The Ledger : reporting

Journal References Are Supposed to Mean Something?

Jennifer Maroney — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:11:00 GMT

Do you ever wonder what the transaction Reference column on the General Ledger Report or Post Report means? If you do, then this post is for you! The Reference, also known as journal reference, is created when you post from subsidiary ledgers (AP, AR, FA, CR, SB, and PY) or in detail from The Raiser's Edge. The journal reference defaults are defined in Configuration, can be customized for your organization's needs, and can even be defined for each transaction type.

Journal references are displayed on:

The transaction detail on an account record
The post report
The Journal Entry batch
All General Ledger reports where Reference is an available field

There are a few things to keep in mind when you set up your journal references. First, the total number of characters in a journal reference cannot exceed 50 characters. Secondly, changes to journal references are not retroactive, so the changes will only affect items that are not yet posted. Finally, when you create the references, make sure you include necessary details for an effective audit trail.

So let's get to the process...

For FE subsidiary ledgers, go to Configuration and click Posting Information. Then highlight the transaction type and select the appropriate field names and field lengths. Remember to define the journal reference for both the debit and credit side of transactions by marking the Debit or Credit option in the dark gray bar.

To define the journal reference in RE, go to Configuration, click General Ledger, and select the field names and lengths; you will see a sample of the journal reference at the bottom of the screen.

Don't see what you want? You can add custom fields to FE or RE by clicking Fields and entering the new name. Not sure how or why you would need a custom field? Try using them to emphasize specific transaction types such as INT- for Interfund entries and APPL- for Application entries.

For more information on customizing journal references or step-by-step instructions, take a look at the Posting Information section of the RE or subledger Configuration Guides.

Tired of Always Maximizing the Report Preview Screen?

Daniel Dalnekoff — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:35:00 GMT

Do you ever notice how each time you click Preview on a report it opens in a microscopic sized window with information only visible through the use of an electron microscope? You don't have to click maximize every time. Please allow me to introduce one of the most useful user settings available for reports. Let's call it "Auto Maximize."

From anywhere in The Financial Edge, click Tools and then Options from the menu bar. Select the Reports tab and mark the option Automatically Maximize Preview Window. Click OK to apply the change, and that's it. Done.

Now all of your reports will automatically open maximized, zoomed to 100%.

VCO Template Validation Shortcut

Daniel Dalnekoff — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:17:00 GMT

We have all been in this situation before, running a report and all of a sudden the results are not coming out correctly; be it a Balance Sheet out of balance, or an Income Statement missing activity from a certain expense code. Either way, one of the most common culprits of this could be something missing from your Visual Chart Organizer (VCO) template. Of course, it seems like a journey to close the report, navigate away from reports into the VCO section, then open the template, search for the missing accounts, and then run the validation report on the template. I agree, considering the probability of success, this is a journey even Leif Ericson may have thought twice about.

There is a shortcut here. In fact, the chart template of your choice can be validated without even leaving the report setup! From the General tab of your report, there is a small button just to the right of the menu where you can select the chart template being used. The button looks like a folder with a check on top of it - the universal sign for Validate.

From here you can create a new validation or select an existing saved parameter and validate the chart template of your choice. This is a quick and easy way to validate your template right from the report parameter to see if this could be the cause of your report issue. Of course, if a change does need to be made to the template you will need to head over to the VCO section of the software to make your edits, but at least it won't be a wasted voyage.

The Ledger Lowdown: Commingling Revenues and Expenses

Jennifer Maroney — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:12:00 GMT

Do you need to show offsetting sales with sales returns on your Income Statement? Whatever the reason to net revenues and expenses, you can do this by adjusting your Visual Chart Organizer (VCO). Just to give you a heads up, the process to adjust the VCO is the easy part; the hard part is what to select. Let's start with the easy and work up from there.

The way to control Income Statement section totals depends on the category selected for the specific header/total section. To change the category, open the VCO and highlight the header/total section to change. Then select the Header tab towards the bottom of the VCO. On the Header tab, you have the option to select several category types including Income Statement, revenue, expense, and transfer.

What do you select? This is where the complexity comes in. If your VCO template has homogeneous sections, e.g., revenue only or expense only, use the category type revenue, expense, gift, transfer, gain, or loss. These automatically result in the correct natural balance. If your report has commingled account types within each section, select the Income Statement category. Once you select this category, you'll notice a new option appears called Show debit balance as. From the drop-down select Negative if you expect a net credit balance or Positive if you expect a net debit balance. After you make your selection, run the Income Statement to make sure the correct sign displays. If not, simply go back into the VCO and change the Show balance as from Negative to Positive or vice versa.

Talk to you soon!

The Ledger Lowdown: Get it in Balance

Jennifer Maroney — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:39:00 GMT

Nothing is more frustrating than when you run your Balance Sheet and the bottom line is out-of-balance . So here you are with an out of balance Balance Sheet that you need to have to your board in an hour, or, even worse, an hour ago. What should you do? Well, the first thing is don't, or try not to, panic. A deep breath usually works for me. Then take a look at these common causes of out of balance financial statements and reports; you may be able to resolve the issue and be a hero:

An account is marked inactive and the report is marked to not include inactive accounts
The chart template is missing accounts
The financial statement is filtering out information
Fund Balance account is not defined on all fund records
The user does not have sufficient rights
Unposted journal entry batches are out of balance

So now that you know what the common causes are, the next step is to start narrowing them down to find your issue. First, create and preview a new Trial Balance Report for the same period and fund(s) as the out of balance financial statement. The report should always be in balance when including all accounts and their balances. If the Trial Balance Report is incorrect with no filters or Visual Chart Organizer (VCO) selected, create a case.

If your Trial Balance is correct, here are some other steps to help you find and resolve the issue:

Run the report as Supervisor or as a user without account level security defined. Financial statements will exclude accounts that a user does not have rights to view.
Mark the option on the General tab to include inactive accounts and rerun the report. Inactive accounts with activity will cause the report to be out of balance.
- If the report totals correctly, create a query of inactive accounts and change the account(s) from inactive to active.
Check your VCO template. As new accounts are added or new templates created, accounts can be left off or duplicated causing the report to be out of balance or total incorrectly.
- If you find there are missing or duplicate accounts, add or remove the appropriate accounts from your custom VCO.
- If the chart validation does not pinpoint the problem, run the report using the default template.
Check the filters on the report to ensure you're not filtering out accounts or activity. A combination of advanced filters on a VCO and report filters can cause you to filter your way out of balance. If the report is still out of balance, remove all filters from the report to determine if the filters are the cause; don't forget the column filters.
Run the report at a level 9. Running reports at a lower level will summarize activity. Increasing the level is an easy way to ensure no accounts are excluded from the report.

For more troubleshooting steps, take a look at Knowledgebase solution BB63184.

Talk to you soon!

Meet Ms. Queue

Jennifer Maroney — Fri, 29 May 2009 12:30:00 GMT

Do you run the same reports and queries everyday or every week? Would you like to hire an assistant to just run these reports so you can focus on more important things? FE has your assistant waiting. Please meet Ms. Accounting Queue:

Ms. Queue is proficient in running reports, queries, exports, and posts automatically. The best part is, she works at any hour, does not require vacation, breaks, and bonuses, and no supervision is required. I recommend using Ms. Queue during non-working hours so you can be more productive by utilizing all workstations and printers during working hours.

For more information, check out the Accounting Queue Guide. If you would like to hire Ms. Accounting Queue to work for you, contact your account manager.

Talk to you soon!

Payroll Post Notes: Get Your Calculation Information Here

Jennifer Maroney — Mon, 11 May 2009 18:35:00 GMT

Do you need to report on employee 403(b) deductions and their employer match or ever wonder how much you pay out for a specific pay type? With the Compensation and Deductions Register, there is no need to wonder...you can get the totals quickly and easily. This flexible report allows you to list employee earnings, benefits, deductions, and tax amounts for paid or unpaid calculations over a specified time period. Let's get to the good stuff.

You can find the report under Transaction Reports in PY. Once there, highlight Compensation and Deductions Report and click New. On the General tab, select to display the report in detail, summary, or both detail and summary. Also define which transactions to include, paid, unpaid, or both, and the date range. After you define those options, select the Filters tab. Here, change the appropriate Benefits, Deductions, or Pay Types filters not to include on the report from All to None. Please note these filters default to include All, so to run the report for only one of these compensation types, you must change the other two filters from All to None. All that's left is to click Preview and you're done.

Talk to you soon!

Make it Feel Like Home: Easy Access to Reports

Mallory Gilbert — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:47:00 GMT

Do you find yourself frequently running the same saved reports, such as Financial Statements or the Open Invoice Report? Did you know you can save time by adding a shortcut to saved reports on your Navigation Bar for quick access? Well, you can, and it’s easy to do!

First, set up a shortcut folder on the Navigation Bar. To do this, simply click Favorites, Organize Favorites from the FE menu bar. Highlight the Navigation Bar folder and click "New Folder." Once you've entered a folder name, click OK.

Now your folder is created, so let's add those reports. From any saved report parameter, click Favorites, Add to Favorites from the menu bar. Once you've given the report a name, choose the folder you just created in the "Create in" drop down menu and click OK.

You can now easily access the report by clicking the shortcut folder. It’s that easy! Here’s an added bonus; these reports cross modules. Create a shortcut to the Open Invoice Report, for example, and you can access it from the General Ledger!

What's a Mock Close?

Gregory Bingel — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:03:00 GMT

Mock Close, Mock Close, what does this mean and how does it affect me? This term is actually very important and pertains to the way the Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and some other reports reflect ending account balances.

So what is a mock close? Mock close is the term used to refer to the rollover of the net surplus/deficit for the year into the fund balance for reporting purposes only. Now I know you are scratching your head trying to figure out what this means so I will now break this concept down into simpler terms.

The software “pretends” that all revenue has rolled into the net asset accounts on the fund record and all the expenses have rolled out of the accounts as of the report dates. In essence, the mock close allows us to see our retained earnings as of the report date. However, the actual rollover process does not physically take place until the fiscal year is hard closed. In short, the mock close is a reporting event only and no journal entries are created.

If you’re thirsty for more mock closing detail try rehydrating yourself by looking over BB22412, which also includes a list of reports that perform this function.

I hope this information helps.

Report Madness

Jennifer Maroney — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:36:00 GMT

Have you ever looked through the 160 standard reports available in FE? Well even if you haven't the number is quite impressive, but how do you know which report to use ? Here are some tips to help you figure it out:

Determine what information you need.
Ok, so this one sounds silly to start with, but if you don't know exactly what you want, how will you know when you get it? Having a clear picture of what you need from a report helps you find the report category to start looking in and saves time. For example, if you need a financial statement, start with the Financial Statements category or if you need employee information, start in Profile and Statistical reports.
Review the Sample Reports Guide (PDF).
This one also sounds obvious, but how many of you knew such a guide existed?

Pardon the interruption, but I wanted to take a moment to remind you that there are several helpful FE guides. They can be found by selecting Help, User Guides from the FE menu bar, or by selecting User Guides from the Support menu on our website. Now back to your previously scheduled program.

The Sample Reports Guide divides standard reports into broad categories, and, for each report, you'll find:
- A brief overview
- Parameter descriptions
- A preview of what the report looks like
Use a test query.
To quickly see how a report will return your data, run it using a query with a few familiar records or a few records with a variety of transactions so you can see how each is treated. For example, if you're running account reports in General Ledger, select a variety of account types with several different transactions. If you are running reports in Accounts Payable, select a vendor with different invoices, credit memos, voided checks, or partially paid invoices.
Use the Layout button.
Click Layout to quickly preview a report using just a few records. Make sure you experiment with the report parameters, such as limiting the date range, to learn how different parameters impact the report totals.
Save and document your report parameters.
After you go through the process to find the report, make sure you document and save your report parameters. This way when you run the report next week or next month, you can save time and compare apples to apples. Follow these steps to print the report criteria:
1. Open the Report.
2. Select the Format tab and highlight Criteria.
3. Mark the Print Report Criteria on checkbox and select either first page or a separate page.
4. Mark checkboxes for individual criteria or right-click in the box and choose Select All.
5. Click Save and name the parameters.
Document your choices in a policies and procedures manual.
After taking the time to determine which reports to run, create an office policy and document it in your policies and procedure manual.

Happy Reporting. Talk to you soon!

Filter Reports by Multiple Records Without a Query

Jennifer Maroney — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:42:00 GMT

If you need a last minute report for specific records, don't waste time creating a query. Instead, select multiple records on the fly as you create the report. Here's how:

In Reports, open the appropriate report and select the Filters tab.
Change the appropriate Include filter from All to Selected.
On the new screen that opens, click in the empty row and then click the binoculars.
On the search screen, click Find Now.
Highlight the records by holding down the Control key on your keyboard and pressing Enter.
Click OK and then click Preview.

Talk to you soon!

Payroll Post Notes: Payroll Register

Jennifer Maroney — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:15:00 GMT

Each week, every other week, monthly, or whatever your pay schedule, you create the time sheet and the calculations and print the checks for your employees. This results in a lot of gross wage amounts, tax amounts, and check stub information when you add it together. I have a nice and easy way for you to report on all of the information or just what you need: run a Payroll Register report. This report provides a list of paid and/or unpaid calculations, as well as a summary of amounts paid to your employees over time. Here's how to create it:

In Reports, Transaction Reports, highlight Payroll Register and click New.
On the General tab, select to include Paid calculations, Unpaid calculations or both.
Select the appropriate payment date, period ending date, or payment post date.
Note: Payment post date will only be available if you select to include only paid calculations.
Mark the checkbox for each calculation detail to include.
Select to print the report in detail or summary. If you select Summary, mark one or both of the Summarize activity by checkboxes and select the appropriate option.
On the Filters tab, define any appropriate filters.
Click Preview.

Happy Reporting. Talk to you soon!

The Ledger Lowdown: Flexible Reporting to Suit Your Needs

Jennifer Maroney — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:46:00 GMT

At some point we all need a report that lists account numbers with specific information. The specific information is what you guys commonly call us about. Most of these questions are answered by creating the General Ledger Report, which allows for flexible formatting and filtering providing detailed information about accounts and transactions.

Here are some popular options for creating a General Ledger Report:

Run the report in detail to see each individual transaction in the account, or in summary to see the net change for the period. (BB109130)
For account analysis purposes, you can run the General Ledger Report for a specific account. (BB109132)
You can include budget information and year-to-date budget analysis on your report. (BB36832)
If you have the Project, Grant and Endowment Management optional module, you can include project distributions on your General Ledger Report. (BB30128)
You can include subtotals by period on your report. (BB36626)

Check out the Account Reports section of the Reports Guide for General Ledger for more information about running the General Ledger Report.

Happy reporting. Talk to you soon!

The Ledger Lowdown: Keep your VCO Up-to-Date

Jennifer Maroney — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:46:00 GMT

Everyone hates out of balance reports . One of the common causes is missing accounts. When you create a new account in General Ledger, you need to update your Visual Chart Organizer (VCO) to ensure the account will be included on reports. OK, so you're probably thinking, "shouldn't FE do this for me?" Well the answer is yes and no . Let me explain...

When you set up your VCO, you have the option to use advanced filters or define an account code range. The default option is to define an account code range. As long as the new account code is included in the range defined in the VCO, the new account will automatically appear on reports. If you use advanced filters, the appearance of the account will depend on the actual filters selected. For example, if you only select to include accounts in fund 01 and the new account number is 01-1234-01, the new account will automatically be included. On the other hand, if you filtered for specific account codes, the new account code will not be included in the VCO and thus missing from reports.

Your best bet to avoid leaving out an account on a report, regardless of the VCO filter options, is to verify the new account is included each time one is created. Yes it's an extra step, but one that may save you or a coworker a headache in the future .

The fist thing to do is run a chart validation for each saved template. This report displays any missing or duplicate accounts. It is a good idea to review the duplicate accounts too, but for this post I will just reference the missing accounts. Here's how to run the validation:

In Visual Chart Organizer, select the chart template and click Open.
Select Template, Validate chart template from the menu bar.
Select an existing parameter file or click Add New to create one.
On the General tab, select the VCO template to validate.
Click Preview.

If no accounts are listed as missing, you're done! If there are accounts missing, add each account to the appropriate section of the template. Here's how:

In Visual Chart Organizer, open the saved VCO template.
Select View, Design View from the menu bar. The window's title bar should read: Visual Chart Organizer - Design View.
Highlight the Account detail listed under the appropriate header.
Select the Account Detail Definition tab and adjust the range or filters to include the new account.
Save and close the VCO.

Talk to you soon!

Payroll Post Notes: Can't Find State and Federal Tax Reports?

Jennifer Maroney — Thu, 22 May 2008 16:21:00 GMT

Are you trying to run your Federal I-9 form or the State New Hire Reports and can't find the State and Federal Tax Report option in Mail? Don't worry; it is probably your security rights. Since this report can contain personal information, such as social security numbers, we have added an additional security option to help keep this information secure. In other words, simply having rights to Mail, will not give you access to these reports.

You will need to request your supervisor, or someone with supervisor rights, to update your group security settings. Once they log in, have them go to Set up system security in Administration to open the security group they are assigned to. Highlight Shared Components, mark the Personal Information checkbox on the right and click Options. On the Options screen, mark the State Tax Reports and the Federal Tax Reports checkboxes, click OK, and then save the security group.

Before you will be able to see the Mail option, you will need to exit and sign out of FE and then log back in. For step-by-step instructions, review Knowledgebase solution BB373712.

Happy reporting. Talk to you soon!