Customise reports and layouts
Description

Sage Report Designer contains several features designed to help you design reports and layouts in Sage 50 Accounts.

Below, you can find an introduction to the Report Designer desktop, and a summary of commonly used features.

 NOTE: To learn about extra reports or our bespoke Report Design Service, visit our additional reports and the Report Design Service article. 

Open Report Designer

To open Report Designer, we recommend selecting the report or layout you want to amend, then click Edit.

The Report Designer desktop

To view information about the different areas of the Report Designer desktop, hover your mouse pointer over the required area in the below image.


Menu The menu bar allows you to control the report or layout and carry out most functions in Report Designer. Report designer - the menu bar.
Report explorer The Report Explorer pane shows the structure of your report, including all the pages, sections and items. Report designer - the report explorer.
Properties The Properties menu allows you to change the properties of a selected object, or the report or layout as a whole. Report designer - the properties pane.

Report Designer features

The basics

Open and save your report or layout When you create your own reports and layouts, we recommend that you edit an existing report or layout. This saves time compared to creating a report from scratch. Open and save your reports and layouts.
Rename a report You can use Sage Report Designer to change your report name. This helps to locate your report when you want to run it.
Email settings You can send reports and layouts by email through Microsoft Outlook or webmail. Add email settings to a document.

Change your page and printer options

Change page setup options You can use the Page Setup option in Report Designer to change settings, such as page size, orientation and margins. Amend the page setup options, paper size and default printer settings on reports.
Print adjustments You can adjust the output to ensure that your report or layout prints correctly on a particular printer. Report designer - printer offsets.

Add information to your report or layout

Images Add an image to your layout, for example your company logo. Report Designer - Add an image or logo to a document.
Text boxes Add a text box to your report or layout, for example to display your payment terms or bank details.
Variables You can add most fields held in Sage 50 Accounts and show them on your layout. Report Designer - Add a data field or variable to a document.
Expressions Expressions are calculations that produce values on your report or layout. For example, adding two values together. Report Designer Expressions and Functions.
Lines and Boxes Customise your layout further by adding lines and boxes. Report Designer - Add a line or a box to a document.

Moving and formatting your data

Moving and resizing objects If required, you can move, resize or align an object you’ve added. Report Designer - move, align, resize and centre objects.
Conditional Formatting You can format objects based on specific conditions, to do this use conditional formatting. Report Designer - Basic conditional formatting.
Sorts You can use Report Designer to reorder the data on your reports and layouts to best suit your needs. Add a sort to a document.
Groups You can create totals for, summarise, or separate the data into more manageable sections. For example, grouping and totalling data by account reference. Report Designer - Add a group to a document.
Header and footers Within Report Designer, the design page of your report or layout is divided into sections. The section in which you place an item determines where it appears on the report or layout. Report Designer - Add section headers and footers.
Functions You can return data based on variables with existing expressions using functions. Report Designer - Functions.

Restrict information

Filters Use Sage Report Designer to filter the information that appears on a report or layout. Report Designer - Create or edit a filter on a document.
Remove information Using Report Designer, you can remove content from your reports and layouts. Report Designer - Remove information from your Sage document.
Criteria Add or edit the criteria applied to your layout. Report Designer - Add selection criteria to a document.

Other Tasks

Object properties When you select an object, the properties pane will change to show options specific to that object. For example, you can amend date or time object properties, or amend the numeric formatting.
Sub reports A sub report is a separate self-contained report that you can insert into a larger, primary report. Report Designer - To add a sub report to a document.
Bar codes Use the Bar Code box to enter a bar code reference. You can print the bar code reference onto your report. Report Designer - To add a bar code to a document.

Further support

Use our menu bar article or one of the following articles to help you customise your layouts:

You can also search our help centre for other reporting topics.