MR Training Manual: 12 Reports and 20 Tips

Need to learn more about Microsoft’s Management Reporter?

 

Never fear, Creating Reports in Management Reporter II is here.

Management Reporter is an incredibly powerful tool, but learning to use it the right way—even with extensive FRx experience—can be really time-consuming.

Background: I wrote the first in the series, Creating Reports in Management Reporter in April 2011. It covers the essentials on how to use Management Reporter and how to create 4 reports: a Trial Balance, Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and Income Statement by Department.

January 2012: I just finished writing Creating Reports in Management Reporter II. It covers 12 more reports and a slew of tips and shortcuts for creating accurate knockout reports.

These are the 12 reports:

  • Trend Profit & Loss (how to column break and repeat descriptions)
  • Rolling 12 Month Profit & Loss (despite crossing a fiscal year)
  • Rolling Quarter Profit & Loss (great for quarter end)
  • Baseline Trial Balance (for overview, tieouts and drilldown)
  • Profit & Loss with % of Sales Columns (plus format tweaks to make reports look better)
  • Budget Variance Profit & Loss (how to get the sign correct in the variance column)
  • Profit & Loss Forecast (how to combine actuals and budget calculate a forecast)
  • P&L by Department (how to use dimension filters)
  • P&L by Department (how to use reporting units and when to use instead of dimension filters)
  • Department List P&L (how to use dimensions to simplify report design)
  • Consolidating Balance Sheet (plus my favorite way to handle eliminations)
  • Transaction Detail (how to use Attributes to get drilldown on steroids)

Plus a couple more can’t-miss chapters:

  • Using Dimension Sets to Ease Maintenance (and how to create summary trees)
  • Top 20 Tips Tricks & Techniques (running multiple reports, row modifiers, calculating an average, autofit, using if/then/else, and 15 more)

Most of these reports are ones that I’ve taught for years in my live onsite classes, but I’ve never really released the how-to’s before.

BTW, if I had to pick the single biggest difference between MR and FRx, it would be the dimension concept. This concept can drive some true design simplifications if you know how to use it. I’ve definitely focused on using dimensions in several areas, beginning in Chapter 1 Setup & Review—Understanding the Dimension Concept, to building a Department List in Chapter 11, to Using Dimension Sets to Ease Maintenance in Chapter 14.

Version: I used Management Reporter version 2.0.1700.66 for this manual. That’s Management Reporter Version 2 Service Pack 2 using the GP 2010 Data Provider. If your ERP is SL or AX, the MR user interface will be the same, and the navigation and concepts will be the same, but the demo data will be different. When you can expect something to be a little different in SL or AX, I mention it.
Prerequisites: Basic MR knowledge, but there’s plenty of review. Less handholding too. But I walk you through getting set up with the 2 row definitions that are used extensively.
iPad: Yes. It looks gorgeous on an iPad.
Format: Downloadable PDF. You can get started immediately.
Cost: $185 per person (unless you’re in Texas—add 8.25% sales tax for a total of $200.26).
Table of Contents: Table of Contents from Creating Reports in Management Reporter II
Length: 264 pages (there are zillions of screenshots).
Money Back Guarantee: Yes.
Additional Support: I can connect and support you remotely on an hourly basis while you’re working on your live reports. One hour minimum at $175 with a credit card.

How to Order: To purchase, add to the secure shopping cart. Credit cards accepted are Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. Check out, and you’ll be taken to a download link where you can either open or save the file. The name on the credit card statement will be ‘Jan Harrigan CPA’. And the cart adds sales tax if you’re in Texas! (FWIW, this site is PCI compliant and I don’t store any credit card information.)

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BTW, in the shopping cart, be sure to use the billing address of the credit card, not necessarily the company address.

Shortcut your learning curve and create impressive new reports with Creating Reports in Management Reporter II.

Cheers—Jan