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Financial reports

The Finance One Search facility is probably the best way to find a specific report in F1. Suppose you want to see what's available by way of cost centre reports. From F1's main menu, click on Search. In the search window, type "cost centre" (without the quotes). F1 will then show you all the menu items which contain the words "cost centre". If you want to run a report from the list, either:

1. Single-click on the item you want, then click on the Menu button. That will take you back to the F1 menu from where you can run the report. The advantage with this method is that you get to see precisely where to find the report in F1's menus in future.
2. Double-click on the item to run the report directly from the Search list.

In general, there are two types of reports that can be run from F1's menus.

XLOne Reports

XlOne is functionality new in version 10. Basically, it is Microsoft Excel with a special add-in that enables users to design, write and run Excel spreadsheets which read data direct from the Finance One database. With XLOne a user can therefore design custom reports showing financial data in ways not necessarily available from standard F1 reports. Training in XLOne is available - see the F1 training page.

XLOne is the preferred type of report for F1, for the following reasons -

• XLOne is relatively simple to learn since it is basically Excel, knowledge of which is widespread throughout the University
• It is in a format which is easy to propagate - any person in the University can open a speadsheet

However, not all reports can be written in XLOne. The current version of F1 (10.0) cannot be used to produce transaction reports, nor reports that cross ledgers - for example, outstanding debtors by cost centre. Chart of Accounts reports are another class of reports that cannot be produced with XLOne.

Crystal Reports

Crystal is still the only reporting methodology that can be used to produce complex reports. It is much more flexible and robust than XLOne - any financial data contained within Finance One can be produced with Crystal. However, writing Crystal reports requires a skill level beyond that of the average user, and detailed knowledge of the F1 database structure is necessary in order to find where data are stored.

 

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