Put Down the Baseball Bat. We’re Sharing the Top Ways You Can View and Share GP Data Anytime and Anywhere.
Microsoft Dynamics GP is great for collecting data, and it delivers an incredible productivity boost for its users. We genuinely love GP, and we know it so well that we also know its glaring limitations for commissions reporting. You do too.
Perhaps you’re frustrated by the Excel export process, or you can’t justify user-license costs for simple report viewing. Maybe those tricky permissions settings have made your reports hard to share. Or maybe you’re hesitant to adjust your GP configurations because you know it’s nearly impossible to figure out the answers to commission-reporting questions after configuration changes.
Sound familiar? Check out our recommendations for 3 better ways to get your data out of GP, hassle free.
3 Easier Ways to Report on GP Data
Whether you are looking for a third-party reporting tool, an appealing way to visualize your SQL data, or a faster way to run SQL queries, we know where to point you. Of course, everything here is fully integrated with Commission Planbecause, just like you, we’re always looking for better ways to report on GP data.
Our top reporting recommendations are:
- SmartList Builder
SmartList Builder touts itself as “the easiest way to report on GP data,” and for good reason. It empowers your organization to create new reports or change existing ones with ease. It also makes it simple to tie together data from up to 32 tables from SmartList, GP, third-party data sources, SQL tables and views, and more. It’s a powerhouse, and we deliver commission SmartList Builder objects with the Commission Plan solution.
A lot of people also love SmartList’s Excel Report Builder, which connects GP and other data as a live feed into Excel. With this, you can give your GP or other data to anyone else in your organization – without having to buy more user licenses.
- SQL Server Reporting Service (SSRS)
SSRS is an on-premises tool that helps you improve the look of your reports and use the web to share reports across a wider variety of devices, including mobile. It also makes it easy to view PDFs and Word files of reports (thank goodness!), so you can finally share those over email.
Sharing data with SSRS is easy and cost effective. You can export live report visualizations to display in PowerPoint, and you can pin SSRS visuals directly into Power BI. Much like Power BI, you can use SSRS to display metrics and KPIs in-browser, instead of having users open a report.
Commission Plan includes a commission SSRS report that is delivered with the product.
- SQL views
A SQL view looks like a table, but it’s called a “virtual table” because the table’s data isn’t stored long term. Instead, you store the SQL query. Whenever you run it, it returns a refreshed table for you with the data you’re looking for. You can think of it like a saved search: the results aren’t saved, but the search terms are. It’s best used for complex queries that you run often.
Commission Plan empowers you to build your own SQL views, or (preferably) run pre-configured views for commission setup and tracking tables. We recommend that you use these views whenever possible, instead of using the actual SQL tables, when you are creating Crystal Reports, SSRS reports, or custom SmartList objects.
Our commission data views include:
- ETI_CP_SOPHDRComm – displays sales document-specific commission summary information from the Commission Plan Entry window
- ETI_CP_SOPLINEComm – displays sales document-specific commission line information from the Commission Plan Detail Entry window
Our quota data views include:
- ETI_CP_QuotaSalespersonCommRunSummaryAdjustments – displays the commission adjustment amount for summary adjustments for each salesperson and commission process run
- ETI_CP_QuotaSalespersonCommRunPeriodHdr – displays the commission summary information for each salesperson, commission process run, and quota period
- ETI_CP_QuotaSalespersonCommRunPeriodLine – displays the commission calculation details for each salesperson, commission process run, and quota period
- ETI_CP_QuotaSalespersonCommRunPeriodDocs – displays the sales document information for each salesperson, commission process run, and quota period
Benefits of Better Reporting
While reporting concerns may only directly affect your commissions-handling staff, there are quite a few company benefits to having better, more shareable reports drawn from your GP data.
Here are just a few:
- With better reporting, you can supply updated commission data to everyone involved in the payments process, even if they aren’t on your staff. This way, you can share information about future commission liability with management, sales reps, and others.
- Effective reporting enables you to view the setup at the time of the transaction, not just your current setup. For those of you who ruefully shook your heads at the beginning of this article when we mentioned the lack of insight after changing your GP configurations, you already understand how much this information helps. When you want to track down exactly what happened (and why) for a commission payment from the past, this is critical.
- For those of you who want to easily pull Excel sheets out of Commission Plan to send to third-party payroll services, SmartList makes this a breeze.
Are you ready to get started with better reporting for your commissions data? We’re happy to help with your setup. Reach out any time for more information.
Contact EthoTech
Since 2002, companies across every sector have relied on EthoTech for the right tool for tracking, calculating, and paying variable compensation. We provide solutions, integration, and support that is focused solely on integrated variable compensation software for Microsoft Dynamics GP. It’s all we do, and we do it better than anyone. Contact EthoTech to learn more.