Report Painter allows you to create reports using data from SAP application components, which you can adapt to meet your individual requirements.

Many of your reporting requirements can already be met by using the standard reports provided by various SAP application components. If these SAP standard reports do not meet your reporting needs, Report Painter enables you to define your specific reports quickly and easily.

Report Painter fulfills a function similar to Report Writer, but is easier to use. Most of the functions found in Report Writer have been built into Report Painter; however, you do not need to be familiar with all Report Writer concepts (such as Sets) in order to use Report Painter.

When executing a Report Painter report, it is displayed by the system in Report Writer format. You thus have access to the same functions as for Report Writer reports defined in the same way, and can combine Report Painter and Report Writer reports together in a report group.

Report Painter uses a graphical report structure, which forms the basis for your report definition and displays the rows and columns as they appear in the final report output.

To facilitate report definition, you can use many of the standard reporting objects provided by SAP (such as libraries, row/column models, and standard layouts) in your own specific reports. When you define a Report Painter report you can use groups (sets). You can also enter characteristic values directly.

Advantages of Report Painter include:

• Flexible and simple report definition
• Report definition without using sets
• Direct layout control: The rows and columns are displayed in the report definition as they appear in the final report output, making test runs unnecessary.

For comprehensive information on the Report Painter, see the SAP Library, under Financial Accounting ® Special Purpose Ledger ® Report Painter Reports