Financial Reporting Menu

The Financial Reporting Menu provides the tools to design and implement reports using data from:

(a)  The General Ledger Master Record

This information can be viewed through the system via the GL Inquiry screen looking at the first screen and also the budget screen.

(b)  The Detailed Journal Entry File

This corresponds to the details shown using Option J of the GL Inquiry module or using Option T of the budget inquiry module. The detailed journal entries included on the report are those for the period specified at the time the report is run.

The details on the GL master record can be for the current year or any of the nine years of history carried on your system. Comparative financial statements can be created with the financial report writer.

Before attempting to create a report at the terminal, we suggest you begin by taking a printer layout sheet (available from your form supplier) and pencil in the desired layout for the report including column headings and fields to be included in the report and the arithmetic necessary to produce the desired results. Once this layout sheet has been produced, the time spent at the terminal will be more productive and the probability of a successful report will be improved.

When preparing reports, there are a few principles of the BAS System which must be considered before defining the report content. Firstly, the Financial Report Writers can access only that data available from the General Ledger Account File (BAGLØØ), the Sub-ledger Account File (BASLØ1), the Dictionary File (BADIØ1), the Journal Entry Transaction File (BAJEØØ), the Budget Transaction File (BABUTR) and selected fields from the Invoice file (BAIEØ1). Secondly the fundamental concepts of current balances and opening balances must be understood and considered in the preparation of any report. Current balance is the total of all transactions which have been entered to an account in the GL but have not been processed through a GL month-end. The opening balance is the total of transactions to an account which have been processed through a General Ledger month-end. You must keep in mind that for asset and liability (balance sheet) accounts the opening balance is the balance brought forward from the previous year plus the sum of the accounting transactions for the closed periods of the current year. For revenue and expense accounts the opening balance is equal to the sum of the balances for the closed accounting periods. There is an exception when dealing with commitment amounts. Commitment amounts are carried forward from year to year and the result requires the same treatment as balance sheet accounts. If you plan to use current balances in your reports, you must be careful. All batches for all current periods must be balanced so that you will produce a balanced financial statement.

You must consider how and when you expect to run the report since lack of consideration may result in a report that can only be run after the accounting period has been closed but not for a period that was previously closed. An example of this is a report which includes asset and liability accounts where you want to include in the 'to date' column the opening balance plus the current year's activity. If you want to be able to re-run the report for any accounting period (for example, accounting period 7 when you have closed accounting period 10), you must use the following formula.

#OPNE-#EXan+#EXTD

If you refer to the definitions of each field included in the report field description section of report creation, the meaning of the above statement will become clearer.