A customer, long-time users of Dynamics NAV and recently upgraded to Business Central, asked me for help finding a report that they could only find in Business Central by clicking on a link to the report in a Learn.microsoft.com document. They could not find by any means directly in Business Central. I was intrigued. Quite honestly, I am not even sure I ever knew this report existed, but I am always keen to help.
Using the link to the Microsoft document provided by the customer, I quickly opened the Payment on Hold report in BC.
Accounts Payable Reports and Analytics – Business Central | Microsoft Learn
Next I tried using ALT + Q, went to the Role Explorer, and the report was nowhere to be found. The report seemed to be only accessible via the link in the document. Or was it?
This user’s role is set to Business Manager as she wears many hats within the organization and this role suited her needs the best. When we changed her role to Accounts Payable Coordinator, we found it – the Payments on Hold report in the Actions menu.
So now we had a decision to make. Go to Microsoft and try to get the report to be searchable using the system search, have a developer add it to the Business Manager Profile, or change the profile of the user to Accounts Payable Coordinator? Well actually, there is one other option – use Vendor Ledger Entries list page with filters to accomplish the goal for this customer. From the list page, we can filter to open vendor ledger entries with and on hold indicator.
The decision for this customer was easy – use the Vendor Ledger Entries list page with filters. Not only does this solution require minimal training or effort, but it also provides the benefit of drilling down to related entries if any questions need to be answered. You can’t do that with a piece of paper.
This is a great example of the benefits of using a list page over a printed report. Not only can you view and drill down into the result set, but you can easily share it with others. And now that we have the Analyze feature on list pages, we can group and present the data more effectively if needed.
We found our solution and yet another Righter Way to use Business Central.
