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Pre-Payroll Check Report

Article Number: 2058 | Rating: Unrated | Last Updated: Fri, Jun 16, 2023 at 4:42 PM

Datafile Software

Pre-Payroll Check Report

This option allows you to configure the payroll check report – the trial run of the payroll to check that everything has been entered. The set-up for this report, and in fact, most listing reports is as follows.

Print Control

Up to eight report styles can be defined on your system through the CONFIG user (see the Configuration Guide). These control the length/width of page to print when not using the OPTIONS button to control page size. The styles available are listed at the bottom right of the screen.

Data Items

Here you can select the database and the items to print across the page for each report. The payroll can have up to five employee databases (depending on product level) and you can select to print from any of them.The databases are:

1Employee File

2Employee-2 File

3Switches File (Payroll Plus only)

4Overtime File (Payroll Plus only)

5Employee-3 File

After you have selected the database, the data item is chosen. Items available for selection are listed to the right of the screen – you can also, however, use the F4-Select key to select items for the report.

Report Department Split

The payroll check report, and the run report, can report the department split values. If set then each employee who is analysed over more than one department reports over several lines – the summary line for the employee and then a breakdown of the analysed values for each department. The analysed values are those that are included in the report and set for department split updating in the run report later.

The OPTIONS Button

Selecting the OPTIONS button allows access to the print configuration (page size / margins / etc.)

The layout of this screen differs slightly based on whether you have set the page size (as above) or not. Before discussing the parameters you should note the buttons available at the footer of this parameter screen.

Default - This option updates the individual parameters from your user default when they are set, overwriting presets where applicable. If no user defaults are set then this option is ‘greyed’ out. To set user defaults see the appropriate section below.

Save- This option saves your set parameters so they are offered as default next time this report is run

Abandon - This option abandons any changes made and returns you to the report screen.

The report parameters available are:

Paper Size – select the paper size the report is to be printed to (i.e. A4).You can elect to leave this blank in which case the report is printed as per the last/default page size of the printer, however, if you do this you can only choose fixed pitch fonts – selecting a page size is mandatory to use proportional fonts. If you set a page size then the options screen re-displays with the appropriate parameters. If you leave blank then the options screen remains as above.

Default Printer Font – a font dialog is display allowing you to select as required, the default font to be used for this report. If you’ve sent the page size then all fonts are available, if you haven’t set this then only fixed pitch fonts can be assigned. You can also set bold/italic attributes and font size – note that if you haven’t set a page size then the font size option is not applicable (font is sized as per previous rules).

Selecting the Font Size

Generally you can’t go far wrong with 10point.However, if you have a lot of data items on your report, and are printing in portrait, 10point may be too big to fit all the required information without overlapping fields.

The positioning of fields across the page is determined by the item size – if you imagine the Payroll Control Summary report this shows, by default, the employee record number (8 characters), the NI Number (9), 7 payroll value fields (14 characters each) and the employee surname (17), together with spaces between the items this gives a total of 112 characters, or columns required, across the page (think graph paper – you have 112 ‘cells’ across the page).

Those 112 columns are split equally across the available page (page size and margins taken into account) as starting positions for data items – so the employee record number starts at column 1, the NI Number at column 10 (employee record number plus 1), etc. If you select a font size too big then the employee record number may not finish printing before the NI Number starts causing the NI Number to overlap the end of the product code. If this occurs then you may need to either reduce the font size or consider swapping the report to landscape orientation if the font size would go too small.

Print in Landscape – set to default the printed report to landscape, leave blank for usual portrait orientation. You may want to set reports such as the Sales Ledger Aged Debtors Report or the Cashbook Receipts Analysis Listing to landscape as these reports require a large amount of detail to be printed and otherwise the font size could be too small.

Omit Full Page Headings – When printing a multi-page report the system repeats the headings for each page. Setting this option reduces the heading details for the second and subsequent pages allowing more record detail to be printed per page.

Show Time in Report Headings – set to include the printed time in the report headings in addition to the printed date.

Default Output to Spooler – Usually, when printing a report, the default printer is the last print device used. Select this option to set the default printer as the spooler for this report. This acts only as a default and doesn’t prevent you electing to print the report instead.

Include Selection Criteria – set to print any selection criteria that were applied to the report.

Allow Change of Printer Alias – when these options are configured then it is assumed you are printing as ‘direct windows print’ and this is the alias set by default. Setting this option allows you to change the default alias at run-time to one of the list of Datafile configured printers. If you change the alias to a ‘DOS’ style alias then the page size (length/width) and font are again picked up from the Print Style Profile, although other settings such as ‘include time’ etc. remain from the OPTIONS display.

Email as Text Attachment – if send this report via email this option allows you to send as a text file attachment as opposed to, if left blank, PDF.

Print Negatives in Red – on selected reports, assuming you have a colour printer; it may be useful to print negative values in red. This option allows this.

Allow Excel Pivot Table – selected reports are suitable for output as an Excel Pivot Table. Set if output to be allowed.

Default Output to Pivot Table – set if default print device to be an Excel Pivot Table.

Characters Per Line – the system displays the width of the report items on the right. If you leave this value at 0 (recommended) then the report width used in determining the start column positions of data items (as discussed above with regards to font size) is the larger of either the report print items or 80 columns.You can manually set a report width – from 64 to 255 columns. You may want to increase the number of columns on (say) a landscape report with few print items to bring the fields closer together to aid in reading.

Lines Per Page – if left at 0 (recommended) then the number of lines per page is determined by the font and page size. Alternatively you can set a number of lines per page, perhaps to give a greater gap between rows of data items.

Left Margin (mm) – set the size of the left hand margin (relative to page orientation in millimetres.

Right Margin (mm) – set the size of the right hand margin.

Top Margin (mm) – set the size of the top margin.

Bottom Margin (mm) – set the size of the bottom margin.

Default Printer – if using a stand-alone Datafile system then you can set a default printer to output to. This option only applies when sending to a print device; if last printer was spooler or fax then this remains the default. If using a networked Datafile system then you can still set this where you are printing to a networked printer – provided all terminals have a consistent device path. If the print device isn’t valid then the normal printer is offered instead.

Send to Email – if the report is sent to email then here you can enter an email address that is to be used by default for this report – though it can be amended at run-time.

Excel Template – if sending to an Excel Pivot Table use this file as a template.

Once you’ve set the desired parameters select the SAVE option to apply for future prints.

Custom Fields