Best Practice Guide - Report Implementation

Owned by John Nairn (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Feb 22, 2016

Readysell provides many reporting options. Getting the most from your Readysell system involves careful use of the right kind of report for each situation.

Office Brands dealers should use the standard invoice, labels and over report layouts approved by Office Brands if possible

Using the standard Office Brands report layouts for documents such as invoices has a number of advantages:

  • The standard invoice and other layouts comply with the Office Brands style guide and have been expressly approved by Office Brands for use by all Office Brands dealers
  • Readysell tests all the standard report layouts before every release of the program. We can't test custom report layouts because they only exist on your system. Over time changes to Readysell may break any custom report layouts you might make


Why you should not have a custom invoice or other custom external (form) report layout made for your business

It is tempting to have a custom invoice created so that your invoice layout looks similar to your old system. Do you best to resist that temptation. Reports that you send to people outside your business should always be the standard reports included with Readysell. If you can live with a few changes, you will be better off in the long run:

    • There are a lot of customisation options in the invoice layout, use those options where possible, Readysell can help you make the best of the customisation options available
    • Most dealers using Readysell 8 are using the standard Office Brands approved invoice layout and finding it suits them. Chances are that over time you and your customers will get used to any changes in the invoice layout. Most dealers find hardly any customers notice the change to the standard invoice layout
    • If you go to a custom invoice layout, there will be a cost for Reaydsell's time to copy the standard layout and customise it to suit you
    • Over time the custom invoice layout may break when Readysell deploys an upgrade. We can't test your custom invoice layout to check it works with each upgrade
    • You will be locked out of future improvements that we make to the standard invoice layout
    • Standard reports are tested by all other users, your custom reports are just for you, so are more error prone
    • Readysell does not and can no warrant custom report layouts. The report layout is on your system, not on ours, so there is no way of us testing your custom reports to check they work with new versions of Readysell. 
    • There will be a charge for building and deploying the custom report layout
    • If the report breaks due to Readysell program upgrades in future, there will be a charge for adjusting the custom report layout each time it breaks

Report training is critical

  • The key driver for successful use of Readysell reporting is sufficient report training. You will not be able to decide which type of report to use for any given situation without report training. We suggest a minimum of two hours report training should be included in your Readysell training program. You need to know the strengths and limitations of list views, form reports, analysis reports, list reports and emails. You will also need a one hour refresher training session once a year to keep up with all the latest report improvements.

 

Using the right report for each situation.

  • You may not need a report, often list views, particularly saved view variants, can give you live report like features without having to run a separate report. List views and saved view variants from the main navigation menu are used for a lot of your day to day reporting requirements. List views in the main body of Readysell can be displayed live or exported to meet many of your requirements without needing a report at all!
  • Use form reports most of the time when you need a report. Particularly when you need presentation quality, external reports or custom calculations, this should cover most of your reporting requirements. Form reports can be run from transactions, such as invoice layouts (non-executable reports) or run from the form reports navigation menu, such as stock on hand reports (executable reports)
  • Use Analysis reports to supplement form reports for things like adhoc reporting,  cross tab views of your data, your custom management reporting requirements or where it is necessary to "drill into" the data in more depth. There is a separate overview document for key analysis reports
  • Use list reports in special cases where you can't get the result you want from a list view. For example product suppliers are shown on products but don't have their own list view. With list reports you can make a list of all product suppliers and use drag and drop tools to make a two dimensional list of the data you need, even if it is not covered by any existing list view
  • Use email templates with emails or email batches to more effectively communicate with customers, prospects  and suppliers

Ensure you are well trained in and using Analysis report 

    • If you don't know how to use analysis reports you are not getting the best results out of your system.

    • You should be using Readysell's key reports documentation to define most of your reporting requirements and you should be using analysis reports for your custom management reports.

    • You can handle about 90% of your new report requests yourself if you know how to use analysis reports. Analysis reports can answer most of your business questions, but only if you know how to drive them

    • Allow a few hours for analysis report training. This will probably be the most productive training time you could invest in. Analysis allows you to drill into, to slice and dice your data just about any way you can think of

    • Analysis reports can answer over 90% of your custom management reporting requirements without you having to have new reports built. Every Readysell user should invest about three hours training time in learning analysis reports. You must know what you are after before you start. Review your understanding of the business, your current processes and your existing reports. Then start your Analysis reports studies with at least an outline of an understanding of the information you need. If you are not using analysis reports, make sure you start doing so as soon as possible.

    • While analysis reports can't do direct comparisons between months. You can get the same result by filtering your analysis report to only show the months you want, then drop the month (period) into the columns area on the right of the report. The days/weeks/months you have selected will show right next to each other. Allowing you to do all the comparisons you like.

    • Analysis reports can eliminate all the analysis spreadsheets you are currently building from data contained in your system. If you are analysing prices, contracts, stock, sales people etc.  manually, stop doing so! Analysis reports can give you better information and save you hours of time.

    • Analysis reports give you greater flexibility to drill into your data then any other type of report but can be harder to use. Analysis allows you build a three dimensional view of your data by dragging, for example, columns like sales person and customer to the left of a list, month to the top and sales value to the middle. This allows almost endless report possibilities without custom programming.

    • Best practice is to use form reports for standard requirements and analysis reports where customisation or deeper analysis is required.  Unless you are using both form and analysis reports, you are probably not getting the most from your Readysell system. 

 

Read the key report guides

  • Readysell's user guide contains a list of key reports. Review the list, there are probably reports there that answer issues you have not even thought off

  • Watch the report demo movies

Make a list of the key reports from your old system

  • There will be some reports from your old system that you use all the time. Make a list of those reports, not every report on your old system, just the ones you use frequently
  • Compare your list of key reports from your old system with the key reports in Reaydsell. 
  • Discuss with Readysell any cases where you have a key report from your old system that you can't find an equivalent for in Readysell

Customise your invoices using only the existing invoice reports if possible

  • Readysell's invoice layout has a lot of customisation options. Make sure you know the options and put them to use in your business
  • Try to use the input report customisation options on sales invoices, product labels etc. Try to avoid making your own custom versions of form reports if you can help it. As they may be broken by future upgrades and having Readysell repair them may result in a charge

 

Use view variants as reports

  • You can save normal Readysell list views and use them instead of reports. Consider adding subtotals to lists then copying them around to users in each role within your business
  • Lists give you the answer you need right away using live data without having to change screens. Half your reports should be done through lists, then just export the result to excel if you have to

 

Document your reporting procedure

  • Your business will run better if your record which reports are run regularly and who gets them. 
  • Review your report procedure every three months. Perhaps business needs have changed and you can scrap a report or need to add a new one

 

If you are not using those reports regularly you are not getting the most from your system

  • Profit and loss report should be run and reviewed each month. Look for changes in revenue and costs over time
  • Slow moving products report, keep on reducing the dollar value invested in slow moving products
  • Automatic reporting to customers informing them if their balance is overdue
  • Customers and supplier trial balances should be reviewed at least once a month, check in particular the oldest balances
  • Machine profitability report if you use service, you need to identify the machines that are losing you money
  • Analysis sales person sales by customer by category
  • Contract price performance report monthly, keep an eye on contract performance. In particular look for fluctuations in gp% from contracts over time