The decision to update to Jet Reports from Jet Basics from insightsoftware will be based on the additional features in Jet Reports that are not included with Jet Basics. This article expands on the differences between the two available solutions for Dynamics GP.

Jet Basics

Jet Basics provides the user with the ability to use the GL function. This function can return budget, balance, net change, and some other data from the general ledger accounts for a given company, based on filters. These filters can include date, periods, account, account ranges and categories. Its primary purpose is to allow the designer to create a report that provides financial statement style reports for the organization. Using the single function in many departments, divisional and supporting schedules can be created easily and replicated between companies with similar charts. It is truly a basic replacement for Management Reporter. Jet Basics is however missing some key functionality that may drive an update to Jet Reports.

Jet Reports

Jet Reports provides the user all the functionality and use of Jet Basics but adds many additional features. The upgrade is a registration key only for the Excel designer and only requires additional software load to support delivery and Hub options.

The main 6 areas that are beneficial for a reporting engine are:

1. Drill down
2. Scheduling
3. Detail transactions
   1. NL function
      Detail transactions listing in Excel
   2. NF function
      Provides ability to extract multi fields from a NL listing
   3. NP function
      Provides ability to perform tasks on data from a NL listing
4. Report Wizards
5. Browser Reports
   Provides drag and drop functionality from a data browser for data
6. Jet Hub
   Provides a web source for the reports to reside. This is then controlled by security to restrict user access to the required levels

Additionally, you can connect to multiple data sources on the same report potentially facilitating a migration from GP to BC

Of these, the three most important ones are:

1. The drill down. The ability to drill down from a single cell in the Excel report, to the provided list of the accounts included and their balances, and from there to the actual transactions is by far the most cited reason for the step up to Jet Reports. This facility provides the user insight to the underlying data that is presented on the financial statement and facilitates the analysis of anomalies. Personally, this is my favorite of the features and by itself is worth the price of the upgrade.
2. The NL function. This adds the ability to extract from all tables in GP. Much like a SmartList, it is not limited to GL data but can provide detail information from all sub ledgers. This provides the user with the ability to make sliceable reports in Excel for a non-GP user to see. As a read only function, users in non-finance roles can use it.
3. The ability to schedule reports to run in off hours without user intervention provides end users with the reports they need on a daily or weekly basis, without the requirement for someone to run the report.

So, there you have it! These are the features that Jet Reports provides that Jet Basics does not for Dynamics GP. If you have any questions or would like a demo of Jet Reports to see how it may work for you, please let Encore know.