Open-ended "From" date in reports

#1

Request:

Can Customer Statements, Supplier Statements, and Billable Time reports (and any similar reports that have From and Until date ranges) please default to “The Beginning of Time” if the From setting is left blank?

I often run Customer Statements for which I want the full history of a customer’s account. Currently, I have to enter a starting date of 01/01/1900 or something similarly ancient every time I run the report, for each customer. Why not just allow the report to include all past dates if the user leaves the From field blank?

Something similar might be done for the Until date as well, so that if it is left blank, the report would include all future dates. I occasionally enter future-dated transactions (either purposely or accidentally), so it would be nice to be able to see those on reports when I want to, without having to type in a date like 01/01/9999.

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#2

Good idea. This concept could also be extended to the closing date of P&L Statement and as-of date for Balance Sheet. That way, rather than creating a report good through the end of an accounting period and accepting the date inaccuracy as a way of being able to call up the report quickly, having a report good through “Today” would speed things up. The final report of an accounting period could be edited for the fixed end date.

This idea was a great boon when added to the period for the Summary.

@Jon’s idea of adapting it to the beginning date of reports, extending the report to the complete record, is brilliant.

#3

If you need this report for yourself, why not go to the tab Customers and click on the amount under Accounts receivable column.

That will give you full history of the account with fewer clicks.

#4

What you say is true, @lubos, but I’ve encountered situations where an account with a troublesome customer gets so mixed up it can be helpful to produce a statement reconstructing the entire financial history of a relationship. Having the result in an official-looking format can be helpful.

The recommended behavior when leaving From or Until fields blank seems more intuitive. The option of a Today date for the Until field just saves effort.

#5

Because that’s not a format I can send to my customer.

#6

So, @Lubos, is the answer to this request “No,” then? Or is this something you think you might get to at some point? (It’s rare for @Tut and me to agree on a UI suggestion :stuck_out_tongue: so this must be a good idea!)

#7

In newer version, if you go to Customers tab, then click on figure under Accounts receivable column, you will get full ledger for that customer since beginning.

So that should be the place where to look at when trying to resolve discrepancy between you and customer (or supplier). No need to check customer/supplier statement.

#8

Still, some of my customers prefer to receive (and I like to send them) a nicely-formatted, professional-looking, system-generated account statement rather than what looks like a manual spreadsheet.

We’re not asking for any real change to the canned reports or for a new kind of a report. All we’re asking for is having the date range default to “forever back” if the Start Date is left blank and to “forever forward” if the End Date is left blank.

(You might even add a couple of buttons next to every similar date field: FOREVER and TODAY. The default for a blank date field should still be “forever,” but the user can also set the date to the current date if she wants to, and the option to select “forever” is made explicit in case the user doesn’t know that blank=“forever”.)

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