Creating reporting trees in Management Reporter

Reporting Trees, an optional component of the Management Reporter module in Microsoft Dynamics SL, can provide relevant financial information to all responsibility cost centers of an organization.

Reporting Trees help define the structure and hierarchy of your organization for viewing and printing information. They essentially map out and group departments and initiatives to specific divisions, regions, etc., based on the relationships within your organization’s financial data.

Below is an example of a Reporting Tree:

To visualize your own organizational structure, Microsoft suggests drawing out your company’s org chart. This can help you determine how to group reporting units into one or more reporting trees. Reporting units could be individual departments, from financial data or higher-level summary units, that combine information from other units.

Reporting Trees can be created manually or using the Insert Reporting Units function. In Reporting Trees, the Detail Units (highlighted below) pull data from Dynamics SL as defined in the Dimensions column (Column D).

The Summary Units (highlighted below) pull data from their “children,” either as Detail Units or other Summary Units.

Information You Can Gather from Reporting Trees

Some examples of reporting information you can unlock from Reporting Trees:

• Individual Dimensions (account segments) of an organization
• Summarized aspects of an organization
• Roll-ups* that are independent of the chart of accounts
• Consolidated data of multiple companies

Options for Reporting Units

Reporting Trees can provide users with these options for each Reporting Unit:

• Unique row definition
• Link to external data
• Up to 10 rows of unique text
• Security
• Defined roll-up percentage

The following is an example of a two-level Reporting Tree:

*By using a Reporting Tree, Management Reporter can aggregate amounts from child reporting units at the parent reporting unit level. This inclusion is called rolling up the data.

Creating a Reporting Tree with the Insert Reporting Units Function

The Insert Reporting Units function can create a Reporting Tree in four steps:

1. Under the main menu of Management Reporter, go to File > New > Reporting Tree Definition

2. Then click Insert Reporting Units from Dimensions under the Edit Menu.

3. Next, clear the check boxes for all Dimensions except Department and click on OK.

The new Reporting Tree displays in two ways:
                                                Hierarchical or Graphical            ViewDetailed Grid View

Descriptions displayed in the Hierarchical or Graphical View are pulled from the Column B Unit Name in the Detailed Grid View.

4. Finally, save the new Reporting Tree. Go to File > Save and enter the name Departmental Reporting Tree. Then, click OK.

Adding a Reporting Tree to an Income Statement

Here are the steps to add a new Reporting Tree to an Income Statement in Management Reporter:

1. Click on Default Report Definitions in the navigation pane.

2. Double click on the Income Statement – Default to open the report definition.

3. Click on the Tree Type drop-down and select Reporting Tree.

4. Then click on the Tree drop-down underneath and select the Departmental Reporting Tree.

5. Click Save and generate the report.

Viewing a Report in the Web Viewer

When the report is launched in the web viewer, the Summary of All Units is displayed. If you’d like to view the financial results for a specific department such as IT, click on the Reporting Tree icon at the bottom of the screen and select IT Department.

Below is a report with the financial results for the IT Department.

Reach out to one of our Dynamics SL experts if you’d like to know more about creating Reporting Trees in Management Reporter.

Watch our on-demand webinar, Management Reporter: Tips and Tricks for Streamlined Report Distribution to get the most out of using the Management Reporter tool.

About the Author

Jane Nygren is a Senior Consultant with the Customer Care SL Team, for Enavate Managed Services, a DXC Services Partner. She is a CPA with certifications in the States of Texas and Wyoming. Her MBA Degree is from the University of Tulsa. In additional to her Dynamics SL experience, Jane uses her Accounting knowledge and experience to resolve financial cases in the Customer Care SL Queue. She enjoys the simple things like going to the local Whataburger every Saturday (drive thru during the pandemic) and just hanging out with her husband and cat named ‘Little Girl’. Jane stays involved at her church. Her Hometown is Tulsa, Oklahoma. She currently lives in the Houston area.