Data insights are crucial if you want your rental business to succeed. This is why rentals rely on reports to analyze their data and strategize accordingly.
But not all rental businesses have the same needs. For this reason, EZRentOut offers Custom Reports in addition to its pre-configured reports. Build reports from scratch as per your workflows and access insights that enable you to grow.
Getting Started
To get started, first ensure that the Custom Reports Add On is enabled. Go to Settings → Add Ons → Custom Reports. Here, enable the Add On and select the appropriate checkboxes if you’d like to allow users to save and schedule Custom Reports.
Now, once you’ve saved these changes, head to Reports → Custom Reports → Custom Report. You can also click on the ‘Create Report‘ button on the top-right of the Reports page to be taken directly to the Custom Report page.
Here, you can build your Custom Reports from scratch. Before we get into that, take a look at the buttons highlighted below.
- Load Saved Report: Load a report you previously saved. Learn more.
- View Scheduled Report: View any reports you’ve scheduled within this category. Learn more.
- Export: Download this report as a CSV/PDF, or upload it to your OneDrive/Dropbox.
Selecting a Module
Begin creating the report by selecting a primary module for your report. Here’s a look at the primary modules you can choose for your Custom Report:
Next, you can select one or more related modules. As implied by the name, these will change based on your initial selection. For example, choosing ‘Locations’ allows you to choose from related modules such as Items, Location History, Stock Requests, and Work Orders.
Let’s begin creating our first Custom Report.
We’ll select ‘Orders’ as the primary module. This results in the following related modules:
For the purposes of our report, we’ve chosen ‘Items’ and ‘Locations’. The related modules you select here will open up additional choices to you in Step 2.
Note: Some related modules can have multiple associations with a single item. As an example, one order can be associated with multiple items, documents, and bundles. When setting up a report, you cannot select more than one of these related modules. In the above example, since we chose Items and Location, all conflicting modules are locked.
Selecting Columns
Now, we need to select columns based on all 3 of our chosen modules. To do this, simply use the arrows to add/remove a column.
To derive order insights related to our report, we’ve selected Order Net Amount, Customer Name, Item Name, Item Warranty(Custom Field), and Location Name.
Applying Filters
Apply filters to your Custom Report to glean data for areas of your interest.
The filter options available to you are also dependent on the primary and related modules you’ve chosen. We picked Orders, Items, and Locations, so we’ll only apply filters based on these modules.
Let’s add our first filter.
- Choose a module and the filter you would like to apply.
- Next, choose between items displaying in an ascending or descending order.
- Click on ‘Add Filter’. This action adds the filter to the list of Applied Filters.
- To add another filter, use the same dropdown to select a new module and filter, and click on ‘Add Filter’ again.
We’ve chosen to filter ‘Completed’ Orders, and Orders with a Net Amount equal to or greater than $500.
Moreover, you can also apply two or more filters to one module.
To stack filters in this manner, choose the same module again with a different filter value, and click on ‘Add Filter’. We’ll try this on our Order status filter.
Click on the crosses to remove one of the filters, or hit Remove Filter to remove the entire filter.
The ‘And’ ‘Or’ options available between filters enable you to choose how you want to apply the filters. You can change between ‘And’ ‘Or’ for the same item, such as different states of Orders. You can also choose Order Status or Order Net Amount as well as Order Status and Order Net Amount. Simply click on the And/Or option to switch.
You also have the option to switch to Advance View when applying filters.
After switching to the Advance View you will be able to drag and drop in groups and use the Filter Criteria to specify logic functions. The filters we chose initially appear like this:
We then drag the Orders – Net Amount filter to the first group. The Filters Criteria also changes to display the change in groups. You can undo this action anytime by the button on the right side.
Create Invoice Line Items report
You can also generate Invoice Line Item reports. Using this module, you can conveniently see how much shipping charges are added to Orders or check the number of Invoice Line Items in each Order.
Please select the Orders module in Step 1 and choose Invoice Line Items as the related module.
The Available Columns in Step 2 will show the Invoice Line Items column underneath the Orders column. You can choose relevant columns as shown below:
Similarly, you can choose related filters and group rows related to Invoice Line Items and click ‘Run Report’ to view Invoice Line Items Report.
Group line items
You can also group line items to make it easier for you to view and analyze the report. This feature clubs similar items together to improve report readability.
To begin, click on ‘Group rows’ under Step 3. Next, simply make your selections.
We’ll choose to group rows by Location names.
Group items to show trends across time
The custom reports also allow you to group items by time to see trends over a specific period. Using this filter you can check how many Items are rented out over a given month, date, year, or time. The report will show the Item count alongside the time period specified.
Go to Step 2, and you can choose time-specific columns to include in the report.
After selecting the columns above then go to Step 4, here you can Group rows by different time periods to show trends. In the image below, we choose to see Items rented out dates over Month and Year:
Let’s say for example you run a Report to see Items rented out each month and time. The Report will look like this:
The same Report can be represented in a graph to clearly show the time trend for Items rented out:
Use functions in reports
In step 5 of generating a custom report, you can apply functions to fields for greater insight.
You can choose any of the above functions to apply to the available numerical columns. You can apply a single function to a single field, for example, applying the Sum function on Items – Net Quantity, or you can apply multiple functions on the single field, for example, applying the Sum and Average functions on the field:
Similarly, you can also apply multiple functions to multiple fields as well.
Applying a single function
Let’s generate a simple report without applying any grouping yet. In this report, we’re applying the Sum function to the Cost Price field. On the last page of the report, you can see the Sum as highlighted below:
Note: The calculated amount for each function applied is not shown at the bottom of each page. Instead, it is shown at the bottom of the last page. In the case of grouping, it is shown at the bottom of each grouping.
Applying different functions on different fields
In this case, we are applying the Sum function on the Net Quantity field and the Max function on the Cost Price field. Here’s what the report will look like:
Applying functions on groups
You can also apply functions after you group rows in the report together in Step 4. In this example, we have grouped items together according to their group.
Then we have applied the Sum function on the Net Quantity field and generated the report. Here’s what the report looks like now, with the grouping:
Instead of displaying the applied function on the last page of the report, it is now visible at the end of every group.
You can also collapse the rows to simply view the Sum of each group, without all the rows of data in between:
Similarly, you can also apply multiple functions on groups, as shown below:
You can also apply multiple functions to multiple groups as well.
Running Your Custom Report
Once you’re done creating your report, it’s time to generate it!
Click on one of the following buttons, depending on your need:
- Run Report: Generate your Custom Report.
- Save Report: Saves the template for future use. This option is only visible once you’ve run the report.
- Schedule Report: Sends the report to specified people at set intervals.
Notice that the same Location names are grouped together. You can expand or collapse the entries as per your liking.
Have Questions for EZRentOut?
If you have any questions about our rental software, feel free to reach out to our support team at support@ezo.io
