Jet Reports Review: What to Test Before You Buy

Most Jet Reports reviews tell you what the reviewer thought. This one is different: it sets out what to test for yourself, so you can judge Jet Reports against your own Business Central data and your own month-end. A short, structured trial tells you far more than any star rating.

If you are new to the product, start with our complete guide to Jet Reports, then come back to this checklist before you book a demo.

What Jet Reports claims to do

insightsoftware describes Jet Reports as real-time Dynamics reporting directly in Excel. It says the add-in connects live to Dynamics GP, NAV or Business Central, so finance teams build reports with the Excel skills they already have.

The same page lists more than 100 pre-built report templates, drill-down from any number to the transactions behind it, and consolidation across multiple companies in one report. It also describes a cloud-based Reports Center and built-in AI assistants.

Key PointKey point: Treat every one of those claims as something to test, not something to accept. A review is only useful if it is your data in the report.

What Business Central already gives you

Before you test an add-in, know what you have. Microsoft documents two built-in Excel actions in its guide to working with Excel from Business Central. Open in Excel copies a filtered list into a workbook, and Edit in Excel lets you change records and publish them back, with a Refresh button for the latest data.

The same page notes that Business Central's Financial Reporting feature can also use Excel templates. So the real question is whether your reporting needs go beyond what is built in, and that gap is what Jet Reports has to justify. Our article on why teams stop exporting to Excel explains where the manual approach starts to cost time.

What to test in a demo

Ask for the demo on a copy of your own data, not a sample company. Run it in a Business Central sandbox environment so that nothing touches production.

• Your real month-end pack. Rebuild the report the board actually reads and compare every total with Business Central.
• Drill-down. Click a figure and check that the transactions behind it match the general ledger.
• More than one company. If you run a group, build one consolidated report and check the eliminations you rely on.
• Refresh time. Refresh the pack against a full period of data and time it.

Pro TipPro tip: Write down the five reports you produce every month before the demo. If the trial cannot rebuild them, nothing else on the feature list matters.

Who will build and own the reports

Jet Reports works inside Excel, so the people who build reports need to be comfortable with it. Decide who will create new reports, who will only run them, and who checks them when Business Central changes.

Ownership matters more than the tool. Our guide to who should own reporting sets out a model that stops the pack depending on one person.

Watch OutWatch out: A report built by one expert and understood by nobody else is a risk, whatever tool it runs in. Ask how reports are documented and handed over.

Questions to ask before you buy

• How is the product licensed, and which users need a licence to build reports rather than only view them?
• What does support cover in the UK, and who maintains reports after each Business Central update?
• How does it compare with Power BI for your needs? Our article on Power BI for Business Central covers that choice.

Get the answers in writing before you sign. For a wider view of finance technology choices, the ICAEW technology resources are a useful independent reference.

Get an independent second opinion

BC Reporting Experts helps UK finance teams test reporting tools against their own Business Central data. Our Business Central reporting checklist is a good place to start, and you can talk to us about running a structured trial.