Reports and Report Selection

Document Creator ships with various document reports, built-in/extension-provided layouts and a template label translations package. These reports can be easily set up using the Apportunix Report Selection page.

Apportunix Report Selection

The Apportunix Report Selection page allows you to manage all report selections in a single page:

Note that you can sort on the Usage Type field on this page to group everything from the same category together (e.g., Sales, Purchase, ...). The report usages that are added by extensions get the "Extension" usage type (at least, by default).

Tip

You can use the Email Body Layout Name field to choose a Document Creator or Word layout from the Report Layouts page to use as template for the email body of your emails.

N.B. Selecting layouts from the Report Layouts page is not possible by default in Business Central. The Microsoft Base Application still uses the legacy/deprecated Custom Report Layout table for selecting layouts and e-mail body layouts in (custom) report selections. This is a major inconsistency that is solved with the Apportunix Report Selection page.

Tip

Please follow the Tour for instructions on how to use this page. You can retake the tour by clicking on the title of the page.

Some additional clarification on the most important actions can be found in the following sub-sections.

Set Document Creator Defaults

You can use the Set Document Creator Defaults action to set the available Document Creator report objects to their respective report selection. This allows for a very quick setup, i.e., in this way the current company will use all report objects provided with Document Creator and their respective default layout or usser-selected layout.

Refresh

You can use the Refresh action to refresh the page with the most recent settings. However, please note that the changes you made on this page will be aborted.

Save

You can use the Save action to save your changes manually. Your changes will be saved automatically when you close this page.

Restore Defaults

You can always choose to restore the report selections back to the Business Central defaults using the Restore Defaults action. This will delete all report selections and return the report selections to their defaults.

Report Selections

The Report Selections action is a record-scoped action that allows you to open the respective report selection page for the usage of the selected report selection. For example, if you have selected a "S.Invoice" report selection record, then this action will open the Report Selection – Sales page and will also set the usage filter to "Invoice" when the page is opened. On that page you can edit the detailed settings for the report selection.

Note

This Report Selections action will open the respective page, initialized with/filtered on the selected usage, only if the page supports this.

Also, the action can only open the respective report selection page for extension-provided usages when this is implemented by the extension publisher.

Business Rel. Layout Selections

The Business Rel. Layout Selections action is a record-scoped action that allows you to open the Business Rel. Layout Selections action for the usage of the selected report selection.

1. In this page you have an overview of all business relations that have custom report/layout selections for a specific usage! (In the screenshot you see the custom sales order selections.) Normally you would need to first navigate to the customer/vendor card to view the selections per customer.
2. This page has a Copy from Report Selection action to easily copy the 'main' settings to the selected record.
3. You can specify an Email Body Layout Name and Layout Name for a customer/vendor specifically. You can also select Document Creator layouts for both of these, just like on the Apportunix Report Selection page.

Report Layouts

This is a record-scoped action that opens the Report Layouts page filtered to the report object of the selected report selection record. For example, if the report selection record specifies that report 11249662 “Sales – Invoice” should be used, then this action will open the Report Layouts page only showing the layouts for this report object:

Reports

Document Creator provides a set of reports and layouts which cover the requirements of Small- to Midsized Businesses significantly better than the standard reports. These include reports for sales, purchase, reminders/finance charge, transfer, service, assembly, warehouse, and many more documents.

The reports already offer a complete dataset that cover the needs for most users and even then, you can use the Dataset Extensions feature to add new columns, data items and translatable labels, all by yourself, directly from the Business Central web client, using data from any table, without developing additional report or reportextension objects.

The extensions provides reports for the following documents/usages in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central:

Usage Type	Document	Usage ID	Usage	Report ID	Report Caption
Sales	Sales - Quote	0	S.Quote	11249660	Sales - Quote
Sales	Sales - Order Confirmation	1	S.Order	11249661	Sales - Order Confirmation
Sales	Sales - Invoice	2	S.Invoice	11249662	Sales - Invoice
Sales	Sales - Credit Memo	3	S.Cr.Memo	11249663	Sales - Credit Memo
Sales	Sales - Blanket Order	20	S.Blanket	11249667	Sales - Blanket Order
Sales	Sales - Return Order Confirmation	36	S.Return	11249665	Sales - Return Order Confirmation
Sales	Sales - Shipment	38	S.Shipment	11249664	Sales - Shipment
Sales	Sales - Return Receipt	39	S.Ret.Rcpt.	11249666	Sales - Return Receipt
Sales	Sales - Work Order	40	S.Work Order	11249670	Sales - Work Order
Sales	Sales - Picklist	53	S.Order Pick Instruction	11249669	Sales - Picklist
Sales	Sales - Draft Invoice	88	S.Invoice Draft	11249668	Sales - Draft Invoice
Sales	Sales - Pro Forma Invoice	89	Pro Forma S. Invoice	11249671	Sales - Pro Forma Invoice
Purchase	Purchase - Quote	5	P.Quote	11249680	Purchase - Quote
Purchase	Purchase - Order	6	P.Order	11249681	Purchase - Order
Purchase	Purchase - Invoice	7	P.Invoice	11249682	Purchase - Invoice
Purchase	Purchase - Credit Memo	8	P.Cr.Memo	11249683	Purchase - Credit Memo
Purchase	Purchase - Receipt	9	P.Receipt	11249684	Purchase - Receipt
Purchase	Purchase - Return Shipment	10	P.Ret.Shpt.	11249686	Purchase - Return Shipment
Purchase	Purchase - Blanket Order	21	P.Blanket	11249687	Purchase - Blanket Order
Purchase	Purchase - Return Order	37	P.Return	11249685	Purchase - Return Order
Reminder/Finance Charge	Reminder	15	Reminder	11249721	Reminder
Reminder/Finance Charge	Issued Finance Charge Memo	16	Fin.Charge	11249720	Issued Finance Charge Memo
Inventory	Transfer Order	26	Inv1	11249740	Transfer Order
Inventory	Transfer Shipment	27	Inv2	11249742	Transfer Shipment
Inventory	Transfer Receipt	28	Inv3	11249741	Transfer Receipt
Inventory	Assembly Order	51	Asm.Order	11249730	Assembly Order
Inventory	Posted Assembly Order	52	P.Asm.Order	11249731	Posted Assembly Order
Job	Job Quote	87	Job Quote	11249750	Job Quote
Service	Service - Quote	29	SM.Quote	11249700	Service - Quote
Service	Service - Order Confirmation	30	SM.Order	11249701	Service - Order Confirmation
Service	Service - Invoice	31	SM.Invoice	11249702	Service - Invoice
Service	Service - Credit Memo	32	SM.Credit Memo	11249703	Service - Credit Memo
Service	Service - Contract	34	SM.Contract	11249707	Service - Contract
Service	Service - Shipment	42	SM.Shipment	11249704	Service - Shipment
Service	Service - Draft Invoice	N.A.	N.A.	11249708	Service - Draft Invoice
Service	Service Item Worksheet	N.A.	N.A.	11249706	Service Item Worksheet
Service	Service - Pick List	N.A.	N.A.	11249709	Service - Picklist
Service	Service - Pro Forma Invoice (Posted Shipment)	N.A.	N.A.	11249705	Service - Pro Forma Invoice (Posted Shipment)

Usage Type	Document	Warehouse Usage ID	Warehouse Usage	Report ID	Report Caption
Warehouse	Put-Away List	0	Put-away	11249766	Warehouse Activity Put-Away List
Warehouse	Pick List	1	Pick	11249764	Warehouse Activity Pick List
Warehouse	Movement List	2	Movement	11249765	Warehouse Activity Movement List
Warehouse	Inventory Put-away	3	Invt. Put-away	11249766	Warehouse Activity Put-Away List
Warehouse	Inventory Pick List	4	Invt. Pick	11249764	Warehouse Activity Pick List
Warehouse	Inventory Movement List	5	Invt. Movement	11249765	Warehouse Activity Movement List
Warehouse	Receipt	6	Receipt	11249762	Warehouse Receipt
Warehouse	Shipment	7	Shipment	11249760	Warehouse Shipment
Warehouse	Posted Receipt	8	Posted Receipt	11249763	Posted Warehouse Receipt
Warehouse	Posted Shipment	9	Posted Shipment	11249761	Posted Warehouse Shipment

Import Translations Template

The translations template package can be found under the Downloads for "Document Creator" (in the dedicated folder "Document Creator" | "Downloads" | "Translations") that can be accessed via the Apportunix website.

To import the translations for the Document Creator reports, please follow these steps:

1. Open the Document Creator Translations page.

2. Invoke the Import Translations action.

   

3. Select the Document Creator Translations - TEMPLATE.zip file, and wait for the import to complete.

4. The template translations have now been imported.

Report Settings

On the Document Creator Setup page there is a Reports section available with settings for the Document Creator reports.

Default Date Text Format

The Default Date Text Format setting specifies the text format to use for the report columns containing Date fields. The default is set to format '4' which displays the date with the month fully written out.

In the Document Creator reports you will find both normal Date columns, but also DateText columns provided in the dataset. The Date columns contain the dates with the DateTime datatype while the DateText columns contain the dates as a string/text. You can use the DateText columns when you want dates as text and want them to be translated appropriately, e.g., a Sales Invoice for a French customer should have the dates as text translated to French.

Report-Specific Settings

In the Report Settings part, you can specify settings for individual Document Creator reports.

First off, you can set the Date Text Format to use, which overrules the Default Date Text Format setting for a report specifically.

And secondly, you can enable the Load Item Pictures setting, to load the item pictures for the report, which is disabled by default for all reports due to performance considerations.

Report Substitutions

In the Report Substitutions part, you can specify report substitutions: demand report X is to be replaced by report Y whenever report X runs.

This can be used to replace the reports for document types that do not have a document report selection in Business Central, such as the Service Item Worksheet. You can replace the original Service Item Worksheet report by the Document Creator Service Item Worksheet by setting up the appropriate report substitution.

Caution

There are some exceptions to when reports can be substituted by another report, e.g., when a report is invoked via a page variable (which can be when a report requires initialization via (an) external procedure(s)). Please see Substituting Reports for an overview of the scenarios in which it is possible to substitute one report for another.

Adhering to Legal Requirements

Please note that the built-in/extension-provided report layouts are set up to meet global requirements as much as possible. However, depending on where you do business, you may need to adhere to additional legal requirements and adjust your report layouts accordingly.

Intra-Community Delivery (EU)

If your company sells and/or exports goods to companies settled in other countries in the European Union, then this is known as "Intra-Community Delivery/Supply" (N.B., the customer should have a valid EU VAT Registration number). For this type of delivery, the "Reverse Charge" VAT Calculation Type should apply, which means that a 0% VAT rate applies but will not be charged (i.e., please check your "VAT Posting Setup" in Business Central carefully). However, on your invoices it is required that you state that an "Intra-Community Supply" applies, e.g.:

VAT zero-rated intra-community supply of goods following article 138 Directive 2006/112/EC

Additionally, both VAT Registration Nos. (from seller and customer) should be visible on the invoices as well.

To add the text for intra-community deliveries you can use the VAT Clauses functionality in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central:

1. First set up your VAT clauses in the VAT Clauses page. Also, set up the required translations for the text accordingly.

   

2. Then, link the VAT clause in the VAT Posting Setup to the records where the intra-community supply applies, using the VAT Clause Code field.

   

3. Ensure the VAT Clause descriptions are added and visible on your document layouts.

As an alternative, you can use the data columns that the Document Creator reports facilitate for this as well. Under the InvHdr dataitem, you can find an IntraCommDeliveryTxt column which contains the text to be shown when an intra-community delivery applies. You can add a TextObject to your report layout and set a condition so that the text is only shown when applicable (e.g., use the VisibleExpression property and set it to [Total.ReverseChargeVATExists], or check the value of the [InvHdr.VATBusPostingGroup] instead).

VAT Rates on Invoices

Even if a 0% VAT rate applies when exporting your goods, your company may still need to show the VAT rate(s) even if a VAT amount of "0" is being charged. The Document Creator reports already facilitate this, i.e., if VAT applies, then the VAT rate(s) (N.B. one or multiple) will always be shown (together with their corresponding amounts). Of course, if you wish to change this, then you can edit the report layouts accordingly.

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Last update: February 13, 2023