Understanding Business Analytics

Article • 6/30/2025 • 2 min read

The Business Analytics feature provides you with the tools you need to access and analyze your data so you can make better informed business decisions.

Because the Business Analytics reports run in Microsoft Excel, you need to use Microsoft Excel 2000 or higher.

There are two important aspects of business analytics:

There are predefined Business Analytics sales and production reports that are part of Made2Manage, and are available through the Transfer or Executive Information System tab. When you run these reports, the resulting data displays in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and charts. You can use the output of these reports “as is”, change the criteria included in the reports, modify the layout of the reports, and save the new layout and use it as a basis for new reports.
You can take an existing Made2Manage report, or create a new report, and create Microsoft Excel template layouts using PivotTables and PivotCharts. Because you can add a new layout to the existing Made2Manage report, you always have the option to run the “standard” report or the Microsoft Excel report. You can also create new Business Analytics reports through RPMAKE, and have access to those reports through the Transfer or Executive Information System tab.

Business Analytics uses a “push methodology” to gather current data for the Microsoft Excel template spreadsheet. This methodology provides security from within Made2Manage ERP by utilizing existing user report permissions.