USING REPORTS > Exporting Data from the Program

There are several ways to export data from the program. You might wish to export the data in order to process it in some way in Excel or another spreadsheet program, or because you are switching to a different software program and you want to import some of the data that you currently have in ACCOUNTS into that other program. You may also want to export the data from reports, in order to format it differently or use it in some other way.

The primary way to export data from ACCOUNTS is to be on a Report output window, and click the Save As button. For details, see Saving Reports to Files.

However, there are several ways to get to a Report output window. The most obvious is by running a report from the Reports menu. Please note, however, that certain complex reports do not export any data, or only export a portion of their data. Other reports actually export additional data that is not visible on the report!

Alternatively, you can generate a report with the Database ⇒ SQL Select menu option. That allows you to export any data that you want to export, whether there is a report that includes it or not, but it does require some minor use of SQL, the internal language used with the database to retrieve data. Read the help page about that for more details.

For exporting to Excel, you will want to select the "Excel" Data Format on the Save As Options window that comes up when you click Save As, with the "Raw Unformatted Data for Exporting" option also selected. For importing into other programs, often the correct Data Format will be either CSV (comma separated value) or Tab Separated Text.

Exporting to Excel with "Formatted Data for Display" is completely different and is unfortunately somewhat imperfect. Please see here for more details about that.