Why You Should Move From Management Reporter to Jet Reports

Much like Apple people tend to be all Apple, all the time, Microsoft Dynamics ERP users tend to prefer Microsoft products for all their computing needs. It’s not hard to understand why. Using products from the same ecosystem prevents compatibility issues and saves time in learning multiple systems.

And Microsoft makes it easy to do all your computing using their software. It offers more than half a dozen ERP solutions tailored to your business needs, including finance and supply chain management, commerce and fraud protection, project management, and more. In addition, it offers many software options that integrate with its ERPs to provide a holistic computing system – options like Microsoft Teams for collaboration, Power Automate to create automated workflows, and Power BI for business intelligence insights.

And for financial reporting? Microsoft offers Management Reporter. Managment Reporter is designed to help finance professionals create high-volume, presentation-quality financial reports in minutes. One of the most desirable features of Management Reporter is its report wizard that makes it easy to design, store, and generate reports from reusable building blocks that contain row, column, and tree definitions. Thanks to the report wizard, you do not have to re-create typical scenarios for each reporting period.

You may be wondering, if Management Reporter is such a great reporting tool for D365 users, why are we talking about it on the insightsoftware blog? Shouldn’t we be promoting insightsoftware’s reporting solutions?

Well, there’s the rub.

Microsoft is Ending Support for Management Reporter

Microsoft announced in 2016 that it would no longer be developing Management Reporter moving forward. The tool will still be supported until 2026, but it is no longer being updated or enhanced.

This means that Management Reporter users are now facing a tough choice: continue using a reporting tool on its way out, or invest in a new tool?

Microsoft gave users a long lead time before halting support of Management Reporter to allow time for users to find a replacement with comparable functionality. And with the end of Management Reporter’s support just a few years away, now is the optimal time to evaluate alternatives. There are many options available to consider, but here at insightsoftware we would point you towards Jet Reports.

Jet Reports was Designed Specifically for Microsoft ERPs

Jet Reports was created in 2002 and designed specifically to work with Microsoft ERPs. Jet Reports is an Excel add-on that allows you to report on live Dynamics data right in Excel without the hassle of manual downloads and data dumps.

Years of experience with Dynamics means we know the complex data structures inside and out. In fact, Jet Reports integrates so seamlessly with Dynamics that Microsoft worked with insightsoftware at the time that it decided to end development of Management Reporter in order to provide a basic version of Jet Reports to Dynamics users for free. Microsoft knew that its Dynamics users would soon need to consider a replacement for Management Reporter and chose to feature Jet Reports as a suggested replacement.

Jet Reports Gives You Everything Management Reporter Did, and Then Some

Not only do you not lose any Management Reporter functionality by moving to Jet Reports, you gain functionality.

Management Reporter was built to be a financial reporting tool, so it comes as no surprise that the available reporting data is limited to finance. Jet Reports, on the other hand, can quickly and easily produce a wide range of financial and operational reports. You can cut reporting time and costs by doing all your financial and ad hoc reporting with a single program.

Like Management Reporter, Jet Reports allows you to create your own financial reports without customization or involvement from the IT department. Both reporting solutions allow you to use the default reports provided or to create your own company-specific financial statements.

With both Management Reporter and Jet Reports you can drill down into the real-time Dynamics data you need and create reports in non-functional currency. However, Jet Reports reads any table, field, or view, including sub-ledgers, customizations, and third-party add-ins – not just financials.

Worried about time to value? Because Jet Reports is Excel-based, you’re able to quickly and easily generate timely, accurate reports in the format that works for you, using the same fields and calculations you’re already used to, right inside of Excel. Building reports with Jet Reports is significantly faster because reports are created as a whole, rather than needing to define rows, columns, and trees. Jet also automatically adds accounts within the defined range, so you don’t have to enter them manually.

Jet Reports is available on premises or in the cloud, making it easy to access reports from anywhere, at any time. It is a complete financial and operational reporting solution that far surpasses the benefits Management Reporter has brought to your business. To learn more about Jet Reports, or to get your migration from Management Reporter started, schedule a demo today.

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