Reports and Analysis - Nominal

You can print reports whenever you need them for any period in the current, and if still open, the previous year. Selecting the Reports menu gives you a list of available reports.

Prompts Used Throughout Reporting Procedures

The nominal ledger reports ask a common set of questions whenever you choose to print a report.

Date of Report

<Enter> to accept today’s date here, or else overtype it with a different date.

Report "as at” period number

The nominal ledger keeps all the current year’s periods open, and all the previous year’s periods can also be viewed. Give here the period number whose period-end values you want printed on this report.

Enter either a current year period, or — if you want to print a report of one of the previous year’s periods — prefix the period number with P. So "P10” would print a report based on the values at the end of the tenth period of last year.

Report "As At” Date

After entering the period number above, the period-end date for that period is offered. You can overwrite this date, though there should be little need to do so.

From/To Account Code

For most reports you can request a range of accounts to print. Key in the codes of the first and last nominal accounts you wish to include.If you leave the 'From' code blank, then the report starts from the beginning of the chart of accounts. If you leave the 'To' code blank, then the report prints to the end of the chart of accounts.

When using cost centres the range of accounts are entered in their component parts. For example, if you have a format 999/99 where the first part is the nominal account and the second part is the cost centre department then you are asked firstly for the nominal code range and then the department range. In this way you could produce (say) a Trial Balance for department 01 by leaving the account range blank and defining the department range as 01 to 01.

Specify any Selection Criteria.

In addition to the account range above you can further restrict the accounts which are to print on a report. Setting this option allows you to enter selection criteria.

The OPTIONS Button

The Options button allows configuration facilities for the printing of the report – selecting margins and fonts. When you select the OPTIONS button a pop-up form is displayed.

Before discussing the parameters you should note the buttons available at the footer of this parameter screen.

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 and cannot be selected.

This option accepts your entered parameters for this print only, reverting to defaults next time the report is run.

Depending on whether the user is configured as an ‘Install’ user then the next option will be SAVE. This saves your set parameters so they are offered as default next time this report is run (Note: this is system wide not per user). Setting the user as an ‘Install’ user is achieved through the user configuration available under the MASTER sign-on.

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 (and the screen is a slightly different layout) – selecting a page size is mandatory to use proportional fonts.

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).

Default to Landscape – set to default the printed report to landscape, leave blank for usual portrait orientation. You may want to set reports such as the Nominal Ledger Audit Trail Report or the Cashbook Receipts Analysis Listing to landscape to increase the size of print as these reports require a large amount of detail to be printed.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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) is again picked up from the Print Style Profile and fonts depend on ASCII codes configured, although other settings such as ‘include time’ etc. remain from the OPTIONS display.

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 is not applicable if the page size is left blank.

The next set of parameters allows you to specify formatting and margin settings for both portrait and landscape when the page size has been set. The appropriate setting being used based on the orientation of the output selected at run-time.

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.

This set of parameters allows you to specify formatting and margin settings for both portrait and landscape when the page size has notbeen set. Two columns are definable, one to use if printing in portrait, the other if printing in landscape - the appropriate setting being used based on the orientation of the output selected at run-time.

Minimum Characters Per Line – the system displays the width of the report items to the right. If you leave this value as 0 then the report width is the larger of either the report print items or 80 characters. You can manually set a report width – from 64 to 255 characters wide – but if you set a width less than the items actually printed then this is overridden by the report width at run-time.

Maximum Lines Per Page – if left at 0 then when printing a report the system will determine the number of lines per page based on the report width and the printable area of the page up to a maximum of 72 lines per page in portrait mode or 50 lines per page in landscape mode. Alternatively you can set the number of lines per page, from 16 to 255, and this is then taken into account when deciding font size to ensure that number of lines is printed. If left at 0 then when sending to the spooler the lines per page is assumed to be 72 in portrait mode and 50 in landscape. If you require an identical print from the printer and the spooler then a maximum number of lines should be set.

Left Margin – set the number of characters to be used as a margin from 1 to 64.If you require a margin then when entering the value you need to take into account the report print width – a margin of 4 characters on an 80-character report will be bigger than a margin of 4 characters on a 132-character report. If left at 0 no left margin is applied.

Right Margin – if you require a margin to be applied on the right of the report set the number of characters accordingly (again 1-64), if leave as 0 then no right margin is applied.

Top Margin – set the number of lines to leave as a margin at the top of the page (1-32 lines). If left at 0 then no top margin is applied.

Bottom Margin – set the number of lines to leave as a margin at the bottom of the page (1-32 lines). If left at 0 then no bottom margin is applied.

Finally, you can set default options that are used when you send the report to print or e-mail.

Print Device – 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.

E-mail Address – 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.

Once you’ve set the desired parameters select the ACCEPT option to apply the settings for this print or, if available, the SAVE option to apply for this and future prints.

Printing Procedure

Once you have accepted the printing parameters allows you to select the desired output.

Depending on the report and system configuration the report can be output in a number of different methods.To ‘print’ you select the desired output device and then click the OK button. Available options are:

Screen – selecting this option displays the report on the screen. If you are happy with the output selecting <F7-Option> on the report allows you to print the report or save it for subsequent print/enquiry.

Print Device – selecting this option allows you to print the report to any printer configured on your pc. The printer is selected from the NAME drop down list.

Disk Spooler – selecting this option saves the report for subsequent enquiry / print.

Microsoft Word – if Microsoft Word is installed then the report can be output as a document to Word.

Microsoft Excel – if Microsoft Excel is installed then this option allows the creation of an Excel spreadsheet based on the report.

Fax-File Server – this option is enabled if you have fax software such as Tobit David or Zetafax that uses a ‘file scan’ folder to pickup faxes. If you use fax software such as WinFax then the fax output can be selected from the ‘print device’ list.

E-Mail– selecting this option creates an email message (Tobit David, Outlook and Outlook Express only) with the report as a PDF or text file attachment.

PDF – creates a PDF file of the report and displays it for review.