Reporting in SAP Business One
SAP Business Reporting allows you to quickly organize reports using flexible report parameters and much more. Many small businesses struggle with the complexities of generating accurate and timely financial reports from company data. Few report generation tools have both the ability to gather the correct financial data and the flexibility needed to put that data into a useful format. Businesses are often forced to export data into various applications and then piece that data together to create reports that are out-of-date the moment they are created. The SAP Business One ERP and business management solution is an integrated business management solution designed specifically for small businesses. With it you can create up-to-the-minute reports with ease. You can use the XL Reporter tool (or optional Excelcius) to create management reports, or “dashboards,” that provide snapshots of key performance indicators such as sales bookings, year-to-date revenue, accounts receivable, and open orders. And you can use Crystal Reports – the worldwide standard for reporting – for layouts, reports, customisation and distribution. You can quickly organize reports using flexible report parameters. You can schedule report generation and define automated distribution to selected recipients. In addition, you can determine the format in which reports are distributed: as email or hard copy or in other formats.
SAP Business One Reporting Features
- Report creation and customization – Access data from multiple sources, create new reports, or customize existing ones in a variety of layouts with minimal IT overhead
- Report viewing – Enable powerful visualizations and analytics and interactivity using integrated tools such as Adobe Flash and Adobe Flex
- Publishing and distribution – Export reports to electronic formats that best fit your business needs, and deliver them either over the Web or embedded in other applications, including portals, while preserving security
SAP Business One Reporting Benefits
- Faster and better decision making – thanks to timely and accurate reports based on critical company data across financials, sales, customers, inventory, service, production, and operations
- Cost savings – resulting from reduction in time and effort required to generate reports and reduced dependence on IT
- Improved access – to critical business information any way people require it and at any time
Integrating Crystal Reports with SAP Business One
The SAP Business One solution, together with the Crystal Reports® offerings from the SAP Business- Objects™ portfolio, delivers compelling reporting functionality and information access to small businesses. With these offerings, small businesses can get up-to-date intelligence to drive decision making.
COMPREHENSIVE REPORTING TO DRIVE SMALL BUSINESS SUCCESS
Interactive Reports with SAP Business One and Crystal Reports
Converting raw business data into meaningful information that can be acted upon remains an on-going challenge for most small businesses. Few reporting tools have the functionality not only to gather data from appropriate systems but also to transform that data into a format that is useful for a business user. As a result, businesses are often compelled to cobble together reports from data that has been imported in an ad hoc manner from different applications. Additionally, since most small businesses have very limited IT resources, they constantly look for ways to make it easier for their employees to create, manage, and distribute reports.
The Crystal Reports® family of offerings from the SAP® BusinessObjects™ solution portfolio is a powerful and dynamic reporting solution that helps users design, explore, visualize, and deliver compelling reports and information across the enterprise network (see table). With complete integration with the Microsoft Office products and a focus on data security, Crystal Reports allows you to choose from a variety of report formats and to control access to information displayed. Together, SAP Business One and Crystal Reports provide comprehensive reporting functionality that allows you to get crucial insights into all parts of your business.
Get Accurate Reports with Integrated Reporting and Analytics
With the integration of Crystal Reports and SAP Business One, you can launch the latest release of Crystal Reports from within the SAP Business One application. You can then access data from SAP Business One and from associated applications from SAP software solution partners.
You can install the integration add-on using the standard mechanism for installing add-ons and can access it from the main menu in SAP Business One. Once installation is complete, you can publish any Crystal Reports .rpt file on the associated menu area in SAP Business One and run the reports from any SAP Business One client. You can create groups, assign users to the groups, and then specify access rights that allow only certain people to run the reports.
Create Comprehensive Reports with Stunning Visualizations
On-Report Scenario Modeling with SAP Business One and Crystal Reports
SAP Business One and Crystal Reports allow you to create new reports and customize existing ones using a variety of presentation formats that include interactive drill-down functionality and sophisticated formatting. Together, the offerings provide reporting for all business processes supported by SAP Business One, including accounting, sales, purchasing, production, inventory, service, and management.
You can create advanced report designs and visualizations by adding dynamic charts, graphics, and even video files to your reports. Adobe Flash offers a wide variety of flexible data presentation options. You can quickly embed Flash (SWF) files into your reports for compelling and information-rich reports.
You can customize reports by adding standard SAP Business One data fields or any user-defined fields to a report layout. You can also attach messages with personalized information, helping to increase reading rates. Reports then can be exported into electronic formats that best fit your specific business needs, including Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, RTF, and XML. You can print, fax, or e-mail them and also save them securely to, allowing you to access them anywhere and at any time. Comprehensive security features help ensure that your employees view and access only the data that they are authorized to access.
In addition, you can download the viewer for Crystal Reports, enabling you to interactively explore Crystal Reports files, with or without a network connection, in client meetings or on a business trip. With this flexibility, you can stay in touch with your business wherever you are.
Maximize Productivity with Interactive Reports
On-report sorting, filtering, and reformatting allow you to explore information interactively without requiring the database. This means that you can answer business questions faster and with fewer reports, significantly reducing report proliferation and dependence on IT. For example, you can access the specific report information you need in seconds by selecting the desired data view from the report viewer’s parameter panel.
In addition, you can improve your operational efficiency by integrating reporting with existing processes and executing business decisions from within reports. By embedding Adobe Flex
(SWF) applications, you can integrate operational workflows in your reports to perform tasks such as database write-back. Use-case scenarios may include clicking the “approve” or “reject” button on an expense report or providing instant feedback via a comments box. You might also click the “buy” button on a report that links to an online store and enables you to place an order directly from the report. This innovative feature makes static reports actionable and increases end-user productivity.
By integrating Xcelsius® Engage software in your Crystal Reports, you can perform what-if scenario modelling directly in the report and visualize the potential outcome of your decisions. This strong decision support tool delivers answers to multiple business questions in the same report, thereby reducing report proliferation in your organization.
Expand the Scope by Adding Crystal Reports Server
By adding Crystal Reports Server software, you can expand the scope of your application and enhance the value to your business in many ways. Crystal Reports Server provides all the data access and features of Crystal Reports in a managed, secured server environment.
You can automate the production of reports at a pre-scheduled time and set up automated delivery using e-mail or print, or by saving to a shared directory on the server or directly to the Crystal Reports Server business intelligence portal. This flexibility allows you to manage and share your reports securely without depending on IT.
Crystal Reports Server adds security at both the report level and the data level. Reports and folders are visible only to certain users or groups. Data level security allows the same report to show different rows of data to different users when the report is based on the semantic layer. Crystal Reports Server can integrate with the Microsoft Windows Active Directory and with Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)–based security for single sign on convenience.
Take advantage of the power of Crystal Reports Server to deliver information to your employees via an integrated Web-based user portal. By utilizing the Crystal Reports Server business intelligence portal, which is a complete, production-ready Web portal, you can deploy the solution as a Web-based information system and enable your employees to access, view, and interact with reports securely over the Web.