One of the reasons we moved to FE in February was because we were assured we would like the reporting functions in FE better then AFN. And seeing how we have been using queries and exports to create an Access database to make reports the way we needed them we were all for this. But we still don't have the capabilities we would like even just being able to sort a report by project id and project attribute or having a project attribute on and income statement. I know that there is an optional module out there that you can purchase to do better reports, but why have to spend more money. Have any of the other users had problems getting what they want on these canned reports and has any one ever talked with BB about trying to get what they need on reports?

I don't find much improvement. There are some reports I can use right off the printer, but if I want to get in depth, I export to excel - do all the custom formatting and align the titles and rows by moving cells or columns, then manipulate the data the way I need to see it for analytical purposes. I am sure I don't use all the capabilities the FE has, specially with respect to attributes, but overall, I have not found them particularly useful in our shop. I don't like that I now have to run one report at a time instead of being able to have several running at once.

We've had FE since 2003 and I have also asked these kinds of questions. With the use of Queue I wanted the report header or subheader to say "March 2007" if the report was created for that period, not an option (I wanted to use Queue to send the reports without having to change the subheader each month). I also wanted project attributes in a subheader, that wasn't an option, but the estimate to have someone write a report started at about $4,000. Considering I already pay more than that per year for maintenance I just couldn't justify more money spent on keeping the books.

I thought that there must be more people out there besides me who would like better reporting services. I don't understand why even give us some of these things like atrtributes if we can't use them fully to our benefit in all aspects of the system. I think that BB needs to take a better look what their customers need in a system. I am only asking for a few little things to be added not for the whole system to be over written.

I hear ya! I think it's crazy that the financial statements can't automatically put the period date within the header section. All other accounting packages I have ever used automatically put on the income statement "For the 4 months ended April 2007", etc. I have to do this manually for every variation in statements that I run in FE! Maybe this will change with the new release that is coming out at the end of the month?!?!?! Michael B. Zumbaugh Vice President, Finance & Administration Greater Lansing Convention & Visitors Bureau 1223 Turner Street, Ste 200 Lansing, MI 48906 517-377-1403

I agree with the automatic date. It is frustrating when after printing the financial statements that you noticed that you forgot to change the date. It would be very nice if the software would automatically change the date. Rebecca

My current work around for the date is the page footer states: “This report includes all activity for the most recently closed month." It also has the date printed, but we still get some of the project managers who state "I can't tell which period I am looking at."

I also agree that there should be something we could put in the headings that would read the date(s) of one or more of the columns in the report. The workaround that I use for financial statements is that I stopped putting date references in the report heading (other than the fiscal year of the activity being reported), and instead use the column headings to show the date(s) for the reports. Use ctrl+enter to create multiple lines in the column heading while choosing {start date} and {end date} to have the date range for the column display in the column heading. As I recall, you couldn't do that in AFN. [i]--- Edited at 5/16/2007 10:36:01 AM by Frank Gatti[/i]

I use the END DATE function in the column header. By making the columns automated, it pulls the information in each time.

Sometimes I print some of the report criteria on the first page to help identify report attributes and projects.