Financial Reports Basics

Once your data is entered into Collect! you will want to print reports so that you can examine your data, keep track of your progress and invoice your clients.

Collect! has many sample reports that your accounting department can use to print out facts and figures from your database - reports for operator commissions, client financials, agency commission reports, transaction reports, and many others. These reports can be modified as needed to fit your requirements.

Also, there are several internal reports hardcoded into the Collect! program. These reports are important for tracking financials accurately and reconciling statements. They work well for basic simple payments and occasional NSFs to accounts. More sophisticated methods require custom reports to accommodate more complex details. This can be accommodated too. Any of the internal reports may be replaced with your own customized version and you can make Collect! run your own custom reports via the Print menu, Daily, Monthly, Analysis and Trust reports.

When you print a report, whether you like the look of it or not, the most important question is "Are the values correct?" If the answer is "No," then you must ask "Are the debtor transactions or the values on the Client form correct?" No output can be guaranteed if you are not sure of the accuracy of the debtor and client information. If the debtor's transaction was not posted correctly, you will not get correct results. Most inaccurate figures in financial reports are caused by incorrectly posting transactions.

As you try out the samples, be sure to carefully examine the data that is printed to make sure that Collect! is showing accurate figures as expected. Any inaccuracies in your data entry will be reflected in these reports.

See Also

- Accounting Topics