Working with reports

Report Designer comes with a good selection of standard reports and layouts. Most people start reporting by choosing a standard report, which they use immediately or open and amend slightly.

Open reports

The following refers to reports but it is the same for letters, layouts or labels.

Select the report in your main Sage software, then click Edit (or Open).

This feature is only available for:
Sage 50 Accounts, Sage 50 HR.
In Report Designer, choose File > Open and browse for the report you want to open.

Working with older reports?

From Sage Report Designer 2007, the file extension of reports changed. Any reports you may have with an old file extension are converted to use the new file extension. This is done for you when you generate reports.

Tip: You may need to amend the appearance of your report. If you do make changes, save the report by choosing File > Save As.

Create reports

If you can't find a standard report that is similar to what you want, you can create your own report using the Report Wizard. The wizard is ideal for getting most of the information you want into your report. Then you can tweak the report to get it just right.

To start the Report Wizard, click New from the toolbar, or choose File > New > Report.

When editing a report, you work in Designer mode, which shows all the items used to build your report.

Save reports

The standard reports that comes with Report Designer are protected. Although you can't overwrite them, you can save copies of them by choosing File > Save As. You can save:

A report for future use, which is the most common way people save reports. The next time the report is opened it will use the latest data from your Sage software. The report is stored as a *.report file.
A snapshot of the report, which is useful if you need a record of historical information. The next time you open the report it will show the data when the report was saved (not the current data). The report is stored as a *.datareport file.

Tip: To save yourself time looking for any report you will use regularly, add them to your Favourite reports list.

Print and preview reports

Most people prefer to print their final reports from their main Sage software such as Accounts or Payroll but you can print and preview from Report Designer.

To preview your report, click Print Preview from the toolbar.

Tip: When previewing your report you can make some final adjustments to improve its look. You can resize and move items as well as change their style, such as colour and font. However, to make advanced changes, you will need to return to Designer mode. To do this, click Designer from the toolbar, or choose View > Designer.
To print the report, click Print Preview from the toolbar. The Criteria Values window appears. Enter the range of records you want included in your report and click OK. When the report appears, choose File > Print.

Note: If you don't enter criteria all records are included in the report.

There are many settings you can use to tweak your reports to get them right when printing. See Print reports.

Distribute reports

Reports are wasted unless they are read. You can do more than just print them; you can generate reports in a number of useful formats such as PDF or HTML. The format you choose depends on what you want to do with the report. See Export reports.