Anyone who has utilized Dynamics Great Plains (GP) has gone through many different Financial Report Writer packages and the decision on what to do when looking at upgrading their GP. It is that time again for users.
Now, the newest Financial Report Writer that comes with Dynamics Great Plains is Jet Express. This will replace both FRx and Management Reporter as the Financial Report Writer going forward. An added bonus with this is, if you are not ready to upgrade your Dynamics GP but are unhappy with FRx or Management Reporter, you can still upgrade to Jet Express without any changes to your GP version because the license for Jet Express comes with your GP license. This solves one question that many users have, “If I move to Jet Express, how much is it going to cost?”
The next question many users have is, “How long is it going to take to transition my current reports into Jet Express?” When Management Reporter was introduced, there was a wizard that took the reports from FRx and put them into Management Reporter. This was available because the difference between Management Reporter and FRx was not that large. Unfortunately, there is nothing like this available for the transition to Jet Express. Why you might ask? There are many reasons. The largest being that Jet Express is an Excel based Report Writer and with the platform being different, there is no easy way to transition your reports into Jet Express. However, here is a quick way to transition your FRx or Management Reporter Reports into Jet Express:
- Connect to Jet Express in a new Excel work book.
- Run your report in FRx and export into Excel (run both the summary and account detail so your report will have two tabs.)
- Copy the summary level of your report into the Jet Express blank work book.
- Use the Account tab of your report to build out the rows in your Jet Report.
- Build the columns in your Jet Report blank work book.
- Save your workbook.
This is not as fast as the Wizard, however, it does allow you to copy and paste instead of rebuilding the entire report. When you are doing this, it is always best to look at the logic behind how your reports are built, and if they are setup to capture the data in the most effective way.
Jet Express also comes with 20 predefined Report Financial Templates that users can use to replace existing financial reports.
At the end of the day, when I am asked as a consultant if someone should move to Jet Express or stick with Management Reporter, my comments are always the same. Jet Express is an Excel based report writer, and as an Accountant that does a majority of work in Excel, it is nice to build dynamic reports using excel. Also, when looking at a change in reporting software, it always forces users to evaluate the reports that are being used and a chance to consolidate them. I am always up for change when it is something that can make my day easier and better.
Want more information pertaining to Jet Reports, Management Reporter, or other Financial Report Writers? Contact our consultants at info@ktlsolutions.com or by calling 301.360.0001.
