Reports and the grid
Reports build the table you want to see. The Grid puts customers against lines so the gaps — your next pitch — stand out.
How do I build a sales report and find customers missing a line?
- On Reports, start from a ready-made report or a blank page. Choose one line per customer (or line, rep, month…), the dates and any filter.
- Tick the columns you want, such as Effective rate and Sales last year.
- Save it under a name so anyone in the office can open it again. It rolls forward by itself each month.
- On the Grid, choose what goes down the side and across the top. An empty square means that customer has never bought that line.
Good to know
- Switch the Grid's top to years to see who is growing and the year someone stopped buying.
Where to find it
- Analytics › Reports — try it in the demo (opens in a new tab)
- Analytics › Grid — try it in the demo (opens in a new tab)
Read the video transcript
Reports let you build the table you want to see, instead of the one someone else designed. Ready-made reports are a starting point. We'll build our own from a blank page. Question: which customers buy the most from Acme this year, and are they growing?
One line per customer. Only January through this month, so we compare like with like against last year. Narrow it to one manufacturer — start typing and pick Acme. Keep the ten biggest; the rest are gathered into one line.
The table now answers our question: Acme sales by customer, this year so far. Choose the columns. Tick 'Effective rate' to see what you really earned on each account. And 'Sales last year', so the change has a number to stand on.
New columns appear right away, in the order they are listed. Happy with it? Save it under a name so anyone in the office can open it again. The report now carries its own name.
Next month, it rolls forward by itself. Below the table, the same numbers as charts: month by month, and the biggest accounts. Saved reports are listed at the bottom for the whole office. The Grid puts two things side by side — here, customers down the side and lines across the top.
An empty square means that customer has never bought that line. That's your next pitch. Let's look at one territory only: Great Lakes, top ten customers. Darker squares are bigger.
Read across a row to see which lines each customer is still missing. Now switch the top to years, over the last 36 months. Three years side by side: who is growing, and the year someone stopped buying. Reports for the table you want, the Grid for the gaps between customers and lines.