Reports Overview - Part 1

Finding reports
Choosing preference settings for reports and forms
Choosing settings for a specific report
See also Reports Overview - Part 2
See also Printing Overview
See also Emailing Overview

In MYOB AccountEdge, reports are documents that provide various types of reference about the information you’ve entered in the MYOB system.

Over 100 MYOB AccountEdge reports provide you with comprehensive information about your business. Using reports, you can view detailed or summary lists of your information and examine related information that allows you to analyze your business activity. Typical reports include balance sheets, account lists and sales analysis reports.

Finding reports

The Index to Reports window provides a single location for you to work with your reports. Using the Index to Reports, you can:

    • View lists of all the reports in the MYOB system

    • View a short description of each report

    • View an on-screen version of the selected report

    • Save the selected report as a file on your hard disk or other disk

    • Begin the process of printing the selected report on your printer

    • Choose the information you want to appear on the selected report

    • Select the fields you want to print on the selected report

    • Make changes to the appearance of the selected report

    • Begin the process of exporting report information using OfficeLink

    • Begin the process of emailing a report

Click below for the step-by-step procedure:

To find a report

Choosing preference settings for reports and forms

You’ve got a number of options within AccountEdge with which you can personalize your printed documents, as well as the process by which you print reports and forms. Some options can be chosen that affect all reports and other options can be chosen that affect specific reports.

The following preference settings affect all reports and forms. See Choosing printer settings that affect all reports and forms for more information about choosing printer settings. See Choosing settings for a specific report for overview information about choosing settings for specific reports. See Customizing forms for overview information about choosing settings for specific forms.

Using Reports and Forms Preferences

Using the Reports & Forms view of the Preferences window, you can make a few settings that can make working with reports and forms easier.

    • Specify the aging periods that will be used for your sales and purchases transactions. You can use either daily or monthly aging periods. See Understanding user-defined aging for sales and purchases for more information about the user-defined aging feature.

    • Mark the Include Currency Symbols option if you wish to display currency symbols next to the financial amounts on your reports.

    • Mark the Include Currency Symbols in Forms option if you wish to display currency symbols next to financial amounts on statements, sales, checks and other forms.

    • Mark the Always Display Filters Before Printing Reports option if you want the Report Filters window to appear each time you click the Print or Display buttons in the Index to Reports window. This feature eliminates the need for clicking the Filters button to determine the information you want on your reports.

    • Mark Include all Payroll Categories with YTD amount on Paycheck stubs if you wish to show a payroll category YTD amount, even if no amount for the category is included in the current paycheck.

If you wish to choose a different default font for all of your reports or forms, click the Reports button or the Forms button at the bottom of the window. Make your changes in the Change Default Font window for forms or the Customize Reports window for reports, then click OK to redisplay the Reports & Forms view of the Preferences window.

Click below for the step-by-step procedure:

To choose preferences for reports and forms

To choose a font for all reports

Understanding user-defined aging for sales and purchases

With AccountEdge, you can choose to use daily aging periods of any length you like; you also can use monthly aging periods. The selections you make will affect the way information is displayed in the Analyze Receivables and Analyze Payables windows, on plain-paper statements and on the summary and detail versions of the following reports: Aged Receivables, Aged Payables, Receivables Reconciliation and Payables Reconciliation.

If you choose to use daily aging, you can use any number of days you like, up to 999 days. For example, if aging periods of 7, 14 and 21 days are common in your industry, enter 7 for the first aging period, 14 for the second aging period, and so on.

If you choose to use monthly aging, you can identify your aging periods by either month name or month number. If you choose month names, reports and windows will include transactions in the months they came due. If you choose month numbers, reports and windows will categorize transactions by the number of months they are overdue.

See examples of different ways to use monthly aging in Examples of monthly aging.

If you don't select any aging options using the Preferences window, your transactions will continue to be aged at 30-, 60- and 90-day intervals as they have been in previous versions of MYOB software.

Click below for the step-by-step procedure:

To choose preferences for reports and forms

Choosing settings for a specific report

You have a number of options within AccountEdge with which you can personalize your printed documents, as well as the process by which you print reports. Some options can be chosen that affect all reports and other options can be chosen that affect specific reports.

The following settings affect specific reports. See Choosing preference settings for reports and forms for overview information about choosing settings for all reports.

AccountEdge gives you complete control of the content and appearance of your AccountEdge reports. You can use Filters, Design and Format in any combination to customize your reports. If you want, you can customize a report, print it immediately, then revert the report back to its original settings. Or, if you wish to retain a report’s modifications, you can customize the report and save the changed report. When you save a customized report, the report is known as a custom report.

Click below for the step-by-step procedure:

To save a report as a custom report

To choose a font for a specific report

To design a report

To format a report

To change a report back to its original format

Filtering reports

Use the Report Filters window to determine the amount of information you want to include on a report. Filters allow you to choose specific pieces or ranges of data that can be included on a single report. For example, if you want to print a Customer Payment History Report for customer Eileen Martin for the months of May through July, you can use filters to select those criteria only.

You can use filters for reports you print on your printer, as well as reports you display on your computer screen.

Click the Filter button to open the Report Filters window. The window varies, depending upon the report you’re filtering.

    • Typically, the top section allows you to choose the topics that will be included on the report.

    • Typically, the middle section allows you to choose ranges of criteria, such as dates, that will be included on the report.

Wildcards are special characters that give you more flexibility in selecting various records, such as account numbers and invoice numbers, to print on reports that use that type of information.

You can use two wildcard characters, the asterisk (*) and the question mark (?), in the Report Filters window.

The asterisk Using the asterisk in the Report Filters window allows you to print a report for a specific group of records. For example, if you want to print an Account Inquiry Report for all accounts whose account numbers begin with 1, you can use the asterisk wildcard to do so. (Without the asterisk wildcard, you could print the report only for a single account or for all your accounts.)

To select only the accounts whose numbers begin with 1, enter 1* in the Selected field in the Report Filters window for the Account Inquiry Report.

When you print the report, only the accounts whose numbers begin with 1 will be included on the report.

You can use the asterisk in other locations in an account, item or job number in the Selected field, as well. For example, if you have several item numbers whose numbers end in SVC (to indicate the items are service items), you can enter *SVC in the Selected field to print a report that includes only the items whose numbers end in SVC.

The question mark The question mark wildcard allows you to restrict a report even further than the asterisk. Using the question mark, you can limit your report to elements that contain only a specific number of characters.

For example, say you want to print a Job Inquiry Report for the Cadwell Corporation. All Cadwell job numbers are three characters long and begin with the letter C. However, you have other jobs that start with the letter C and you don’t want those jobs to appear on the report. In the Selected field of the Job Inquiry Report’s Report Filters window, enter C?? to limit the report to three-character jobs that begin with C.

Like the asterisk wildcard, the question mark can be used in other locations in account, item, purchase, sale and card names, as well.

Click below for the step-by-step procedure:

To filter a report

Designing reports

Use the Report Design window to choose the type of information to include on a report.

Since AccountEdge’s reports are already set up to be comprehensive enough for most businesses, you may want to consider printing a report or displaying it on your computer screen before you design it, just to check to see whether the report already contains the information you want.

Click the Design button to open the Report Design window. This window lists all of the fields that are available for the report. You can simply choose the fields you want to print on specific reports. For example, if you want to print tax amounts on a sales report, you can choose to do so by designing the report so it includes tax amounts. You can also choose the order in which information is printed on your reports when you design them.

A message may appear advising you that the report you have chosen is too wide to fit on the screen or that the report you have chosen is too wide to fit on the paper because of report customizations. You can choose to display or print the report with only the information that will fit on the screen or paper, or you may want to recustomize the report. If you want to recustomize the report, try some of these suggestions, then try to redisplay or reprint the report.

    • Hide some of the fields using the report design feature; include only the fields you need.

    • Change the order of the fields using the report design feature; the fields display and print in the order that they appear in the Field Name list in the Report Design window.

    • Change the page orientation from portrait to landscape using the Page Setup command on the File menu.

    • Reduce the size of the font chosen for the report by using the report format feature.


Note: Use caution in designing reports you plan to export to Excel

If you plan to use MYOB OfficeLink to export the report you're working with to Microsoft Excel, avoid moving or adding fields to your report since these changes can cause the information that appears in Excel to be wrong, or to be formatted inappropriately. If you wish to move the information in your report around, we suggest that you do so using Excel after the report has been exported.

For more information about OfficeLink, refer to OfficeLink Overview.

Click below for the step-by-step procedure:

To design a report

Formatting reports

Use the Formatting Reports window to modify the look of individual reports by using different font styles, sizes, colors, alignments and effects, and by changing the reports’ page margins. Click the Format button to open the Report Format window.

If you wish to use fonts other than the default font on individual reports, keep in mind that the new fonts may dramatically change the appearance of your reports.

When you choose a font in the Report Format window, AccountEdge calculates the approximate number of columns that will fit on a printed page, using the fonts you’ve selected and your current page setup selections.

The widest AccountEdge report is 106 columns. If your font and page setup selections cause a report’s calculated number of columns to be greater than 106, it may not fit on a printed page. When this happens, you must either change your page settings using the Page Setup window to accommodate a wider page or choose another font that fits better. (Consider using the 9-point Geneva font, and scale your report at 86%.)

If you’ve formatted a report and want to change it back to its original format, you can simply click the Default button located at the bottom of the Report Format window.


Note: Formatting changes won't appear in reports exported to Excel

Any formatting changes you make to your report in AccountEdge will not appear in Excel, if you export the report to Excel using MYOB OfficeLink. If you plan to export your report, we suggest you make formatting changes in Excel after the report has been exported.

For more information about OfficeLink, see OfficeLink Overview.


Note: If you’ve created custom reports using a previous MYOB product

If you’ve created custom reports using an MYOB product previous to Version 9, you may not be able to display and print them using MYOB AccountEdge Version 10. Because of the addition of new report fields, changes of field names or changes to the length of information that will display and print for a field, you may need to recustomize those reports.

Click below for the step-by-step procedure:

To format a report

To change a report back to its original format

Saving custom reports

If you plan to use a specific report’s design and format many times in the future, you can customize the report once and save the changes so you can use the modified report whenever you want.

When you save a report’s changes, you create a custom report. Custom reports appear in the Custom section of the Index to Reports window, and can be printed, displayed and saved as files, just like any other AccountEdge reports.

Since the report name you provide will eventually appear in the Index to Reports window, so you may want to enter a name that’s easy for you to recognize in the future.

You can perform the same tasks with custom reports as you do with any other AccountEdge reports, including printing them, displaying them on your computer screen, saving them as files on a disk and emailing them.

See also

To display a report on your computer screen

To print a report

To save a report as a file on a disk

Emailing Overview


Note: Where are my custom reports stored?

When you save a custom report using the steps in the previous section, the report’s customization information is stored in a special folder on your computer’s hard disk. This folder is named CUSTOM, and is located inside the folder in which the MYOB program is located. For example, if MYOB AccountEdge is installed in the MYOB AccountEdge folder, the Custom folder will be located inside that folder. Each custom report will appear in the Custom folder.

Be very careful when you use the Finder with the CUSTOM folder; if you delete or rename this location, you won’t be able to use your custom reports in the Index to Reports window.

Click below for the step-by-step procedure:

To save a report as a custom report

Reports Overview - Part 1