Tip of the Month for January 2011

Managing / Purging Archived Reports

Archived Reports Management makes keeping track of reports and journals easy for Answers users.  With just a few clicks, users can easily view and print copies of stock receipts, cash receipts, cash disbursements, and many other reports and journals.  It eliminates the need for keeping binders with paper copies of these reports.

However, after several years, the quantity of the reports can grow and make the time required to load the list of available journals and reports rather long.  The Archived Reports Management program provides an option for purging reports and for backing up/exporting reports by fiscal year.  While purging or writing reports off to a cd or to a flash drive would keep them from being loaded in the list each time, it also makes them less accessible.

However, with these options, is the option to purge the archived reports to a separate back-up folder in Answers.  This way, they are not loaded in the list every time Archived Reports Management is used, but they are available for quick and easy access should an older report be needed.

In Archived Reports Management:

• Click on the icon showing the folder pointing to the CD, .  A window will display the available fiscal years to backup, the number of files and the size of the files.

• Highlight the fiscal year you wish to backup and the "Export to Drive or Folder" will become enabled.  The default folder should be your standard datafiles folder followed by "archives" and the fiscal year you are backing up, "H:\datafiles\archives09" for example.

• If you wish to change the backup folder, use the binoculars to find/create the folder you wish to place the reports and journals in.

• The reports and journals from the selected fiscal year will be moved to the new location.

• Once the archive operation is complete, use the procedure listed below to view the reports from the new folder (to verify they were moved successfully) and then use the purge option to remove the files from the current archive folder.

If you want to reference or look at reports in an "archived" fiscal year, in Archived Reports Management:

• Click on File, Browse to a Different Folder.

• Select the location of the archived/purged Archived Reports.  If you accepted the answers default when purging, the location will be: "H:\datafiles\archivesxx" where xx is the fiscal year you want to view reports from.

• As you select modules and reports, only the archived reports found in that archive folder are displayed. 

This process will help keep the archived reports more manageable and help in the amount of time required to load up the reports, since only recent and/or current fiscal year reports are shown by default.

Purging a fiscal year's reports to an archived folder does affect the "link" between the archived reports and the general ledger Account Inquiry.  Reports purged to the archived folders will not be available when using the "View Journal" button in General Ledger Account Inquiry, so that should be considered when determining which fiscal years to purge into archived folders.