Reports: packs, sections, and one period
The five report packs, how each section reads the period, withheld figures, saved views, and export.
On this page
The Report Center answers one question: what happened, across which properties, on which dates, in a form you can send to an owner or an accountant. Open it from Reports in the web app.
A report or a list?
The lists already exist: Contracts, Payments, Receivables and Expenses all filter and page perfectly well. But a list is a live view of right now. It states no period, it explains no arithmetic, and its numbers move the next time you open it.
A report is the opposite by construction: it names the window it read, it names how it calculated, and it returns the same answer if you run it again over the same period. That is the whole difference, and every rule on this page exists to protect it.
The five packs
Reports are arranged in five packs, and each pack holds sections. A section is the report itself: a register with a title, columns and totals.
| Pack | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Money | The rent roll, arrears by age, what is due to come in, what actually came in and how it arrived, expenses, and what that leaves per property |
| Leasing | New contracts, renewals, lease offers, what ends soon, what is not registered on Ejar, occupancy, and the contract register |
| Operations | Maintenance requests and how long they take, their costs, recurring work, service agreements, approval steps, and the register of properties and units |
| For the owner | One owner's properties and what happened on them. It will not run until you choose the owner |
| Executive summary | One page carrying the figures of the other four packs |
You will not necessarily see all five. A pack where you may run none of the sections does not appear for you at all, rather than appearing empty.
The period, and how each section reads it
A pack carries one period, which you choose at the top: this month, last month, this quarter, last quarter, this or last fiscal year, fiscal year to date, the last 30 days, the last 90 days, or a custom period. The fiscal year starts in the month set in your workspace finance settings, which is not necessarily January.
Sections do not read that period the same way, and that is deliberate. Every section carries a line under its heading naming what it actually read:
- Over the period: activity inside the range, such as what was collected or the expenses recorded.
- As at a date: a balance at a single moment, such as arrears aging or the contract register. A period that ends in the future is read as it stands today, because nobody can produce a balance at a moment that has not happened.
- From today forward: a look-ahead that ignores the chosen period entirely and starts from today, such as contracts ending soon. That section carries a Starts today badge so it is not read as the quarter you picked.
Where these numbers come from
Every section carries a Where these numbers come from button. It opens a panel naming the window the section read, the arithmetic in full, what the amounts are (gross, net or VAT), what is withheld from you, and which other page in the system calculates the same figure the same way.
Read that panel before you send a report to an owner. It is where you learn why a figure here differs from one on the dashboard, and the reason is usually a different lateness grace or a different period rather than a mistake in the arithmetic.
Withheld figures
Permission to see amounts is granted per property, and reports honour it exactly as the rest of the system does. An amount you may not see is blank or locked, and it never appears as zero.
The rule on totals is stricter: a total appears only if your permission covers every property inside the report's scope. A sum computed over part of the scope is a wrong number that looks right, which is more dangerous than a missing one. If your permission covers some of the properties and not others, the report says so in a line at the top, so you do not read the visible rows as the whole portfolio. The full picture is in Money.
The owner pack
This is the one pack that refuses to run before you name something: choose the owner first. There is no default, because a report headed with an owner's name and filled with somebody else's properties does not look broken, and that is the worst thing about it.
Ownership is read from two places: a share recorded against the property, or the owner field in the property's settings. A property carrying neither does not appear here however well known its owner is to your office, so if a property you expect is missing, set the owner in that property's settings.
The executive summary
One page, and every figure on it comes from a section in another pack and is calculated there the same way. That is why a figure in the summary cannot differ from the figure in the report it came from.
The figures are arranged in groups, and each group states the period it read: collections over the period, arrears as at a date, contracts ending from today forward. That is why the groups exist: one period line over figures that read three different periods would not be true of all of them.
Columns and saved views
Some registers are wide, so they open with a chosen set of default columns. The Columns button adds or hides what you want, and the choice travels into the file you export, so what is on screen and what is in the export do not disagree.
Save this view stores the pack, the period, the filters and the columns under a name you choose, so your team returns to the same report without setting it up again every month.
Exporting a report
Export produces the report in two formats:
- CSV: one table per section with a parameters block at the end. The format for opening the numbers in another tool.
- XLSX: a full workbook with a cover, an index, a sheet per section and a parameters sheet. The format for sending to an owner or an accountant.
Large files are prepared in the background, so they appear under Recent exports and update their own status. Every file records on its parameters sheet who asked for it and when, over which period and filters, and what was withheld from the person who requested it. A file expires 14 days after it is created, so export again rather than relying on an old link.
Who can see reports
Opening the screen needs permission to view reports, and each section then needs permission for its own subject: a section about payments needs somebody who reads payments, and one about maintenance needs somebody who reads maintenance. That is why two people see different packs on the same workspace, and why one of them sees sections the other does not.
A section you do not have permission for does not exist as far as you are concerned, rather than being shown and empty. The details are in Roles and permissions.