This page shows how you can quickly group, summarize, and get per-unit information from your transactions, with just a few mouse clicks. We call this using ManagePLUS' visual features, because it's all done with the mouse and happens instantaneously.

The Transactions window is laid out like any other grid or spreadsheet, as columns and rows of transactions. But the similarity stops there, because this grid has a wealth of "mouseable" visual features. (We only have space to show a couple of them here.)

For instance, you can drag any column heading into the grouping panel at the top of the window, as shown here for the Class column:

When you do, ManagePLUS arranges the transactions into groups. Each groups is a collection of all the transactions which have the same value for the column you dragged into the panel. 

For columns which can have multiple levels, like the Account and Class columns, ManagePLUS does even more. It breaks out each level of the column's data into a separate group, as if they were individual columns: 

If you are not impressed yet, consider this:  ManagePLUS lets you drag those broken-apart Account or Class levels into any order you want, which means that for reporting and analysis purposes...

You are no longer "stuck with" the structure of your Classes list as it exists in QuickBooks!

You can simply drag any column heading in the grouping panel to the location where you wan it in the grouping hierarchy. Here's the Class3 level being dragged to the top of the groupings.

And here are the rearranged groupings. Note that Class3 level is now the top-level grouping, which drastically changes how the data is summarized. 

Here's a very important thing to realize:  when you rearrange grouping levels, ManagePLUS properly reorganizes the production or use information associated with each level--in this case, with each class level. So the data on which per-unit statistics are based is correctly accumulated from lower to higher grouping levels. In the example above, that the total quantity (92894 bushels of corn) is properly divided by the Jones farm acreage totaled across all years (616 acres) to compute the overall average corn yield.

Another thing you can do is delete grouping levels you don't want. Here's a view with Class5 (crop Variety) as the top-level grouping, and the Class1, Class3, and Class4 levels deleted from the grouping. The result is a view that shows yields by crop variety across all years the variety was grown.

There are visual features for a lot more than grouping...things like sorting the grid by any column, filtering what data gets displayed, rearranging the column order, hiding and showing columns, and so on. (We don't have space here to show all the possibilities.)

We described the groupings as "views", but don't think that you are limited to just viewing them on your computer's screen. You can print them out or export them to any of several file types: 

While this example dealt with field crops, understand that you can do these same things with your financial records, and any class structure you may be using.