Grouping & Measure
Choose the dimension each row stands for, and the figure each row carries — the two controls that decide the shape of a summary report.
The period decides when. Group by and Measure decide what: one names the thing each row stands for, the other names the number beside it. Both appear only where the report genuinely has a choice — a Balance Sheet has no dimension to pick and no measure to swap, so neither control is drawn.
Group By
Grouping rewrites the rows. Pick Customer and every row is a customer with their total; pick Item and every row is a product. The report is rebuilt on the server each time — the browser never regroups rows it already has.
| Dimension | A row is |
|---|---|
| Customer | One customer |
| Vendor | One vendor |
| Item | One product or service |
| Center | One location |
| Project | One project |
| User | One person on your team |
| Department | One department |
| Category | One item category |
| Employee | One employee record |
| Account | One account in the chart of accounts |
| Tag | One reporting tag |
| Transaction | One transaction line |
| Period | One period in the range |
| Hour | One hour of the trading day |
| Party | One customer or vendor, either side |
| Event | One logged action, ungrouped |
No report offers all of them. Each report declares the handful that make sense for it, in the order they are offered — and the first is what you get before you choose:
| Report | Offered | Opens on |
|---|---|---|
| Sales Summary | Customer · Item · Center · Project · User · Tag | Customer |
| Sales Orders | Customer · Item · Center · Project · User | Customer |
| Customer Receipts | Customer · Center · Project · User | Customer |
| Sales Trend | Customer · Item · Center · Project | Customer |
| Sales Margin by Transaction | Transaction · Center · Item | Transaction |
| Purchases Summary | Vendor · Item · Center · Project · User · Tag | Vendor |
| Purchase Orders | Vendor · Item · Center · Project · User | Vendor |
| Vendor Payments | Vendor · Center · Project · User | Vendor |
| Purchase Trend | Vendor · Item · Center · Project | Vendor |
| Profit and Loss · Balance Sheet · Trial Balance | Center | Center |
| Cost of Sales | Item · Center · Category | Item |
| Item Movement Analytics | Period · Party | Period |
| Project Summary (grouped) | Customer · Center · User | Customer |
| Personnel Headcount · Demographics | Department · Center | Department |
| Payroll Summary | Employee · Department · Center | Employee |
| User Activity | Event · User | Event |
The Center option is removed from every list when the business has one location. A dimension with a single value is not a grouping — it is the same report with an extra column of the same word.
Reports that group themselves
Fourteen catalog entries are the same summary with the dimension already decided — Sales by Customer, Sales by Item, Sales by Employee, Sales by Category, Sales by Hour, Sales by Center, Sales by Project, Sales by Tag, and the five equivalents under Purchases. Opening one from the catalog sets its dimension in the address, and no Group by control is drawn — the choice is the report's name.
Open Sales by Item and Sales Summary grouped by item and you are reading the same figures by two doors.
Receivables and Payables Aging carry no Group by. Their rows are customers or vendors by construction, because the total has to equal the receivables or payables control account. Their View control switches between one row per party and one row per open document — see Aging reports.
Measure
Where Group by names the row, Measure names the number.
| Measure | What each row carries |
|---|---|
| Total Amount | The gross value of the documents in the row, tax included |
| Net Amount | The value excluding tax |
| Balance | What is still outstanding, rather than what was transacted |
| Quantity | Units moved |
| Count | How many documents |
| Report | Measures |
|---|---|
| Sales Summary · Purchases Summary · every by-X summary · the two trends | Total Amount · Net Amount · Quantity · Count |
| Receivables Aging · Payables Aging | Balance only |
| Stock Reconciliation | Total Amount (value) · Quantity |
| Personnel Headcount · Personnel Demographics | Count only |
| Payroll Summary | Total Amount · Net Amount |
| Financial statements, registers, document lists, exception reports | No measure control — the columns are fixed |
A report that offers exactly one measure still shows the control, sitting on that single value, so you can see what the column is rather than having to infer it.
Quantity sums units, and units are not always the same thing. A row grouping pieces with kilograms with litres produces a number that is arithmetically correct and commercially meaningless. Where that risk exists the platform declines to headline it — the Reporting hub, for example, leads inventory cards with value, never with a summed quantity.
Related
- Dates and comparison columns: Period & comparison columns.
- Narrowing to one customer, item or location: Filtering a report.
- The whole toolbar in order: Reading a report.