Custom report help

1

Hello! Cloud user here.

I have many ideas for custom reports that could be useful for us, but I’m having a difficult time understanding how to do it and what restrictions there are.

Is there a more in depth guide to custom reports? I read this one: Create custom reports | Manager

An example that came up now is the tax authority to which we declare our VAT to who is digitalizing their system. For the main page of the return we need to declare:

  1. Total sales that are VAT applicable (amount should be excluding VAT).
  2. Export sales (0% VAT).
  3. Local local (yes very local) purchases (15%)
  4. VAT on imports (15%).
  5. Local purchases (18%).

As part of the supporting documents the tax authority wants us to provide an excel document with this information:

  1. Date of sale/purchase.
  2. VAT receipt number.
  3. Suppliers TIN number.
  4. Suppliers VAT number.
  5. Release number (if import).
  6. Amount without tax and tax amount.
  7. List of 0% rates sales (exports).

Assuming we have all these fields filled in on manager, whether default or custom fields, can we generate a report every month that can fulfill these requirements?

Some of these requirements are a bit frustrating as with the VAT receipt number all the other information is available on the tax authorities website. Previously I made a google sheet with a bunch of filters, conditional formatting etc that allowed us to take the ‘Tax Transactions’ report and break it into the pieces we required. It was not the most elegant solution, but it helped us eliminate any mistakes that might happen if you have to chop up a report.

Is there a consultant or similar who I can hire to assist with this work (if it’s possible) or what is the best way for a custom report illiterate such as myself?

Our tax consultant here, just brute forces it, but it’s really time consuming, leads to a lot of mistakes and if an overall frustrating experience.

Thank you in advance. Please let me know if there is anything that needs clarification.

2

You may want to wait before you put too much effort into that because

For your actual question.
Have you looked at the Reports → Tax code. Such as Tax audit, Tax summary, Tax transactions.

What countries tax requirements are you trying to comply with? Several countries have localisations which produce similar reports to those.

3

“Soon” is not very specific though. The issue for us is even doing this for just 1 month is a lot of work. Even if the custom report module will be updated the old one will probably be around a while until everything works properly.

I checked those reports and it’s not exactly what we need. Tax requirements are for Zanzibar, Tanzania, which is different from mainland Tanzania. They change their minds so often that I don’t blame anyone for not localizing.

I was hoping custom reports might be able to get us what we need considering all the information is already entered into manager.

4

The best way is to be patient. If you read the post by @Lubos linked to by @Patch then you will notice that the new way(s) will be far more intuitive. If you still want to do the old way the forum rules at FAQ - Manager Forum are very clear, i.e. [emphasis added]

If your question is related to custom themes or custom reports, always post the code or report definition you have developed and the results it produces. Do not simply post a picture of something you want and ask other users to tell you how to achieve it.

Furthermore the rules also state [emphasis added]:

Do not ask Forum members to develop themes, reports, or localizations for you unless you have already tried yourself. Then (as mentioned above), post your own work and the results, stating clearly the problem you are having.

5

Not through this forum. The introduction to the paragraph @eko quoted in his second quote above says,

Be non-commercial. Do not solicit customers or recruit employees. Do not offer or solicit products or services.

6

Hello, yes makes sense at the same time it would be great to know if there was some kind of list with people who can provide these services.

7

Yes, there now is Accountants - Manager.io
Type a location in search.

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8

Patience is always the best, but sometimes reality comes in between. Again I understand the need for these forums rules, but at the same time this is kinda what forums are for. Not to be a leech but to share experiences and learn from each other.

There is this very reserved attitude on these forums, perhaps I’m just out of touch. I was reluctant to post my question because the majority of responses is about breaking rules so feel free to take it down. I had to give it a shot, I don’t know where else to ask.

9

If waiting does not work for you and you can’t make do with the build in reports, then
You need to have a shot at writing the custom reports your self.
After which post your best attempt and a description on it’s limits on the forum.

10

It’s best if you provide examples of the data you have and what kind of report you want in the picture, so that other people can try to help you.

11

No that is still against the rules quoted earlier:

If your question is related to custom themes or custom reports , always post the code or report definition you have developed and the results it produces. Do not simply post a picture of something you want and ask other users to tell you how to achieve it.

12

Then search the forum for custom reports as many were showing attempts and got support to improve them!

13

Ok, I have done that. So you can show an attempt and get suggestions or not? Anyhow I don’t see the need for the rules to be this strict. It just seems pedantic when trying to get support or suggestions for a paid product.

14

There appears to be some confusion here.
The person who wants help an a custom report must first try to generate the report first then post their best attempt.

Please give it a try. You will get better at it. Which is why it is done that way.

This forum does not support

  • you not trying first
  • soliciting paid work
15

Yes, show your attempt(s) with screenshots of edit and results screens and the issues you face. Forum members can then decide themselves if they want to help you or not.

I also pay for license but many use the free desktop version. From the beginning it was clear that support only exists through the Guides and this Forum which is run by volunteer users like you and me, except for the developer.

16

If my response is against any forum rules, again please feel free to remove this.

I’m trying to create a custom report for October.

It’s a little difficult because it ends up being a pretty long list and chrome gets pretty slow.

Based on my above requirements I looked through the different options and this is what I came up with.

Input parameters

image
image1097×769 49.8 KB

Date: Self explanatory.

Account: Which manager account the transaction affects.

Debit/Credit: Help get’s some clarity because transactions come in duplicated due to manager being double-entry. Maybe I shouldn’t bother with this here.

Account Currency: We have transactions in Tanzanian Shillings and in USD so need this to be able to separate them. Looking at it closer this might not be needed as the amount on the report is in USD (the main currency we use in manager.io).

Purchase tax amount: The amount of tax on a purchase.

Tax Exclusive purchase amount: I guess it does what it says. Shows me purchase amounts without tax. Useful as the tax authority wants this.

Sales tax amount: Tax amount on sales.

Tax exclusive purchase amounts: Sales amount without tax and also anything that didn’t have tax on it to begin with.

Supplier name with code: Will show up for every transaction where this is applicable.

Customer name with code: Will show up for every registered customer who bought anything from us.

Payments Reference: This is where we put the tax receipt reference for every payment we have made that has tax on it.

Receipt Reference: For all our shop sales that are done with only a receipt (no invoice or delivery note).

Sales Invoice Reference: For all our B2B customers.

Purchase invoice Reference: Because of how the “Tax transactions report” work we enter the tax receipt connected to the purchase on the purchase invoice.

I’m pretty sure what I’m doing right now is far from efficient, but I’m not really sure if there is overlap or something that is redundant with the current choices I have made.

I end up with a lot of transactions that I don’t think are really needed but can of course be filtered out.

When I look at the finished report, I’m not 100% sure this covers what I need. It’s difficult when dealing with bigger volumes of numbers and I want to make sure I don’t make any mistake. I assume I could always use “Tax Transactions” report to verify that I get to the correct total?

The benefit for us with the custom report is that it would allow us to add and separate information more easily so if the tax authority changes their mind on certain requirements we can more easily adapt as long as we have this information already entered into manager.io.

This is how a small portion of the report looks. In this case for visibility I hid all the columns that are not related to purchases. This is some of our DHL invoices from last month.

Output

image
image1520×359 21 KB

So far DHL invoice ZNZR000006611 there will be 3 transactions in the report.
I’m not 100% sure what I’m looking at but I assume I could work with this.

Would be grateful if anyone has any ideas or input.

Thank you in advance.

Edit: Formatting

17

That is why you should also experiment with and show the results of the “filter” options as explained at Create custom reports | Manager i.e.

  • The Where… checkbox activates filters. These can become complex, especially when multiple filters are applied. Typically, additional context-specific fields appear. (See examples below.)
  • The Order by… checkbox provides the ability to sort results by something besides date. Order can be ascending or descending. It can also be determined by criteria that are not selection criteria, but are present within the ledger entries. For example, a custom report on inventory items sold could be sorted by unit price, even though only quantity and total amount are shown on the report.
  • Group by… provides interim subtotals for designated variables.
  • When context is appropriate, another checkbox appears for Groups to collapse. With this option, entire groups can be reduced to a single line summarizing entries within the group.
18

@WildTZ

You can easily achieve this using Report Transformations. The only thing you have to do is to create relevant Tax codes and Reporting categories. For Example, you must create a tax code for export sales and another for local sales, this will help you to capture them in the report.

Example:

To get a report like the below:

image
image1584×1585 217 KB

I created a report transformation that looks like this:

image
image1920×912 147 KB

Yes, I know you won’t see things clearly in the screenshot above, the aim is to offer you a general sense of the tasks you need to undertake, which are quite straightforward if you are familiar with the process. There are plans to improve this report (Report Transformations) so that you won’t have to consider opening and closing balances on VAT accounts in your calculations when making payments to the tax authorities, Manager will be able to tell you your VAT assets or liabilities at any given time. See this guide: Add support for opening and closing balances - ideas - Manager Forum

I think Custom Report should be able to easily handle this if you have set up custom fields to capture transaction information such as Release number.

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