What Are Reports?
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Reports are "template files" which have two main functions in a database program:

·they gather information from the database  
·they present this information to the user in the form of an electronic piece of paper which can be printed out.  

All the print-outs in Rental Desk are produced by "report templates", and these templates are themselves stored in a database table.

Although all reports work in the same work they tend to fall into two general categories:

·Formatted documents, such as Invoices, Quotations, Delivery Notes, etc  
·Informative documents, such as Income statistics, Customer lists, Forecasts, etc.  

Once you have set up your Rental Desk data you will probably wish to change the look of some reports, particularly those that fall into the first category.

Report files are created and modified using a Basic Report Designer program. Just as you would use Microsoft Word to create and modify Word documents, so you have to use a Report Designer program to work with report files. Working with reports can be a daunting task for the novice user, but Rental Desk makes the process much easier because it provides:

·a ready made comprehensive suite of 40 reports which should service all of your reporting requirements  
 
·an integrated Report Designer which is much easier to use than many of the standard packages available today. You will be able to use this Report Designer to change the layout of your reports, add logos and insert extra information from the database. A Report is generally made up of collections of fields and text objects that you can move around on the report.