HOW TO CREATE REPORS IN MAS200?

[teofanes]

Hello,

I've being using MAS90 for the last 4 years. I'm very confortable with the accounting modules (AP,AR,GL,). I'm working with a new company that recently installed version 3.70 for MAS200 and I've being asked to create some reports in which I'm not too familiar about it.

The reports I've being asked to create are Top Selling Products, Best Selling Products For One Month, Top Ten Selling Products For One Month Including All Product Lines, Larges Customers in a Particular Month and What Products By SKU Did They Buy, Listing of Customers With Addresses and Phone Numbers Filtered by What Product Line They Tipically Purchase.

Now, I noticed that we have different modules for creating reports which is were I'm getting all confused. We have a module called "REPORT MASTER", another called "VISUAL REPORTER", another "REPORT WIZARD PROFESSIONAL", and finally I think we also have "CRYSTAL REPORTS". Can anyone tell me what is the different among all of these, and which one will be the best to use for my purpose. Did the company purchased unnecessary modules at one point?

Please Help me, I'm very confused.

 

[drdebit]

My reporting skills are very limited, I use report master.
I have no knowledge of visual reporter or report wizard professional.

What I'm going to say is probably a very clumsy comparison that has a lot of technical flaws, but my take on report master and crystal reports is something like a difference between dBaseIII and a new windows database like Access/Approach. Crystal Reports offers a lot of power, graphical reports, and interfaces. I think, but am not sure, that a number of Mas90 forms and/or reports are written in Crystal Reports. I think it is the direction Mas90 is going. My problem is that the graphical screens and layouts just totally confuse me. I am so confused that I can't even figure out how to ask questions of people that could help me.

Report Master has simple dos based two dimensional record and file screens that I can relate to based on college classes and old data base experience. I think that its disadvantages are that it is dos based, character based and I don't know how long Best intends to keep it around.

In accounts receivable, I modify the standard character based invoice and try to get lines to match with information printed on my forms. I can't get a precise match because of character sizes and positions on the printed forms. This is kind of like using report master. If I had the skill to modify the graphical forms to do the same thing, it would be like using Crystal Reports and my result would have a much better appearance because of more font sizes and faces, and more positioning options.

Same issue in AP, modifying check forms to print on a laser printer. I modify the old character based form and use it for a laser printer because it's what I know how to do easily. Again that's like using report master instead of Crystal Reports.

My opinion-as a relatively unsophisticated user-if you can learn Crystal Reports and do their projects in that, you will give them a more versatile product that may be able to be used longer without massive redos, and will also be gaining a skill for yourself that you can take forward to other projects. The possible downside is that the development and learning will probably take longer than Report Master would.