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How To Use Accounting Reports

How to on using reports and exports and explaining difference.
  • Last Update:2021-01-20
  • Version:002
  • Language:en

Table of Contents

Reports can be produced in two formats. One format is for printing with an adapted page layout and the other one is for data extraction and analysis and presented as a spreadsheet; the former is called report, the later is called export. When a report is requested, the system will generate it and send it by mail to the email address configured in the person view. Sometimes these mails can mistakenly be classified as spam, thus if you do not receive the mail containing the report check in your spam folder in your mail application. 

Account statement

Account statement lists all transaction on a given account. This reports offer a number of parameters, most of them are shared among all reports. Parameters having their name displayed in bold are required.
Here are the parameters:
  • Section Category: Select which entity is to be used. Each transaction is related to an organisation recognised as an entity belonging to the “Group” category. The report will display all transactions concerning entities in the selected group. 
  • The Strict Section Category box allow filtering entities belonging exactly to this category 
  • Funding list will limit selection to transaction lines having the chosen funding.  
  • Activity list will limit selection to transaction lines having an activity being in the chosen category.  
  • Project list will limit selection to transaction lines having the chosen project. It is also possible to choose “No project (Entity Only)” in order to select lines having no project specified, as for example transactions for a national office. 
  • From Date and At Date fields allow restricting selection to the specified time-frame. These two dates are included, meaning transaction passed on these dates will be included in the report. From Date is not mandatory; if it is no set, all transactions passed before the At date will be selected; if set, a line will display the initial balance. 
  • The Detailed Beginning Balance box will be used only if the field From Date is set. If ticked, a second list of transaction will be displayed to explain the initial balance. They are all lines passed before the date which are not grouped. 
  • If the Omit Grouped Reference box is ticked, only lines which are not grouped will be displayed. In the case of a third party account it allows outlining unpaid invoices or bad payments/invoices association. Lines grouped with another line after the selected At Date will always be displayed. 
  • The Hide Analytic Details box allows regrouping lines split for the purpose of analytics (activity, funding or project). As an example, in the case of a 100€ Phone Invoice, the expense is split in two line, one of 40€ with an “Admin-Finance” activity and another of 60€ with a “Human Resources” activity. If this box is not ticked, two lines will appear in the report and the report will contain one more column to display the activity. If this box is ticked, the two lines will be grouped together in a line of 100€, and columns concerning analytics being useless will not be showed.     
  • The Format field sets the output format. In “Reports” available formats are PDF, OpenOffice Text or Word and for “Exports” OpenOffice spreadsheet or Excel.  
  • Simulation State field filter transactions according to selected states. Thanks to this parameter, planned transactions can be selected and cash flow forecast can be made  
  • Transaction Type field allows filtering according to the transaction type. 
  • In the Account field is selected the account on which the statement will be made. This field is mandatory. 
  • In the Bank Account field we can limit transaction to those concerning this bank account. 
When the report is made with selected parameters, a PDF file is received and is presented this way:
All reports start with an area reminding the parameters which were selected to produce the report.
The second area lists all corresponding transactions.

Trial Balance

Trial balance lists all accounts and displays the Initial balance, the Total of transactions and the final balance for the period.
The dialogue to set the balance looks like this:
Some fields behave the same way they do in account statement.
  • If the Expend Other Parties Accounts box is ticked, a line will be displayed for every third party for Payable and Receivables accounts. If not ticked, only one line containing all third parties will be displayed.  
  • If Detail Analytic boxes are ticked, it will details accounts for selected analytic. 
  • The Summary for each Account Class box adds a total line for each account class. As an example: Class 1 Capital account, Class 2 Fixed Asset Accounts.... 
  • The Entity Role field allows filtering transactions with third parties having selected roles. One good example is selecting the “Internal” role to have transaction between entities. 
  • The GAP field allows filtering accounts by accounts roots. As an example Class 4 accounts can be selected for third parties accounts, or 401 to get only suppliers accounts. It does not select a peculiar account, but an account category in the GAP. 
  • GAP Root field allow choosing which accounting code to use for account numbering.  
Trial balance looks this way:
If the Expand Other Parties Accounts box was ticked, the 40110000 account will be expanded using one line per third party.
Cash/Bank accounts are automatically expanded in accounts per bank and cash in hand.
If a box was ticked in Detail Analysis, a column will be added to display analytic, and a line for an account will be split in as many lines as needed to make all combinations needed by analytic. In the following example we have three lines for the same account, the same activity but three different projects.

Journal

Journal report presents accounting lines grouped by transactions.
In this report, dates meaning is slightly different than in other reports. If no From Date is given, only transactions passed on the At Date will be used. If both dates are filled, the behaviour will be exactly the same as in other reports.
  • Bank Account field restricts the selection to transactions on the chosen account.
  • Payment Mode field restricts the selection to payment transactions having the selected payment mode.
  • The journal displays all lines, in order to mark a difference between transactions, the transaction reference column is only referenced on each transactions first line.

General Ledger

The General Ledger reports all accounting transactions grouped by accounts. For receivables and payable account types it lists transactions by account with a breakdown by third party. For bank account types it lists transactions by accounts and cash in hand or bank account.
General Ledger options are the same as in Trial Balance or Account Statement.

General Ledger / Account Statement for a third party

It is possible to make a general ledger or an account statement selecting transactions concerning one third party. This report can not be made from the accounting module but from the third party view. The first step is to find the third party in organisation or person module or to use the rapid search from the home page.
Once on the third party view, you can use Import/Export and Report buttons (1) to obtain  the dialogue for reports.
The same dialogue as in accounting module is then displayed where General Ledger and Account Statements can be made.

Third Parties

Third Parties reports is similar to the General Ledger reports apart from the fact it groups transactions by third party and not by account and only Receivables and Debts accounts are taken into account.

Accounting line report

Accounting line report allow exporting accounting line in a spreadsheet to proceed on various analysis on them.
Accounting line report is to be made this way: first search for the lines you need in the accounting module (look at the chapter “Searching for transactions” [XXX reference] if needed) and select your accounting lines, then use “Import/Export” button, select “Accounting line Report” and click on the “Accounting line Report” button to get your spreadsheet.  

Online view

Reports presented in this chapter offer reviews of accounting data, but it is also possible to access some of this information online.
As an example, on an account view, on the “Transaction” tab are displayed all accounting lines using the account.
It is also accessible on an organisation view, from the “Transactions” tab, displaying all transactions on receivables or payable accounts using the organisation as a third party.
The same Transactions tab exists on a bank account, but in this case it displays transactions made using this account on accounts having a “Asset/Cash/Bank” type.
The main advantage here is that transactions can be clicked on to get more information on it.
These various tabs use parameters  set in user preferences.

How preference are used in accounting reports

In the “Accounting Preferences” tab in user preference, default parameters for reports can be set.
If From Date andAt Date fields are set, they will be set to their values in reports dialogues. It goes the same way for “Section Category”, “Strict Section Category” and “Simulation State”.
Transactions lists in online view also use these preferences, and transaction lines are displayed if: the organisations belongs to the selected section category (strictly or not according to the preference), the transaction has a selected simulation state and has beenpassed on the selected period.

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