Purpose
This utility is used to manage the destination, format and availability of reports produced by the system’s overnight End of Day (EOD) process.
There are many reports that can be produced by the End of Day processes. This function also includes the End of Week (EOW) and End of Month (EOM) processing. All reports generated from EOD/EOW/EOM are initially setup up to send to a default ‘Destination’ in a default ‘Output’ format. This would be your ‘starting’ position.
Some of the available reports may not be relevant to your business and can thus be excluded. Some reports may be particularly relevant for certain individuals and may need to be sent directly to that individual rather than to your System Administrator or main contact for the system. This allows you to negate the need for them to then re-direct reports on a regular basis.
One idea to consider is the use of ‘distribution’ email addresses in order to easily set up reports to go to several people who are allocated to the email group. As an example, you might send a section of the reports to group called accounts@???.com and then manage the individual email addresses that are in that group on your mail server. Some users set up an oa_reports@???.com type group to manage this for most of the reports and then do overrides for specific reports as required.
Using this function, you can nominate a default destination for all EOD/EOW/EOM reports, exclude those reports you don’t need, and configure individual reports to be directed to the person or groups of people for whom they are most relevant.
Data Input
Step 1 – Default
Here you define the default destination and output format to be used for all reports produced by the overnight processing functions. You may then override these details for individual reports as required.
Destination
Choose the method reports should be delivered by default. i.e. via Email, Fax, send to network Printer, or Archive to a server folder.
Destination Detail
What is entered here depends on the ‘Destination’ selected. The options available are below:
- For email – enter the ‘To’ email address. Note: you can enter to or more addresses separated by a ‘;’ if needed
- For fax – enter the ‘To’ fax number (this may be an email address is you are using an emailed based fax service)
- For printer – select the printer to send reports to from the available list
- For archive – enter the path to the folder on the server where reports are to be stored
Output Format
Choose the output format for the reports. The Acrobat ‘PDF’ format is the most common choice.
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Step 2 – End of Day
This section contains a list of all the reports that are available as part of an End of Day run. This list does change depending on the Ledgers going through the End of Day process and your specific data configuration. You may exclude reports that have no purpose for your business or override the report destination details here to direct reports to the most relevant people/branch/department etc.
Exclude
Choose this option if you want to exclude a given report from being produced as part of the End of Day process. Note that for critical reports that should never be excluded, this option is not available.
Suppress Blank
When ticked, if a report generated by the EOD process is blank (i.e. it has headings, but no detail) this option will prevent a blank report being generated.
If unticked, a ‘blank’ report will be sent to the appropriate destination which suits users who want to know that an EOD process was run and the outcome for a given report was “nothing”.
Destination
If different to the default destination, you may override the destination for a particular report. For example, you may wish to send the ‘Customer Follow Up’ report to a particular Accounts Receivable clerk, and the ‘Work Orders Created’ report to the Production Manager’s email address.
Simply leave the ‘Destination’ set to ‘Default’ to tell the system to use the default destination details.
Destination Detail
What is entered here depends on the ‘Destination’ selected. The options available are below:
- For email – enter the ‘To’ email address. Note: you can enter to or more addresses separated by a ‘;’ if needed
- For fax – enter the ‘To’ fax number (this may be an email address is you are using an emailed based fax service)
- For printer – select the printer to send reports to from the available list
- For archive – enter the path to the folder on the server where reports are to be stored
- For document library – no extra detail is required
Output Format
Choose the override output format for the reports. Acrobat’s ‘PDF’ format may be the default choice, but you can have some reports you wish to produce in Excel (.xlsx) or Text (.txt or .csv) format as required.
Branch Reporting
For reports that can be filtered by Branch and that are enabled for ‘Branch Reporting’ you can ‘Edit’ the branch destination details. Reports that can’t be configured for branch reporting have this option disabled and marked as ‘Not Applicable’.
Branch reporting lets you ‘distribute’ the details of a report so that each branch receives the information pertaining to their own branch. For example, if your branches are Victoria and Queensland, you can send the Victoria details of the Negative Stock report to the Victorian branch and the details of the same report relevant to Queensland to the Queensland branch.
When setting up branch report details, choose the branches you want to set up from the list shown. Enter the report destination details for the chosen branch(s) and then ‘Add’ to the list. Any report details for branches not specifically appearing in the list will be sent to the report override destination, or default report destination.
Note that you may use the ‘Copy Last’ option to copy the last branch entry you set up. This is a quick way to set up multiple reports with the same branch details.
When To Run
The ‘When to Run’ code indicates which function (EOD, EOW or EOM) will create the report. This column can also be used to sort the report list if required.
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Step 3 – End of Month
This section contains a list of all the reports that are available for an End of Month run. This will depend on the Ledgers going through the End of Month process and your specific data requirements. You may exclude reports that have no purpose for your business or override the report destination details here to direct reports to the most relevant people/branch/department etc.
The options available in this section are exactly the same as for End of Day. Only the list of reports available differs.
Step 4 – End of Week
This section contains a list of all the reports that are available for an End of Week run. This will depend on the Ledgers going through the End of Week process and your specific data requirements. You may exclude reports that have no purpose for your business or override the report destination details here to direct reports to the most relevant people/branch/department etc.
The destination options available here are exactly the same as for End of Day. Only the list of reports available differs.
Step 5 – EOM General Ledger
This section lists General Ledger (GL) reports that are available to generate as part of a GL End of Month. Their destination details can be configured in a similar fashion to the previous EOD/EOW/EOM reports. Once again the destination options available here are exactly the same as for End of Day. Only the list of reports available differs.
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Step 6 – End of Month – Stock
This section lists Stock reports that are available to generate as part of a Inventory/Sales End of Month. Their destination details can be configured in a similar fashion to the previous EOD/EOW/EOM reports. Once again the destination options available here are exactly the same as for End of Day. Only the list of reports available differs.
Step 7 – Sales Formatted
This section lists ‘Standard Sales’ reports that are available to generate as part of a Inventory/Sales End of Month. Their destination details can be configured in a similar fashion to the previous EOD/EOW/EOM reports. There are hundreds of these reports available and they are excluded by default. You need to explicitly choose which reports suit your needs and include them as part of the EOM procedure here. Note that an custom sales reports you write (or have written for you) will also be available and can be included in the EOM process.
Once again the destination options available here are exactly the same as the End of Day and previous sections. Only the list of reports available differs, along with a slightly different approach to editing the destination details.
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Step 8 – Other Reports
Finally this section provides for a special list of ‘User Defined’ reports which can be added to the overnight End of Day processing if needed. When you create a new report in the system with the standard report designer, you may tag it to be available to run during EOD processing. Reports that are tagged in this way will appear on this list, though by default they are excluded from running so you will need to enable them if required.
Once again the destination options available here are exactly the same as the End of Day and previous sections. Only the list of reports available differs, along with a slightly different approach to editing the destination details and a prompt to allow you to choose the ‘When To Run’ setting.
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