How Many Customers Owe You Over $5K For Over 90 Days? - "Focus Reports"

You have a loan payment or a big payroll coming up. The cash is not there. You pick up your AR Aging Report, to look at what should be collected and it's 100 pages long. You feel a migraine coming on.

I see this problem everyday. Business owners and managers flooded with computer reports that give them to much or to little information.

Take a simple but essential report like your AR aging report. Given the default paramters, most software packages will just happily print out everything. There has got to be a better way. And, there is.

So ask the question, make the demand, I want an AR aging report that will give me only a list of all customers that owe me over $5,000 for over 90 Days?  While you're at it give me their phone numbers and date of last payment.

If your accounting person delivers this report, smile and be grateful and start thinking about the next streamlined report you need. If you they can't produce such a report it is time to make some changes. It is something your business software should produce for you.

I call them "FOCUS Reports." Documents that are Filtered, Organized, Concise, Useful, & Simple. They are less than 5 pages long in landscape, not 100 pages in portrait.

You need these kind of reports in all aspects of your buisness so here is what I would suggest.

Don't expect this report to be "out of the box."

Software publishers create their products for the broadest common denominator. They try and please the greatest number of people, but in doing so often please the fewest. In fairness every business I have seen, and they number in the 1,000's, has a different take on how their reports should look.
A little learning goes a long way

On the hand, most software packages today do have the tools included to create reports that are filtered, and sorted the way you want. You just have to learn or have someone learn how to use the advanced reporting functions in your software.  Take a class, read the manual or call you technology partner and get some help. An investment in this will pay off in no time.

If training does not help it is time to change your software. Check out this How to Choose and Accounting System.

Better Reporting Tools Are Available 

Many people say to me "Crystal Reports, that is so hard to learn."
I admit that some of the reporting tools that major software publishers use are down right confusing and hard to learn. Crystal Reports the most widely used report tool is for most people daunting and others down right terrifying. Luckily there is an answer. It is called Stonefield Query and its terrific. Their slogan is that they "Take the Mystery Out of Business Reporting." They live up to this claim. Watch a video here Stonefield Demos.

Sage MAS 90, 200 and MAS 500 as well as the latest version of Sage Accpac, 5.6, now have built in Business Inteligence Tools that are easier to use.

Have questions? Contact me by e-mail pconway@netatwork.com