BQE CORE provides you with a wide array of reports that dig deep into the business and offer valuable insights. These reports can be generated from in-context reports or from the Report Center screen. CORE has so many features that it still is a powerful tool even if your company is only scratching the surface of its potential. That said, using the reports can really maximize your returns from CORE.
To get the most out of the reports, here are some tips you should start using today.
Tip 1: Take Advantage of Automated Reports
Tip 2: Customize Your Dashboards
Tip 3: Stay on Track with Budget Comparison
Tip 4: Use Filters to Hone Your Search
Tip 5: Optimize Employee Efficiency
Tip 1: Take Advantage of Automated Reports
At BQE, we understand that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for our clients. That’s why CORE was specifically developed to be flexible enough to adapt to your business needs while maintaining a consistently high level of efficiency that would also assist someone in an entirely different industry.
Though different companies have different needs, one common problem is the overwhelming and often unnecessary influx of periodical reports. Instead of dealing with hundreds of reports at the end of every quarter, CORE automatically simplifies your business data into the most essential 10-15 updates.
The first step to simplifying your reporting is to identify which of the reports are essential to your business. After this, you can save, the report template or share it with others in the company. The scheduled reports option enables you to deliver reports automatically.
The automatic feature is a must-use to cut your work in half. When used correctly, automated reports will transform your business – saving you and your employees time, energy, and money.
Tip 2: Customize Your Dashboards
With CORE, you can create unlimited dashboards to organize your projects. But it doesn’t stop there – there are over 50 unique dashboard widgets to help get the most out of the dashboard feature. These widgets can summarize your project highlights on the dashboard, or display your data as mini-reports in several presentation styles, including simple numeric metrics, tables and charts.
Customizing each dashboard is important for optimizing the interfirm communication and organization. Dashboards are also the hub where you can categorize and specify all your reports, making localization extremely fast and efficient. All dashboards are also shareable and can be sent to and viewed by other CORE profiles within your company.
Tip 3: Stay on Track with Budget Comparison
Every business sometimes struggles to stay on track with the projected budget: maybe you spent more time than was originally expected, or maybe a client is stalling to pay for services, for example. Nothing ever goes exactly as planned.
With CORE, you can avoid any monetary surprises by using Budget Comparison. This report helps you maintain a close eye on your budget at all times with regular reports about company spending – overseeing even the slightest of details that can affect your bottom line. The Budget Comparison reports can be easily shared and accessed by project managers and can be reviewed at any given point.
In addition, scheduling your reports can ensure that weekly budget reports are sent to the email inbox of project managers every Monday morning. Presented as neat and clean comparison email reports, these reminders are a great way for managers to keep on track with spending and move ahead into each new week with a strong budget plan.
Tip 4: Use Filters to Hone Your Search
With CORE, you can filter your searches for the most specific information. Often, big-data reports can be overwhelming, and filtering the information is tricky, or even impossible. With CORE, you can group the data by client, project manager, principal of the company, and more! Filters and options are available to you on any of the reports that you run in CORE.
To help you specify your search on a report:
- Go to the Configure Report.
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Go to Filters and Display Options.
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From here, you can apply filters that will help you organize your searches and get you the most out of your data.
Tip 5: Optimize Employee Efficiency
All companies should understand how to maximize employee utilization. Several features in CORE do this, enabling you to see exactly which members of the team are exceeding, falling behind, and more.
With reconciliation reports, you can view how employees are spending their time, and if there might be any room for improvement or adjustment.
Filters are also a great way to find specific employee data, like who are the top 10 revenue earners. You can view the state of work-in-progress at any given moment, therefore accurately tracking the overall progress of the company goals.
Be sure to save your filters when you find one that works for you and your business. Do this by making the report a Favorite, and it will become easily accessible in the future.
There's also a ‘Group by’ option. Simply click on the report and go to the Options tab. Choose to show - or hide - details on the report or group the report by some criteria. This powerful ‘Group by’ option gives you the ability to run the same report many different ways by grouping the data using different criteria. You can also choose the output format for the report (PDF, viewer, Word, CSV or Excel).
Managing employee efficiency with the tools provided within CORE will enable you to lead your team feeling confident and informed. CORE can help your business thrive, and its powerful reporting features can help you take your success to another level. To learn more about CORE reports, check CORE Help Center.
Tips to Help Organize Projects for more Streamlined Reporting
1. Project Groups
Use project groups to associate projects and phases together. You set up the categories, and each project/phase can be assigned to an unlimited number of groups. Examples of project groups include: Residential, Commercial, Not-for-Profit, By Region/Office, etc.
When configured, groups can be used on various filters within CORE. Check out Groups on the side menu > Settings.
2. Classes
Use classes to categorize project financial reports. A class allows you to track project income or performance by partner, location, or any other parameter at the project-level. For instance, if you keep data from multiple locations in one company file, you may assign a ‘class’ to each location to facilitate pulling together similar items for reporting.
Each project/phase in CORE can be associated with a class, and is set in the project’s Settings > Billing Options tab. When configured, classes provide categorization on financial reports. Check out Classes on the side menu > Settings > Add-ons > Accounting.
3. Custom Fields
The Custom Fields screen is where you can create customized fields to track data. While CORE provides a vast array of fields to use, you can add more fields as needed. For example: We provide a Purchase Order field at the project level to track PO numbers, however you may also need to track a secondary tracking number.
To resolve this issue, simply open a project/phase and navigate to the Custom Fields tab. Create the field, select the appropriate type and provide a name. Now all projects will have the ability to record this additional content. Custom fields can also be used to drive filters and reports. Check out Custom Fields on the side menu > Settings > Display & Formatting.
4. Custom Reports
While CORE comes default with an extensive list of reports, you may find it advantageous to either customize a report view to include or omit data, or even combine multiple reports into a more summarized view.
If you are interested in ordering a customized report, please contact customreports@bqe.com with a detailed request and report mock-up if possible.
5. Dashboards
The Dashboard is the default home page and is unique to each user login. Each dashboard contains a series of visual widgets that provide information from your company database and present it in the best format on different panels. You can have or add a maximum of 9 widgets on a dashboard, but you can add an unlimited number of dashboards. Although most of the widgets display information for the last 12 months by default, you can choose any specific or custom date range. You can even display the same widget twice for two different date ranges for comparison and rename them to reflect different views.
Be sure to use these powerful tools in addition to running basic reports.
6. Scheduled Reports
One of the best features in CORE is the ability to program nearly any report to run automatically on a schedule and have it delivered via email to specified recipients.
For example: You can create multiple versions of the Project Performance report and set the filters to a specific project manager. Then, simply set the schedule options and provide an email address. That manager will now get a review of their projects via email according to the schedule you set. Repeat per relevant manager.
Scheduled reports can also be edited later to adjust date specific parameters.