Changing the Body of an A/R Report
A printed report consists of several elements: the title, the company logo, column or field headings, and the body of the report. The body contains the customer name, customer account number, or other information that makes up the actual report. You can control the information that prints in the body by changing the sorts or limits set up in the report selector. You can also add information to the body by adding detail lines to the selector.
Note: To change the body of a report, you should have a good understanding of report structure. For more information, see About Report Structure.
Once you type A at the Do You Want to Change All message, you can change sorts, limits, or detail lines.
The Change Sorts prompt appears, along with the default sorts for your report. To make no changes to the sort selections and add no new sorts for this report, press Enter. Go to Step 9.
To change the sorts for this report, type Y.
The Fill Field Completely message appears. Now you can specify a sort. To specify a sort, enter the number corresponding to the sort order. For example, to make the customer's name the primary sort for the report, enter 1s in the Name field. Remember that A/R reports must always have customer account number and invoice number as the last two sorts.
Note: You don't have to enter the sorts in order. For example, you can fill the Acct # field with 3s before you fill the Name field with 1s.
The portion of the field that you fill with the sort number is the portion that is used for sorting. To sort by the entire customer account number, for example, completely fill the field with 1s. If you only partially fill a field with characters, only that portion of the field is used to sort the report.
Note: You can enter the same sort number in more than one field. If you do, the fields are used together as a combined sort. The two sorts are treated as one long sort. Suppose you enter 1s in both the Name and City fields. The customer name and the customer's city sort alphabetically as one.
One common use of duplicate sorts is the Date field. The Date field is actually three fields -- the month, the day, and the year. To make them all one comprehensive date field, specify the same sort number in all three fields.
Specify the sorts for this report. To skip a field, press Tab. To clear a field, space through it, then press Tab. To skip a sort group, press Enter.
At the Break Page On Sort message, you can force a page break for a sort. To begin a new page on the specified sort, type Y. To skip this, press Enter.
At the Ascend or Descend Order On Sort prompt, you can specify whether to sort in ascending or descending order. Ascending sorts words from A to Z, and numbers from lowest to highest. Descending sorts words from Z to A, and numbers from highest to lowest.
Note: All characters, including letters, numbers, and symbols are sorted in the standard ASCII sort order.
For ascending order, press Enter. For descending, type D.
Note: The Break Page On Sort and Ascend or Descend Order On Sort messages repeat for each sort. This lets you set page breaks and order method individually by sort.
There are five Sorts fields just above the print lines. These fields are a quick reference to your responses to the prompts Break Page On Sort and Ascend or Descend Order On Sort. When you have set the page breaks and sort order for the first sort, the information transfers automatically to the Sorts field for that sort number. The first part of the field corresponds to your response to the Break Page prompt. The second part of the field corresponds to your response to the Ascending Or Descending prompt. As you complete the rest of the sorts for this report, you can refer to the Sorts fields as reminders of your specifications for the first sorts.
After you set page breaks and the sort order for each sort specified in a sort group, the cursor moves to the first field in the next record. For each record remaining on the screen, select the sorts, specify the page breaks, and assign the sort orders.
After you set page breaks and sort order for each sort group on the screen, the Do You Wish To Sort From History/Totals prompt appears. As with previous sorts, the history sorts determine the order in which history information prints on the report. For example, if you sort by month-to-date sales, all of the information for each customer is grouped together and printed in alphabetical order according to customers' month-to-date sales. You can also specify page breaks and ascending or descending order for each history sort. (You can specify only five sorts for a report.)
To not sort this report from history and/or totals, press Enter. Go to Step 7.
To sort this report from history and/or totals, type Y.
Use the History/Totals subscreen to set sorts. You can specify sorts in three different sort groups. The first is the Shipping Manifest Record. It comes from the Customer window's Buyers/Manifest tab. It contains the Deliveries MTD through Instructions fields. For more information about these fields, see About Customer History.
Note: The Starting Credit Limit $ field is not part of the Shipping Manifest Record. However, it appears with this sort group. The Start Limit in the Customer Credit tab. For details, see Customer Window Definitions.
The second sort group on the screen is the Customer Tax Record. It comes from the Tax District window. It contains the Location through Cap By Item fields.
The third sort group consists of current accounts receivable balances, monthly totals, and annual totals. These fields come from the Customer History window. For details, see Customer History Window Definitions.
You can sort information using A/R fields. You can also specify page breaks and ascending or descending order for each A/R sort. At the Do You Wish To Sort From A/R File prompt, specify whether to sort using A/R fields. To skip it, press Enter. Go to Step 9.
To sort this report using A/R fields, type Y.
Use the A/R Selections Subscreen to set sorts. To specify a sort, enter the number corresponding to the sort order. (See Step 1.)
When the Change Limits prompt appears, the screen's fields are filled with question marks. If you don't want to change the limit selections for this report, press Enter. Go to Step 15.
To change the limit selections for this report, type Y.
After you specify to change limits, the Entering Limits From prompt appears. To set limits for the report, enter the beginning range in the appropriate field. For example, to limit the report to include only account numbers 1000 to 2000, enter the beginning range of 1000 in the Acct # field.
You can set as many limits as you need. A record must meet all of the limits you set to be included on the report.
To skip a field, press Tab. To skip to the next sort group, press Enter.
The Entering Limits To prompt appears. Tab to each field that you selected as a beginning limit and enter the ending value of the range. The above example limits the report to include only account numbers 1000 to 2000. To specify the ending value of the range, enter 2000 in the Acct # field.
Note: The fields that you selected as limits display the beginning ranges that you entered in the From fields.
To limit the report to a single piece of information, tab past the To field to accept the same range limit that you entered in the From field.
After specifying the ending limits, press Enter through the remaining sort groups.
The Do You Wish To Limit From History/Totals prompt appears. To not limit the report from history and/or totals, press Enter. Go to Step 13.
To limit this report from history and/or totals, type Y. Enter limits the same way you did in the earlier screen.
At the Do You Wish To Limit From A/R Master prompt, specify whether to limit using A/R fields. To skip it, press Enter. Go to Step 15.
To limit this report using A/R fields, type Y.
Use the A/R Selections Subscreen to set limits. Set limits as you did earlier. You can specify limits in the same two groups you used to specify sorts.
At the Add On Detail Fields prompt, you can add information to the report. Each new detail field creates an additional column on the right side of the report. For more information on detail fields, see About Report Structure.
If you don't want to add detail to the report, press Enter. Go to Step 20.
To include additional detail on the report, type Y.
After the format loads, the cursor moves to the Acct # field. At the Fill Field With Characters To Select prompt, fill the field with alphanumeric characters. As with sort fields, the number of characters you enter determines the portion of the field that prints on the report. If you completely fill the field, for example, the entire field prints on the report.
Note: Some detail fields accept only numbers.
For each detail field you add, the Enter Column Text message appears. It lets you specify a heading for the detail field. The text you enter appears on the report as the column heading for this information. To not enter a heading, press Tab.
Note: You can enter up to 30 characters of text. However, the number of characters that actually print on the report is determined by the number of characters you entered in the corresponding detail field. For example, if you enter five characters in the detail field and a 15 character header, only the first five characters of the heading print.
The cursor moves to the next detail field. Select any additional fields by entering characters as described above. To skip a field, tab to the next one.
When you finish selecting detail fields, press Enter until the Do You Wish To Select Fields From History Totals prompt appears. Press Enter to skip it. Go to Step 19.
To add history detail fields to this report, type Y. Select detail fields just as you did earlier.
At the Do You Wish To Select Fields From A/R Master prompt, press Enter to not select A/R detail fields. Go to Step 20.
To add A/R detail fields to the report, type Y. Use the A/R Selections Subscreen to select detail fields.
Header text is a subheading or other descriptive text for the entire report. It prints between the report title and the column headings on the report. For example, if you sort this report to display sales and usage for each salesperson, you might enter CUSTOMER TRIAL BALANCE BY SALESPERSON, CITY, AND ACCOUNT for the heading. This text prints between the title and column headings on the report. You can enter a heading up to 60 characters.
To enter a heading, enter the first 20 characters in the Header Text 1 field. Using the above example, enter CUSTOMER TRIAL BALAN. The Enter Header Text 2 prompt appears. Enter the next 20 characters of your heading in this field. Using the example, enter CE BY SALESPERSON, C. At the Enter Header Text 3 prompt, enter the remaining characters. In the example, you would enter ITY, AND ACCOUNT. If you enter fewer than 20 characters in this field, press Enter.
To not enter a heading, press Enter at the Enter Header Text 1 prompt. Go to Changing the A/R Print Line.
Return to:
Printing a Trial Balance Report (Custom)
Printing Past Due Letters (Custom)
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