Learn how to use the Clubessential Banquet tool for reporting purposes.
Reporting is one area of the Banquets product that can be overlooked or underutilized when compared against other parts of the product. This is sometimes due to the large amount of predefined reports and freedom to build your own reports. The choices can be overwhelming. However, it doesn’t have to be and here are a couple ways to simplify your reporting area.
First, create your own folder.
Within the reporting area you are able to organize your reporting by folder. You are able to create as many folders as you like and can name them anything you would like. Go to Reports, and choose New Folder.
Next, give your folder a name. Don’t be afraid to make it your own!
Choose where in the folder hierarchy you want your folder to live. We typically suggest the top level.
If you want this folder to be available to the rest of your staff, make it public.
Once your folder is created, you are free to save copies of your most frequently used reports in the folder.
How to make copies of reports and why
As mentioned, the Banquets reporting area has a bunch of predefined reports, 88 to be exact. These reports are great and can help you easily gather the information you need. However, it can be time consuming to scan through all your available options and sometimes they aren’t EXACTLY what you need. This is where editing and saving copies comes in handy.
- Name: Make this something that is easy to remember and fits what you are using it for.
- Description: Tell everyone what to use this report for. This can same time in making sure you are choosing the correct report.
- Folder: Remember making that folder? This is when you need that new folder!
- Owner: This will likely be yourself so click the search icon and find your name.
Click Save As to complete.
Our Favorite Report to Customize
So far we have covered ways to make it easier to find reports, but what about customizing? Again, there is a TON of options including creating one from scratch or editing one that is close. However, we wanted to share one we commonly use and why its a powerful choice.
Schedule of Events (Detail) is a report we use often because the amount of data options can help your service staff and finance department depending on the data you want. For example, if you want a display of financials by event for the current month, this can be easily achieved by making a few quick changes.
Report Date Range: Choose the dates you wish for this report to show by default. You can of course change this as needed, but it does help to have a standard default.
Select Columns: This is where you tell the report what you want to display. Following our example, I have removed the previous columns and added event and financial info by revenue center. These choices came from the Event, Event Financial, and Financial-Revenue Center options.
Add/Edit Groupings: Depends on your needs, but you can choose to group data, Day/Date is a commonly used one as it will display everything grouped accordingly.
Add/Edit Sorts: Tell the system how your want the data sorted. Again, date is a commonly chosen option, same with Event Name.
Add/Edit Calculations: Many clubs will use the Sum calculation and add the columns they wish to total underneath. Total Charges or adding your revenue centers will allow you to see your sales totals.
Add/Edit Filters: Perhaps you want to only see events in a current life cycle stage. Use a filter to see only what you need.
Once you have added all your choices, use the Save As option to save your report and preview it. Now you should be able to effectively manage your reporting area moving forward.