12.05. Financial Reports

The "Financial Reporting" functionality allows you to generate highly customizable reports that can be used for performance analysis, which use the accounting data as source.

Balance Aggregation

Due to the fact that financial reports usually run on big volumes of data, in order to decrease the running time, the accounting information needs to be aggregated before it can be used for reporting. The aggregation levels represent the rules by which the accounting data is aggregated and should be defined depending on the specific analysis needs and on the accounting dimensions used.

The aggregation levels are defined in the Balance Aggregation window, located in the Performance Analysis -> Accounting Rules menu. It is mandatory to have at least one balance aggregation defined for each accounting schema - the default aggregation.

Due to the fact that a financial report is limited maximum two accounting dimensions (rows and columns), it is recommended to define balance aggregations with no more than two accounting dimensions. For the balance sheet reports it is best to use a balance aggregation with a single accounting dimension (for a high reporting speed).

The following fields are available:

• Accounting Schema - determines the source of the accounting data that will be aggregated;

  • Source Account Accumulation, Source Currency - Starting with version 13.12, it is possible to define financial reports using a selected currency, regardless of the accounting schema currency;

• Balance Accumulation - the period for which the accounting data is aggregated: month, week, accounting calendar period;

  • "Accounting Calendar period" - the aggregation will be generated based on a period from an accounting calendar;

• Default - indicates whether this is the default aggregation level for the accounting schema;

• Summarize by section - is used to define the accounting element combination used;

• Delete Accounting Fact Balances button - is used to delete all existing balance aggregations, using this aggregation level.

Update Accounting Balance

The Update Accounting Balance process, located in the Performance Analysis -> Accounting Rules menu, updates or generates balance aggregations for each accounting schema and balance aggregation level defined. The following information is calculated and saved by the process:

• the account balances for each period, according to the calendar

• the account run for each period, according to the accounting calendar

The records generated using the "Update Accounting Balance" process can be viewed in the Accounting Fact Balance window, and are used to generate financial reports. The process should be run daily, manually or using the Scheduler functionality, before displaying financial reports. After running the process the system will display the number of records processed.

Note: If Delete All is checked, the process will delete all accounting balances, for all organizations, regardless of the chosen selection filters!!!

Starting v15.06 the balance aggregation will also calculate the Debit - Credit differences, according to the account type, so that financial reports can be obtained in a short amount of time for large amounts of data. We recommend that you run the "Update Accounting Balance" process after upgrading to 15.06.

Financial Reports

Financial reports are defined in the Financial Report window, located in the Performance Analysis -> Financial Reporting menu. This window allows to user to generate customisable financial reports, such as: analytic/summarised balance sheet, Profit & Loss, etc.

A financial report is made up of two separate entities:

• Report Line Set

• Report Column Set

After defining the corresponding line and columns sets, the report can be defined and generated as described below:

• Name, Description - relevant name and description for the record;

• Calendar - only the balance aggregation with their date belonging to the accounting calendar period or period interval selected when generating the report. As a result you may use a single aggregation level for multiple accounting calendars;

  • Example: an aggregation level with weekly balance accumulation can be used to generate reports per month or trimester, depending on the accounting calendar used;

• Report Line Set, Report Column set - the line and column sets that make up the report

  • List Sources - box if you want to list the sources for each line. If you have chosen summary level entities as your sources in the Report Line Set then selecting this check box will display all child entities. De-selecting this check box will show just the summarized information.

    • List transactions - this will list the individual transactions that were used to generate the source amounts. Generally this would be used only for investigating anomalies.

  • Calculate Columns First - you have selected List Sources for this financial report and you want the source lines to print before the summary line. The default is to print the summary line before the source lines.

Create Report button - is used to generate the financial report. Before executing the process you can specify accounting elements as selection filters and the following parameters:

• Balance Aggregation - the aggregation level based on which the report will be generated;

• GL Category - the report will only display only information based on accounting transactions with this GL category;

• Period (interval)

• Display Lines Without Dimensions - is selected, the report will also display the records corresponding to the element set as parameter but wit no

• Details/Source First - if checked, the details and the source will be displayed before each line;

• Update balances - if checked, the corresponding balance aggregation will be updated automatically before generating the report

• Delete Empty Lines - lines without any amounts (all amounts "0") will not be displayed;

• Consolidate Records - option to group lines based on their consolidation levels, according the corresponding hierarchy.

Report Column Set

The Report Column Set window, located in the Performance Analysis -> Financial Reporting -> Financial Report SetUp menu, is used to define the set of columns that will appear on the report. These usually consist of elements such as accounts, products, business partners or any other element available for an organization. The following fields are available:

• Name Description - relevant name and description for the record;

• Copy Columns - the button is used to copy columns from an existing report column set;

The Report Column tab is used to define the columns contained by the set. The following fields are available:

• Name - name that will appear on the report column heading;

• Sequence - determines the display order of the report columns;

• Posting Type - indicates the type of posted amount for the transaction: Actual, Budget, Reservation, Commitment, Statistical;

• Amount Type - select type of amount to report (e.g. Period Balance or Period Debit Only);

• Column Type:

  • Relative Period - the Relative Period field is displayed:

    • to display the previous period, enter -1;

    • to display the current period, enter 0;

  • Calculation - the Calculation, Operand 1 and Operand 2 fields will be displayed. These can be used to define the calculation type, as well as the columns used in it.

  • Segment Value - the Type field is displayed, where you can select the segment used and the specific amount (e.g. use this option to show Business Partners as report columns and Products as lines).

• Printed - select the checkbox to print this column on the report. Clearing the checkbox prevents the column from beeing printed.

Report Line Set

The Report Line Set, located in the Performance Analysis -> Financial Reporting -> Financial Report SetUp menu is used to define the set of lines that will appear on the report. These usually consist of the sums of the values corresponding to the Current Period, Years or any other element available for an organization. The following fields are available:

• Name Description - relevant name and description for the record;

• Copy Lines button - is used to copy lines from an existing report line set;

The Report Line tab is used to define the lines contained by the set. The following fields are available:

• Sequence - determines the display order of the lines;

• Line Type:

  • Calculation - the Calculation, Operand 1 and Operand 2 fields are displayed. Use them to define the type of calculation and the lines used in it;

  • Segment Value - the Posting Type and Amount Type fields are displayed. Set the values for the fields if the report should display the amounts as lines, rather than columns;

• Posting Type - indicates the type of posted amount for the transaction: Actual, Budget, Reservation, Commitment, Statistical;

• Amount Type - select type of amount to report (e.g. Period Balance or Period Debit Only);

• Printed - select the checkbox to print this line on the report. Clearing the checkbox prevents the line from being printed.

In the Report Source tab you can define and identify the source values for the report line. The following fields are available:

• Type - the list of values contains the dimensions available for the organization. The type you select determines which fields will be displayed on this tab. For example:

  • "Business Partner" - a business partner selection field will be displayed;

  • "Account" - a field for selecting an account element is displayed.

Both Child and Parent ​​(Summary) entities can be selected.

Tips and Tricks

• When defining Report Column Sets and Report Line Sets, leave gaps between the sequence numbers. This will make it easier to insert new columns or lines between existing ones in the future

• If a Posting Type is selected both in the Column set and in the Line Set, these two must not be mutually exclusive. Records must meet all selection criteria in order to be included in the report (e.g. if a Line Set has a Actual Posting Type and the Column Set uses a Budget Posting Type, no record will be selected).

• If you choose a Calculation Line type in the Report Line Set , the Report Source should be kept empty

• You can create a heading with a blank line in the report by entering a Name and a Sequence Line Type and leaving the rest of the fields blank. No Report Source should be specified

• If you do not specify a time period in the parameter window, the current period will be used

• All parameters entered will be printed at the beginning of the the report

• The first time a report is run, the Print Format is generated. You can adjust it to make the report look better. The Print Format will be re-created if the Column Set or Line Set are changed

• If there were recent postings, select the Update Balances checkbox to make sure that all postings are included