Learning Management Reporter Lessons the Hard Way

So, I thought I would put together a quick post on an issue that I ran in to today with Management Reporter.  It resulted in one of those 'doh moments.

When working with consolidated multi-company reporting in Management Reporter, it is apparently important that the account segments are named exactly the same in all companies that you plan to use with a selected row format.  Take the following example....

Company A
Account Structure: 4-2
Account Segment Names (Microsoft Dynamics GP>>Tools>>Setup>>Company>>Account Format): Main Account, Department

Company B

Account Structure: 4-2
Account Segment Names (Microsoft Dynamics GP>>Tools>>Setup>>Company>>Account Format): Main, Department

Do you spot the difference?  Company A called their first segment 'Main Account', while Company B called it 'Main'. Not a big deal, right?  Well, from what I can tell, it actually can be.  So, let's say you log in to Management Reporter in to Company A and build a row format based on 'Main Account'.  Well, if you notice, the row format will code the name 'Main Account' in to the row format. 

So, let's say you switch to Company B and open the row format you designed in Company A.  Uh-oh.  You will notice all of your main segments are missing from the row format. Ugh. And when you generate the report, no values will show for Company B even though the account structure is exactly the same.  But what is different?  The segment names.  Fortunately, it's an easy fix.  Just log in to Company B and change the first segment name (Microsoft Dynamics GP>>Tools>>Setup>>Company>>Account Format) to match Company A 'Main Segment'.  The row format will now display the main segments even when logged in to Company B, and even better the report will actually pull numbers for Company B.

Lesson learned- If you plan to use a building block for multiple companies, or for consolidated reporting across multiple companies, make sure your segment names match from company to company to maximize the efficiency of Management Reporter!