Reporting (Advanced): Building custom reports

Build your own reports with a powerful report designer. In this article, you will learn how to turn any data into a report, which keywords to use, and how to work with the reports you generate.

Report designer, explained

To create your own detailed reports, utilize the Report designer, which incorporates data from your firm's Invoices, Time Entries, Jobs, Tasks and Pipelines.

The Report designer operates based on the keywords you input. Each keyword corresponds to a report column and filters data from the selected source. Once you've configured all the settings and entered the necessary keywords for the desired data, the report will be generated.

Generated reports are fully customizable. You can adjust the visualization type, modify the keywords used and apply filters. Once your report is ready, save it for future use and pin it to a Dashboard.

Tip! For quick report generation, utilize AI search, a user-friendly tool designed to comprehend natural language.

Analyze data

To build a report based on the data you need, follow these steps:

1. Go to  Reporting > Report designer from the sidebar menu. On the left, you will see the search field and the Data sidebar.

2. Click the arrow in the search field and select a data source, depending on the data you will need:

• Time and Billing (your firm's Invoices, Time Entries)
• Workflow (your firm's Jobs, Tasks and Pipelines)

By default, the source you last used is selected. If you want to select both data sources, turn on the Enable multiple sources toggle. However, remember that you can't combine data names from different sources in one report.

3. Enter your keywords in the search field, for example, Unpaid Revenue Account Name month of year=1, and click Go. You can go here to learn more about keywords and data sources.

You will see a generated report as a search result.

Customize results

Once a report is generated, you can customize it to your needs, save it for future use, pin it to a Dashboard and more. The Report designer contains the following features:

a. Search field: Shows keywords used to generate the report. Edit them and click Go to try again. Use the backward and forward arrows on the right to undo or redo your query.

b. Sources: Edit the data source you have used. See all available data names here.

c. Views: Views define how data names are displayed in the sidebar menu. You can choose to sort them by popularity or in alphabetical order, or group them according to their type.

d. Add: Add a formula or parameter.

e. Formulas: Employ logical, mathematical, and other functions for comprehensive data analysis.

f. Parameters: Use parameters, such as Integers, Booleans, Strings and so on, to filter your data.

g. Report name and description: Edit the report title or add additional info.

h. Filter: Click to edit the applied filter or hover over and click X to the right to delete it.

i. Chart/Table: Click to switch between chart and table visualization types.

j. Save: Save the report and share it.

k. Three dots Report menu: Opens a menu with options to Save, Show underlying data and Download the report.

l. Pin: Click to pin the report to a Dashboard.

m. Visualization: Choose a visualization type, such as Bar, Donut, Funnel and more. 

n. Chart/Table configuration: Edit chart/table settings, such as axes, lines, gridlines, labels, columns, text wrapping and other details.

o. Query details: Displays additional information on the computed data, combined attributes and filters.

p. Report: The generated report. Click on axis names for sorting, view data details by hovering over the lines and work with columns in the case of the table view. For details, go to the article on exploring reports.

Create formulas

TaxDome Reporting offers a set of data types you can use to customize a report. However, if you are interested in more specific details – e.g., you want to use comparison in your reports or filter out irrelevant information – you can create formulas.

Formulas allow you to apply various operators, such as logical (if, then, else), math, date and text string functions to your data.

While building a report, click Add > Formula in the sidebar menu to open the Formula Editor.

As you start entering the formula, our system will automatically validate it and suggest options for auto-completing. You can navigate through suggestions using the arrow keys on the keyboard and accept suggestions using Tab or Enter. The best practice is to follow suggestions carefully to ensure your formula syntax is valid.

In the formula input field, you can use either functions or data names:

• Data names: for all available data names, please see the data reference guide. 
• Formula functions: to the right of the formula input field, you can find the list of all formula functions. This list is there to help you understand which functions you can use, how they work and what their syntax is. Browse through categories and click function names to see their description, usage examples and syntax.

Custom formula and report ideas

Task completion efficiency:

• Formula: (count(Task Completed Date <= Task Due Date ) / count(Task Status = "completed")) * 100
• Description: Evaluates the efficiency of task completion by comparing the number of tasks completed on time to the total number of tasks completed.
• Report: Task efficiency report can provide insights into the percentage of tasks completed on time each month.

Overdue invoices percentage:

• Formula: (count(Invoice Status = 'overdue') / count(Invoice Status)) * 100
• Description: Determines the percentage of overdue invoices out of the total number of invoices.
• Report: Overdue invoices report shows the percentage of overdue invoices monthly and helps you track payment collection issues.

Payment reliability:

• Formula: average ( diff_days ( Invoice Posted Date , Invoice Paid Date ) )
• Description: Calculates the average payment duration.
• Report: The client payment reliability report highlights clients by their average payment duration, identifying reliable and delayed payers. 

Delayed payment impact:

• Formula: sum_if ( Invoice Status = 'overdue', Invoice Amount )
• Description: Calculates the amount of all overdue payments
• Report: The delayed payment impact report highlights the financial impact of overdue invoices.