One of the more interesting feature adds to AX7 is the ability to run Management Reporter reports right from within the AX7 browser window.  No longer is there a separate client to open to run MR. First things first, you’ll have to get used to the new name.  AX7 now refers to Management Reporter as Financial Reports.  Right out of the box, there are 22 default Financial Reports included.  Each of these use the default main account categories.  There are, of course, your standard Income Statement and Balance Sheet reports.  There are also a variety of other reports (Cash Flow, GL Detail etc.) that can be used as they are, or be used as starting points to be edited to fit your company’s needs.  It’s certainly a nice to have a head start!  You even might be inspired by the other examples to look at your data in ways you haven’t before. In order to create and generate financial reports for a legal entity, the following must be set up for that legal entity:

  • Fiscal calendar
  • Ledger
  • Chart of accounts
  • Currency

Then, you can find the Financial reporting menu in the following places in Microsoft Dynamics AX7:

  • General Ledger > Inquiries and reports (example below)
  • Budgeting > Inquires and reports
  • Consolidations

  Additionally, employees without designer rights will be able to run certain variations of the report themselves, no longer requiring someone with designer access to make these changes.  Users can apply different filters for dimensions, dates, attributes, and scenarios without the need for updates in report designs. The financial reporting functions are available to users who have the appropriate privileges and duties assigned to them through their security roles.  Below is a list of the Duties, Privileges and Roles and a description of the rights granted.   Users should be able to access financial reporting within a few minutes after being added or changing a role. Users with appropriate permissions can create a new financial report by clicking New on the Action Pane. A report designer program is downloaded to your device and then starts.   You can then create the new report. After you save the new report, it appears in the financial reports list. The list shows only reports that were created for the company that you’re using in AX. As mentioned earlier, you can also modify existing reports. From the financial reports list, you can create a new report or modify an existing report.  Select the report name (highlighted), click Edit on the Action Pane. The report designer program starts. Hopefully, you now have a bit more insight into the convenience and use of Financial Reports in AX7!