What do I need to configure in Dynamics AX to get the most out of Management Reporter?

Management Reporter provides many features to enable a wide variety of reporting scenarios. You can generate traditional financial statements, detailed budget and forecast reports, and operational type reports from Management Reporter. In order to get the most out of Management Reporter, consider following this checklist to make use of all that's available in Management Reporter.

1. Setup your chart of accounts to include account category. This will enable you to make use of the default reports to get started. It also makes report design faster and report maintenance easier.

2. Setup your Microsoft Dynamics AX users with the appropriate security privilege assignments so they are automatically added in Management Reporter. Based on the privileges in AX, users are added as administrator, report generator, report designer, or report viewers in Management Reporter.

3. Setup budgeting within Microsoft Dynamics AX. Management Reporter works great with basic budgeting, Budget Control, and Budget Planning that was introduced in Dynamics AX 2012 R2.

4. Make sure you are on the latest version of Microsoft Dynamics AX. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 CU5 is available, as well as Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 CU6. Additional features have been introduced recently between Microsoft Dynamics AX and Management Reporter to provide more details in your reports, including the ability to add customer and vendor names in transaction detail as well as audit attributes.

5. Make use of Organization Hierarchies in Dynamics AX for your reporting needs. You can create both functional and regional organization hierarchies within Microsoft Dynamics AX, and then use these for reporting in Management Reporter. As the hierarchy changes over time, Management Reporter will automatically use the correct version of the hierarchy during report generation.

6. Setup exchange rate types and currency translation types in the chart of accounts or in the main account templates to be prepared for future translated reporting capabilities.

7. Make sure you are on the latest version of Management Reporter. In Management Reporter RU5, the capability was added to support running Management Reporter from within the Microsoft Dynamics AX client. Look for more features like this in the future.

8. If you have more than one company, take some time to read our blog series on consolidations. Management Reporter can handle everything from basic consolidations to multi-company with different chart of accounts, fiscal periods, and the need for eliminations.

9. Take a look at the documentation, including the Management Reporter Integration Guide for Microsoft Dynamics AX. Any known issues or issues related to customizations will be noted here.