Sage Report Designer is a shared program that is used by various Sage products including Sage 50 Payroll, Payroll RTi, Sage 50 Accounts and the Sage 200 Suite.

As different versions of Report Designer are released with products such as Sage 50 Payroll, Sage 50 Accounts and Sage 200 Professional, minor compatibility issues may arise if these products are installed on the same PC.

TIP: For newer versions of Sage 200 Professional a list of compatible versions of the standalone Report Designer is available here

NOTE: This only applies to Sage 200 Professional versions 2010 or above.

Sage 50 Payroll RTi and Sage 200

 NOTE: Payroll version V29.02.461 and above now uses rep des v5

If you install Sage 50 Payroll RTI onto a client PC that also has Sage 200 installed, the Report Designer is upgraded to a newer version. This later version is used by both programs on that PC.

If you have different version of Report Designer on other client PCs, a report created on a newer version of Report Designer will not open from a PC using an older version of Report Designer.

Therefore, we recommend that you upgrade Report Designer to the same version on all client PCs that have Sage 200 installed. You can download the required version of Report Designer for Sage 200 Professional from here.

Known compatibility issues

This newer version of Report Designer has the following compatibility issues with Sage 200:

When the report is previewed in Sage 200, the 'Edit' button, which is a new feature in Report Designer that works with Sage 50 Accounts, cannot be currently used to edit your Sage 200 reports.

The current work around is to open Report Designer and edit the report.

1. When choosing to export a report as a CSV file, using the 'File > Export' option in Report Designer and saving the report as a CSV file, some transactions may be duplicated on the CSV file.

   Sage 200 users will have the new function of 'Send to Excel' which can be used to then re-save the Excel file as a CSV.

   The current workaround is to edit the report. Within Properties, CSV Options - Include Sections, un-tick everything except Details. Then move all required variables into the details section (increase the size of the sections if necessary). For example, on a Sales Ledger report, the customer name and account number would be moved. It is advised to save the report with a new name as the preview may be too cluttered for viewing/ printing unless edited and ordered further. The report no longer duplicates when exporting to CSV.

   This has been logged as Known Issue 5089

2. Sage Report Designer may 'hang' when opened from within Sage 200.

   A solution is currently being investigated for this issue.

   The current workaround is to open Report Designer using the 'sagereportdesigner.exe' file from within Windows Explorer. This is usually located here: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Sage Report Designer 2007\SageReportDesigner.exe or C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Sage Report Designer 2007\SageReportDesigner.exe on 64-bit PCs.

   Note: It may take longer for Report Designer to open as additional data sources are being loaded.

Additional Information

• If you are a Business Partner, you must create any customised reports for a customer site using the same version of Report Designer that the customer is using.
• Report Designer must be upgraded separately on each client PC. There is no batch tool to upgrade multiple PCs.
• If the customer has already installed Sage Payroll RTi, you must continue to use the upgraded version of Report Designer. Do not uninstall the software as this does not remove all shared files.
• The next version of Sage Payroll is scheduled for release for Payroll Year End. This must be installed as it contains updated National insurance & PAYE bands. This contains the same version of Report Designer, so please make sure your customers are aware of the issues outlined above.

Sage 50 Accounts v2013 and Sage 200

Sage 50 Accounts 2013 uses a later version of Report Designer than Sage 200 (but not the same version as Sage Payroll RTi). This has some compatibility issues when Sage 50 Accounts 2013 and Sage 200 are installed on the same PC.

Note: We would not expect Sage 200 customers to be running Sage 50 Accounts and Sage 200 on the same client PC, so this should have minimal impact.

However, as part of the Sage 50 to Sage 200 migration process, we do require that Sage 50 & Sage 200 are installed on the same PC. When this occurs, Report Designer remains at the later version.

Known compatibility issues

This newer version of Report Designer has the following compatibility issues with Sage 200:

1. When running reports in Sage 200, some report criteria cannot be selected. 

   To resolve this, upgrade Report Designer to a later version.

   For Sage 200 Professional 2013, 2015 and 2016 the Report Designer can be downloaded here.

   For Sage 200 Enhancements Summer 2017, Winter 2017 and Spring 2018 the Report Designer can be downloaded here.

   For Sage 200 Enhancements Summer 2018 the Report Designer can be downloaded here.

   For Sage 200 Enhancements Winter 2018 and Spring 2019 the Report Designer can be downloaded here.

   For Sage 200 Enhancements Summer 2019 and 2020 R1 the Report Designer can be downloaded here.

   This upgrades Report Designer to the same version used by Sage 50 Payroll RTi. This version has lesser compatibility issues outlined above.

   This has been logged as Known Issue 2103

2. Sage Report Designer may 'hang' when opened from within Sage 200.

   To resolve this, open the Report Designer using the 'sagereportdesigner.exe' file from within Windows Explorer. This is usually located here: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Sage Report Designer 2007\SageReportDesigner.exe or C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Sage Report Designer 2007\SageReportDesigner.exe on 64-bit PCs. It may take longer for Report Designer to open as additional data sources are being loaded.

   This has been logged as Known Issue 5102

Recommendations for migrating data

• If you are a Business Partner, please test the migration of data from Sage 50 Accounts to Sage 200 in a virtual environment.
• If you do not want to use the upgraded version of Report Designer with Sage 200, you must migrate data from Sage 50 Accounts on a PC that will not use Sage 200 in the future.
• Do not use the Sage 50 Accounts removal tool. It is not compatible with Sage 200 and can corrupt files. If this has occurred, you will have to remove and reinstall your operating system.

How to check the installed version of Report Designer

• Open Report Designer from Windows Explorer and choose 'Help > About' from the tool bar to see the version number, or
• Check the properties of the SageReportDesigner.exe file. This is usually located here: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Sage Report Designer 2007 or C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Sage Report Designer 2007 if you are on a 64-bit PC.