What “easier to review” actually means
Paper files are reviewed by someone who knows which folder to open. Digital records are reviewed by a filter: a date, a party, a document type, a site, or an item. That is useful when the filter fields were captured at entry time. It is useless when the important fact stayed in a margin note that was never typed. The first design question is which facts must be fields, and which can remain comments.
Records before reports
Decide the documents that form the system of record. Typical candidates are bills, receipts, payments, party masters, and item or service lists. Each has a small set of required fields and a larger set of optional ones. Validation, such as “a credit bill must name a party”, belongs here. Reporting cannot repair a missing party later. How to choose those fields is covered in digitizing business records.
Summaries people ask for
Examples that can be specified, not a catalogue you automatically receive:
- Sales or service income for a period, split the way you manage the business.
- Party-wise outstanding, fed by party ledger entries.
- Receipts and payments, aligned with receivables and payables.
- Account movement, if accounting entries are in scope.
- A document register: every bill number in a range, including cancelled numbers if your control requires it.
Filters and exports
A filter is a promise that the column exists and is filled consistently. An export, such as a spreadsheet of the same rows, is useful for an advisor who will not log in to your system. Say who needs the file and how often. An export of everything, with no column list, becomes another pile. Also say whether exported data may leave the office. That is an access decision, related to the roles in the accounting workflow checklist.
What is not guaranteed
Charts, scheduled emails, and “one click” management packs are separate features. They are reasonable when a person will look at them. They are decoration when the underlying register is still incomplete. The homepage sample dashboard uses invented numbers and is labeled as such. Do not treat it as the reporting module.
A practical test
Pick three questions your manager asks every week. Write the columns needed to answer each one. If those columns are not on any current document, the report project is really a data-capture project. Build the capture first. The implementation guide suggests trying this with sample cases before rollout.