NAV Reporting Writing 101 - where to get your data

When one is new to report writing in Microsoft Dynamics NAV, one may wonder what tables to pull data from.  There's a bountiful number of tables in NAV and so meandering through the list can be daunting.   Here's my shortlist of favorite tables to pull data from when reporting:

17 G/L Entry - this is the table for pulling general ledger data.  

21 Cust. Ledger Entry - this table stores invoices, credit memos, payments, etc. for customers.  It does not contain line item detail.  The aged accounts receivable report utilizes this table and several standard sales reports by customer pull from this table.  Good for pulling overall sales data by customer which could include items, G/L accounts, fixed assets and resources.  Although it contains fields for Profit, it is not reliable for profit data related to items.  See 'Item Ledger Entry' below for more details. 

25 Vendor Ledger Entry - this table is similar to the Cust. Ledger Entry, but is for vendors.  It is utilized by the aged accounts payable report and several standard purchasing reports by vendor pull from this table. 

32 Item Ledger Entry - this table stores all item related transactions (purchases, sales, adjustments, credits, etc.).  It is quite versatile as inventory, sales and purchasing reports can be written using this table.  It stores the customer/vendor no. as well, so it can be used to create sales/purchasing reports by customer/vendor.  Note that it will not contain sales and purchase transactions related to G/L accounts, resources, or fixed assets.   Therefore, if you compare sales reports that drive off the customer ledger vs. the item ledger, you will likely not get the same results.  Table 5802 Value Entry is related to the Item Ledger and is useful when more detail is needed particularly relating to costs.  

The Item Ledger is also affected by the Adjust Cost - Item Entries* process, so is the recommended table for getting the most accurate item cost and profit data vs. relying on the Profit fields in the Cust. Ledger Entry. 

Tables I do not recommend writing reports where item costs or margins are important include:

113 Sale Invoice Line, 115 Sales Cr.Memo Line, 123 Purch. Inv. Line, 125 Purch. Cr.Memo Line

This is for two reasons: 1) you have to read two tables to get the full picture (e.g. invoice and cr.memo lines)  2) More importantly, they are not updated by the Adjust Cost - Item Entries process so it will not contain the most accurate item costing data. 

Happy report writing!

*Adjust Cost - Item Entries process - this process is recommended to be run on a daily basis if you have inventory.  This MSDN link describes this process in detail.