> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.lerian.studio/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# What is Reporter?
> Turn financial data into repeatable business and operational reports with templates and automated rendering.
**Reporter** is Lerian's licensed reporting engine. It turns data from your
financial systems into repeatable reports based on plain-text `.tpl` templates.
You define the document structure once, then generate updated outputs whenever
you need them.
Reporter can render HTML, CSV, XML, PDF, and TXT files. It is available to
licensed customers, and Lerian maintains its source code in a private
repository.
## What Reporter helps you achieve
Reporter gives product, operations, and engineering teams a shared way to
produce consistent documents from changing data. You can use it to:
* Replace recurring manual report assembly with a repeatable process
* Keep document structure separate from the data used to populate it
* Reuse a template across reporting periods and data sets
* Produce several output formats through one reporting workflow
* Store templates and generated files for later retrieval
## Problems Reporter solves
Reporting often combines data extraction, document formatting, and delivery in
one fragile manual process. That approach becomes difficult to review and
maintain as the number of reports grows.
Reporter separates those concerns. Data sources provide the values, templates
describe the output, and the rendering workflow produces the final file. This
separation helps you update a layout without rebuilding the data integration,
or connect new data without redesigning every report.
## How Reporter works
At a high level, each report follows the same flow:
1. You create or select a `.tpl` template.
2. You request a report with the relevant parameters and filters.
3. Reporter retrieves data from configured PostgreSQL or MongoDB sources.
4. The template engine applies the document logic and renders the output.
5. Reporter stores the generated file and makes it available to the requesting
system.
## Core capabilities
* **Template-driven reports:** Define layouts and document logic in reusable
`.tpl` files.
* **Multiple data sources:** Read report data from PostgreSQL and MongoDB.
* **Flexible document logic:** Build conditional sections, repeated content,
calculations, and aggregations into templates.
* **Multiple output formats:** Generate HTML, CSV, XML, PDF, or TXT files.
* **Asynchronous processing:** Run report generation outside the request path
when a workload requires background processing.
* **Durable artifacts:** Keep templates and generated reports in
S3-compatible object storage.
* **API-based operation:** Create templates, request reports, and retrieve
results through the Reporter API.
## Architecture and deployment model
Reporter keeps data access, template processing, storage, and API delivery as
separate responsibilities:
* The data layer connects to configured PostgreSQL and MongoDB sources.
* The template layer resolves data and renders the requested format.
* The storage layer uses an S3-compatible service for templates and outputs.
* The API layer exposes reporting resources to applications and operators.
You deploy Reporter alongside the databases and object storage it needs to
reach. The exact topology depends on your environment and operational model.
Reporter can integrate with [Access Manager](/en/platform/access-manager/access-manager)
to control access to reporting resources. Whether that integration is enabled,
and which policies apply, depends on your deployment and licensed offering.
## Next steps
Complete the shortest path from access to a generated report.
Understand how Reporter reads data from a Midaz deployment.
Follow task-oriented guidance for templates, data sources, and reports.
Review the available template tags, filters, and expressions.