Sorting a custom report by employee number

GoatyMcGoatBoat
GoatyMcGoatBoat Member Posts: 54
Hi all,

I'm having a problem with sorting a report that I created... the report is the standard "Employee Contact LIst" report, with the "Employee Number" field and emergency contact information added.

My employee numbers are formatted as "TPXXXXX" starting at TP00100, and I'm currently up to about 40 employees.

I can successfully sort the report by ANY other field without a problem... name, phone number, address, etc etc... however when I try to sort the report by "Employee Number," it reverts to the original sorting (by employee name).  Changing the sort method to Descending rather than Ascending makes no difference.

This is becoming a bit of an issue as when I add new employees, I need to know the number of the last employee added so that I don't double up on employee numbers.  At the moment I need to manually read through the list until I find the largest number which hasn't really been an issue in the past but, now that the report is getting to 40-odd records long, it's starting to become a bit of a time waster.  As I grow and I get up into the hundreds of employee records, it's going to be impossible to manage.

Does anyone know what might be the issue here?  Does Reckon only recognise the first few characters in a field when sorting?

Cheers

Comments

  • Linda ABC
    Linda ABC Accredited Partner Posts: 1,131 Accredited Partner Accredited Partner
    edited June 2020
    Hi there - if you remove the TP then you should be able to sort... any alpha characters render that bunch of text ignored and it reverts to alpha by name for those records in the list.... cheers
  • GoatyMcGoatBoat
    GoatyMcGoatBoat Member Posts: 54
    edited October 2017
    Thanks Linda, that fixed the sorting issue and will do the trick for now.... but I have multiple businesses owned by the same company and I used the letters to quickly see at a glance who works for which business.... now I've lost that :(

    Geez Reckon is frustrating!
  • Linda ABC
    Linda ABC Accredited Partner Posts: 1,131 Accredited Partner Accredited Partner
    edited August 2018
    So if it was me - I would create a custom field for the Company name that each employee works for - although if there are multiple businesses - are you using Class Tracking for all the revenue and expenditure of each business?  you could then use the Class field for allocating employees to a business and the Emp Number field could be just a number?  Reckon might be frustrating at times, but it can do things that no other product on the market can do... I love how customisable it can be for all sorts of purposes.  Cheers!
  • GoatyMcGoatBoat
    GoatyMcGoatBoat Member Posts: 54
    edited October 2017
    Thanks for the suggestions Linda.

    I am using class tracking at the moment and can change my reports to use that, but the prefixed employee numbers were just such an incredibly easy way to differentiate between staff of the two different businesses.

    I also now have duplicate employee numbers as I had TP00101 and DP00101, and if my last employee number was TP00140 then I knew I had 40 staff under the TP business. 

    It's all good, I can manage with this... but it just seems that every time I get a system in place for something, a bizarre quirk in Reckon destroys that for me.  Why on earth Reckon wouldn't sort alphanumerically rather than completely ignore a field if it's prefixed by letters is beyond me :/
  • Linda ABC
    Linda ABC Accredited Partner Posts: 1,131 Accredited Partner Accredited Partner
    edited October 2017
    Yes, normally fields are alphanumeric... this one must just be numeric - I have never noticed before...so... if thats the case - best option is to create a Defined field - put in your alpha numerics - they will sort fine on a report - the only problem is that I cant see it being able to go on the payslip... so you would need to keep your Emp No field going as well - put both fields on your report so you can always check they are in sync, but sort by the custom field?