The various criteria selected determines how Tabs3 searches the files for the specified information. When archived information is included in the search criteria, the length of time to process the report can be longer, particularly when the archive files are large. The archive file maintains two indexes—one on the client field and one on the transaction date field. If additional criteria is specified on the client tab (other than Client ID), then Tabs3 has to also look at the client record in the client file. This extra lookup slows down the report, particularly when multiple clients are included.

When running a report for all clients and including archive information, the report processing time may be substantially reduced when either the first or both of the following conditions are met:

All clients are included in the search. This means that no special selections can be specified on the Client tab.
A date range is specified on the Transactions tab. The date range must be specified for each type of transaction included on the report. However, specifying a date range of 01/01/1970 through the current date will not gain any speed increase because you are including all transactions in the report. However, if you specify a date range of October 1, 2026 through October 31, 2026, you have effectively excluded all transactions before and after that date range, thereby substantially reducing the amount of data that needs to be searched.

However, when running a report for select clients (regardless of whether archived information is included), the following strategies may be employed to optimize the amount of time required to run the report.

When running a report for a few clients, keep in mind the largest and smallest Client IDs. For example, let's say you have clients 1 through 5000. You want to run a report that includes client 25, 4875 and 4876. It would be much quicker to run 2 separate reports: the first report for client 25 only and the second report for clients 4875 and 4876. If you run a single report for all 3 clients, the Transaction File List will look at all clients between 25 and 4875 and therefore take substantially longer.

Let's say you want to run a report for all clients who have a particular billing frequency. Let's further say that there are only 10 clients that have this billing frequency. In this situation, it may be quicker to run the report by specifying the individual clients on the client tab using the Multiple button as opposed to selecting the specific billing frequency. This is because Tabs3 has to look up the billing frequency for every client in the file. However, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, the time saved will once again depend on the largest and smallest Client IDs specified. (Tip: Once you have specified the clients via the Multiple button, save the report as a report definition. The report definition can then be used for future reports.)