Reports and Analysis - Cashbook

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.

The cash book reports ask a common set of questions whenever you choose to print a report.

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

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.

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.

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 – for cash reports the range of bank accounts is already shown. 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.

As an alternative to reporting a range of accounts you can nominate individual accounts (up to 200) to be reported by clearing the account range list and then setting this option.Use <F4-Select> to find the accounts you require and press <Enter> on a blank code to complete the list.

If you know the record range of the transactions you are looking for, you can enter them here.However, it is more usual to use date ranges for selection (see below).

To help you restrict the transaction range to those for a particular period, you can note the last transaction number for each period by viewing the system status display at the period-end. However, since you can post to any period at any time, this may not be a complete guide to all the transactions for a specific period.

If your system has been set up to write brought-forward transactions when the transaction file is cleared, you are also prompted at the bottom of the screen with the record number of the last brought-forward transaction.

The date range of the "as at” period already chosen is prompted here, but you may overwrite these with different dates. If you clear the dates (<F3–Clear> is a quick way to do this) then all transactions on file for the chosen accounts are printed.

It is not uncommon for nominal accounts to have had no journals within a period. Reply Y <Enter> to exclude from the report accounts which have no transactions, or N <Enter> to print all selected accounts whether or not they have any transactions.

In addition to the account (or transaction depending on report) range above you can further restrict the records which are to print on a report. Setting this option allows you to enter selection criteria.

The OPTIONS Button

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.

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).

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 view the Account Status report this shows, by default, the account code (7 characters), P/B flag (2 characters), the account name (25), and six value items (14 characters each), together with spaces between the items this gives a total of 126 characters, or columns required, across the page (think graph paper – you have 126 ‘cells’ across the page).

Those 126 columns are split equally across the available page (page size and margins taken into account) as starting positions for data items – so the account code starts at column 1, the P/B flag at column 9 (account code plus 1 space is 8), etc. If you select a font size too big then the account code may not finish printing before the P/B flag starts causing the name to overlap the end of the account code. If this occurs then you can either reduce the font size or consider swapping the report to landscape orientation if the font size would go too small.

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.

This set of parameters allows you to specify formatting and margin settings for both portrait and landscape when the page size has not been 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.

Article ID: 1055
Created On: Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 3:27 PM
Last Updated On: Mon, Jun 19, 2023 at 7:00 PM

Online URL: https://kb.datafile.co.uk/article/reports-and-analysis-cashbook-1055.html