Financials Transaction Lists and Report Writer Reports - Introduction

The ability to provide meaningful information in a suitable and readable format is a vital element of any financial solution. SunSystems offers a number of reporting tools to cater for the variety of reports that are required.

Note:  All SunSystems reports are produced by the SunSystems Reporting functionality. They are printed or displayed using Report Manager. The general steps required to print, view or store a report are described in 'Running a Report'.

The Types of Financials Reports

There are four classes of reports in SunSystems:

Static Data Reports

Static data reports list information about static data records. For example chart of accounts listings, currency code lists and so on. These reports can be selected from the SunSystems menu, or produced by selecting the Report option on the corresponding static data function. These reports are explained in separate sections beneath the 'Financial Static Data Reports' topic in the Financials Administration Help.

Note:  Although the end user has no control over the report content at run time, the report is still produced so an authorized user can use the Report Designer functionality to alter the format of the report.

Standard System Reports

All of the SunSystems processing functions produce standard audit trail reports. For example, the Corporate Allocations reports, Ledger Import report and so on. These reports are produced automatically by the appropriate function and cannot be run independently.

Note:  These reports are always requested via a SunSystems function and so a document format is always required for each of these reports. However, the reports are still produced so an authorized user can use the Report Designer functionality to alter the format of the report.

User Definable Reports

SunSystems offers a number of user definable reporting options, each one designed to fulfil specific requirements.

As an end user, you cannot control the appearance of these reports, but you do have control over some aspects of the reports depending on the report's parameters. For example, the report parameters may allow you to select the accounts or codes to be included in the report, and the accounting periods required.

The user definable reports can be categorized as follows:

  • Financial or management reports, including trial balances and journal listings
  • Tax reports
  • Consolidation reports
  • Documents, including cheques and remittances
  • Audit trail reports
  • Ageing reports
  • Fixed Asset Register reports.
Note:  Many of these reports are requested via a SunSystems function and so a document format is always required for each of these reports. However, the reports are still produced so an authorized user can use the Report Designer functionality to alter the format of the report.

Financial/Management Reports

SunSystems provides three financial report writers: Financial Analysis, Financial Statements and Financial Tables. Each offers a variety of features that assist you in preparing reports:

  • Financial Analysis is a quick and easy to use report writer. It provides an analysis or view of SunSystems information, selected and sorted to your specification. It allows you to list transactions included in your system.
  • Financial Statements is similar to Financial Analysis but provides more control over the layout and content of the report. It is used mainly to present management information such as profit and loss, balance sheet, and similar reports.
  • Financial Tables is similar to Financial Statements in that you have a high degree of control over the presentation of information on a report. However, it has the additional feature of allowing more flexibility in specifying the contents of columns on a report. A Financial Tables report can be likened to a matrix.

You must define the reports you require from these financial report writers. Once a report has been defined it can be produced at any time.

Note:  Many of these reports are requested via a SunSystems function and so a document format is always required for each of these reports. However, the reports are still produced so an authorized user can use the Report Designer functionality to alter the format of the report.