNAL REPORT.

“I’d like to find out what was sold today and how much of each” – here is that word each again, however it is not associated with a document, but an item.  That is the key thing to realize – a report is needed on item-oriented data:  what items were sold today and how much was sold of each item.  In other words, the report you need has information that is merchandise specific, a MERCHANDISE SUMMARY REPORT would be needed.  But on what type of document would this data be found?  A sales receipt.  Because this desired information is recorded on receipts, a SALES MERCHANDISE SUMMARY REPORT would be used.  (REPORTS > SUMMARIES SECTION)

“Create a report summarizing all the different customer information we collected at point of sale.”  The key thing to realize here is that you need to report on document-oriented data.  Most likely, the customer information was recorded using “POS Flags” or “Comments” and neither applies to items.  Rather, they apply to documents, which in this case are receipts.  Therefore, use a TRANSACTION SUMMARY REPORT – this type of report summarizes document information.  More specifically, because the transactional documents in question are receipts, use a SALES TRANSACTION SUMMARY REPORT. (REPORTS > SUMMARIES section)

“I need to compare this year’s profits with last year’s profits.”  In this case, you realize that you are comparing values from two different date ranges – this year and last year.  Whenever you need information from more than one data source, a MERCHANDISE REPORT is indicated – the MERCHANDISE REPORT is the only report that can draw information from multiple date ranges.

“I need to see what I currently have on order as well as what I’ve sold today”  - Notice the need for multiple data sources – once again, the only report that can draw information from multiple data sources is the MERCHANDISE REPORT.  The different data sources would be purchase orders and sales.

“Need the receipt number and date of a specific customer’s purchase of a particular dress.”  Now don’t be hasty – what if you just went to the customer and looked at their sales history – in other words, sometimes a report may be way more than you need.  However, what is the analysis for the report?  Receipt number tells us that a type of sales report would be needed, but which – a SALES JOURNAL report.

Sometimes a report needs more “help;” for instance:  “Run a report to see if employees are adhering to their specified shifts.”  There is a built in SUMMARY REPORT > CHECK IN/OUT: Chronological Report but it requires that shifts be set up in system preferences for employees, then the report can be easily run.

“You want to send out a mailer to those customers who purchased more than $200 in the last month”  Now, you can’t really get there from here – first, mark customers using the Flag Customers module in DVS – then run the CUSTOMERS: Address List filtered on the mark field.

“A retailer wants to see the total cash spent on merchandise from each of his vendors last month versus the total cash collected from sale of each vendor’s merchandise for the same period.”  What type of report?   A MERCHANDISE REPORT.  Why? – More than one data source:  Net Receiving and Net Sales over the specified date range – because the retailer want it broken out by vendor, it should be sorted on the vendor.

Recall from the January feature of the month “Help Take The Mystery Out Of The Reports Module” that using the built in reports is a quick and easy way to see if any given report is “in the ball park” for the report you want, then copy and rename prior to editing and saving as one of your standards – this will prevent your report from being overwritten.  Include the filter in this copy/rename scheme as well.

Perhaps the greatest challenge in report writing is the selection of the type of report you are going to use.  Some of the descriptions sound like they may be inflexible, but often there really is more than one report type that can be used, that will come down to personal choice.

To recap:

• If you require information about the customer, employee, vendor, or department, use a list.

• If you need to each document individually, use a JOURNAL REPORT. 

• Information from more than one data source? MERCHANDISE REPORT. 

• If the report is merchandise specific use a MERCHANDISE SUMMARY REPORT. 

• Finally, do you need to summarize document information?  TRANSACTION SUMMARY REPORT.