Start with the question
Open Reports from the main navigation. Choose a report that answers the decision you need to make; do not begin with an export format. Standard reports cover membership, attendance, giving and finance, while templates, dashboards and schedules provide repeatable workflows where the plan allows them.
Membership reports
Use membership reporting for the member register, new members, lifecycle status, branch membership and follow-up views.
- 1Choose the membership report or template.
- 2Select organisation and permitted branch scope.
- 3Set the status and joined-date filters.
- 4Generate and compare the total with the filtered Members list.
Attendance reports
Use attendance reporting for service participation, event totals, trends, visitors and member attendance. Select comparable event types and a meaningful date range before interpreting change.
Giving reports
Use giving or income reports for category summaries, donor statements where permitted, anonymous giving and branch totals. Confirm transaction status and currency. A pledge report is not the same as received giving.
Finance reports
Use finance reporting for income and expense summaries, transactions, budget comparison, cash views and approval history. Reconcile the underlying period before distributing a formal report.
Confirm every filter
Before selecting Generate, check organisation, branch, date range, currency, record status and category. A correctly calculated result with the wrong branch or period is still wrong.
If a filter is disabled, your role, branch scope, plan or the report definition may not allow that choice.
Generate and monitor
Some reports return immediately; larger reports create a background generation job. Keep the page open or return to Reports → Generation to check status. Do not submit the same report repeatedly while one is pending.
Export safely
Use the available PDF or structured-data export offered by the report. The interface only shows formats the report currently supports. Treat every downloaded file as organisational data: store it in an approved location, share it with the intended audience and remove unnecessary copies.
Report permissions and scope
Viewing a report requires access to its underlying area. Exporting or scheduling may require additional capabilities. Branch-scoped users cannot generate another branch's report by changing request parameters; Django enforces scope on the server.
Why a report may be empty
Check the active organisation and branch, widen the date range, confirm statuses, remove an overly narrow category and verify that source records are posted rather than drafts. If the source list contains records but the equivalent report does not, contact support with the report, filters and generation time.