Reports
The application has an extensive reporting engine that allows users to see their data in a variety of formats. The reporting engine is accessed via the “Reports” menu option. When the user enters the reporting screen, he/she is presented with three possible reporting directions:
- Job Report – This selection will take the user to the Job Reporting engine which will provide a variety of options for reporting Job related data.
- Category Report – This selection will allow the user to view a variety of reports where expense data is segregated by the different tags associated with data.
- Payment Method Report – This selection will allow the user to view a variety of reports where expense data is segregated by the method of payment used.
Once the initial reporting direction is specified, the user is taken to the report Options screen. The report options screen is where the user begins to tailor the data that he/she wants to include within the report. From this screen the following options are available:
- Date Range – This is a convenient list of common date time ranges. Some of the options within this list are: Last 7 days, Last 14 days, Last 30 days, Last 90 days, Year To Date, and Last Calendar Year. Once an item is selected from this drop down list, the Start and End time will be appropriately set based upon the selection.
- Start – When pressed, this button displays a Calendar for specifying a start of the reporting date range. The Job list will be created based upon the date range specified by this start date.
- End – When pressed, this button displays a Calendar for specifying the end time of the date reporting range. The Job list will be created based upon the date range specified by this end date.
- Clients – The Clients button displays a list of all Clients defined within the system. From here, the user decides which Client's Jobs should be included within the report. The Job list will be created based on the Clients selected within this list.
- Jobs – When the Jobs button is selected, the user is presented with a list of Jobs that are determined based on the following criteria:
- Jobs that are associated with the selected clients.
- Jobs that have expense, mileage, or time entries that intersect the date range defined by the start and end dates.
- CSV Export – When selected, this option will result in the selected job data being reported as CSV export files rather than a PDF report. CSV files are useful when data from the application is desired to be imported into other applications like ExcelTM, QuickenTM, or QuickbooksTM. Note that when this option is selected, the user will only have the email option available. When the application creates CSV files, it creates the following:
- A CSV file that contains all time entries
- A CSV file that contains all mileage entries
- A CSV file that contains all expense entries
- A CSV file that contains all payment entries. This file is only generated if the “Payments?” reporting option is selected.
- A CSV file that contains all time, mileage, expense, and payment information combined. Again, this file will only contain payment information if the “Payments?” reporting option is selected.
- Options – The options button allows the user to specify a number of different reporting preferences. These preferences will be remembered by the application across report generation cycles. The preferences that are available are:
- Include/Exclude – This group of options control whether or not particular items or levels of detail are included within a report.
- Receipts? - This option allows the user to include or exclude receipts from the generated reports. Note that this option is not available when selecting the CSV export option from the main Report Options screen.
- Payments? - This option controls whether or not the application includes payment information within the report that is generated. The idea is that if a report is sent to a client for billing purposes, it may not be desired to include information about payments. This option gives the user the ability to keep payment information out of the generated reports.
- Details? - When this option is selected, raw details of expenses, mileage, and time entries are included within the reports.
- Expense Summary? - This option controls whether or not to include two summaries of the expense data: Breakout by Category (Tag) and Breakout by Payment.
- Exclude Outside Items? - When selected, this option will cause the report to only include items within a job that are within the selected date range. Note that Time Entry items that cross the boundaries of the date range will be included within the report.
- Grouping – This group of options control how items are grouped within reports.
- Combine Jobs? - When selected, and multiple jobs are selected to be included within the report, this option will cause the report to combine the data from the various jobs rather than report the job data segregated by the job.
- Expense Grouping – This option controls how the expense data should be grouped within the report. Options include:
- Date – When specified, expenses will be grouped by date.
- Category – When selected, expenses will be grouped by category (i.e. tag).
- Payment – When selected, expenses will be grouped by the payment that is associated with the expense.
- Other – Other options that will affect reporting.
- Calculate Date Range? - When a report is generated, the date range is shown in the upper right hand corner of the report. This option specifies whether that date range should be the start and end time that was specified within the report options or the actual start and date time calculated from the data within the jobs that are included within the report.
- Receipts Layout – This option gives the user control over the number of receipts that will be displayed across the page of the PDF report. The user has the option to specify up to receipts across a page. Keep in mind that as the number of columns of receipts are displayed, the resolution of each image is decreased.
- Include/Exclude – This group of options control whether or not particular items or levels of detail are included within a report.
Once all options and preferences are tailored to the users choice, the user can choose to Email the reports or View the reports from the Android device. When the Email option is chosen, the reports are generated, and attached to an email that can be sent to whoever the user desires. When the View option is selected, the device is searched for a PDF viewer. If one is available, the report will be displayed to the user. If a viewer is not available on the device, the application will indicate so.