The following FAQs for the Financial Reporter module are divided into categories. Click the appropriate topic below to view the questions and answers for that area of interest, or scroll through the FAQs one at a time.
See also: Editing financial statements, overview
Formatting financial statements
In the Financial Reporter module, a representative 9,999,999.99 appears in place of actual amounts on the editing worksheet. To view the actual amounts, preview or print the statement.
See Opening and viewing sample statements
If you have a company logo that you would like to insert in the statement, place the cursor in the desired location and choose Insert > Bitmap. Currently, the Financial Reporter module will accept graphics only if they are Windows bitmap (*.bmp) files.
See Inserting a bitmap
Click the gray button at the top left corner of the worksheet to highlight all the cells in the worksheet, and then choose Format > Font to change the font typeface, style, size and other effects in Font tab of the Format Cells dialog.
See Changing the fonts for the entire sheet at one time
Choose File > Properties, in the Border field select the desired border or select None for no border.
See Format menu
Increase the size of the row or choose Format > Cells > Alignment tab and select Center or Top for the Vertical alignment.
You are using the incorrect underline. Use the accountant's underline, by choosing Format > Cells > Font tab and select account underline in the Underline field, or click the Accountant's underline button on the toolbar.
See also
Format menu
Financial Statement Editor toolbar
The toggle is turned on for the Freeze Row Heights command. To turn off that command, click the button on the toolbar or choose View > Freeze Row Heights.
Previewing and printing financial statements
For any column, cell, or group of cells that are to contain an amount, you need to specify a period indicator - which is a symbol or code that tells the program which time period to pull the amounts from. Typically, you would assign the period to an entire column, and then change only those cells that require different properties.
When defining a statement, if you select an individual cell (rather than an entire row) you must define a valid formula for that cell (in the Contents field), along with a period indicator and amount type - otherwise no amount will appear on the statement for that cell or group of cells.
See also
Using period indicators
Using period indicators in percent columns and formulas
If all zeros are printing instead of the actual amounts, choose File > Print Reports from the CSA main window, and then click the Documents tab. Select Financial Reports, and then click the Options button in the Print dialog to open the Financial Statements Print Options dialog. Verify that the Years of Balances field has the correct number of years selected for the number of years that you wish to print.
See Financial Statement Print Options
Choose File > Print Reports, click the Documents tab, select Financial Reports, and click the Options button. Enter 3 in the # of units in current period field.
See Financial Statement Print Options
In Cell Properties, use the period CY-CP to print the beginning of period inventory amounts in your financial statement.
See Using period indicators
In Cell Properties, use the period CT (Current Total Year) in the Period field, and then select BU for Budget in the Amount Type field. Select 1PT for last year's total year budget.
The Financial Reporter module allows you to insert Conditional Expressions into the financial statement worksheet, which allows you to print an account as a current liability or current asset depending on the specific balance for that period.
See the Overdraft account example
Choose Setup > User Preferences, click the Print tab, and mark the Save report options checkbox to save the settings that you have set up in the Financial Statement Print options dialog.
See Financial statement print options
The Financial Reporter module does not support the Two page option in the Print preview window. You must go into the Transmittal Letter editor and preview a statement, and then click One page button, otherwise a blank page will appear in the Print Preview window in the Financial Statement Editor until you zoom in and zoom out.
See Previewing a statement
Highlight the row in the Financial Statement Editor where the amount is printing incorrectly. Check to see if the Change Sign checkbox in the properties box has been marked (This checkbox may or may not need to be marked depending on the circumstances.) If it is an Accounts row, the program automatically prints the amount as a positive number if the account type matches what the account balance would normally be. For example, an account row will print as a positive number if it has a credit balance, and is a Revenue or Liability. This is not true for a Totals row. Totals rows do not look at the type of account. If you want a credit amount to print as a positive number, you must mark the Change Sign checkbox in the properties box.
See Row Properties
Headers and footers
The Top margin and Header margin need to be adjusted in the File > Properties dialog. The difference between the Top margin and Header margin is the amount of space you are allowing for the Header.
Example
If the Top margin is 1.00 inch and the Header margin is 0.25 inch, the 0.75 inch is the available space for the Header. If you have added more rows to the header, then you may need to adjust the margins to allow more room. If the Top margin were increased to 1.50 inch, the Header would now have 1.25 inch.
See Adjusting the page margins or the Header/Footer margins for a statement
Choose File > Properties, and in the Header Page Range group box, select the First page only option. For every sheet where you want to include a page break, add a new sheet with a page break at the bottom. Do this for every sheet except the last one. On every page except the first, enter your heading as a Heading or Description row type at the top of the sheet.
- A header can optionally appear at the top of each page of a statement. It is a combination of several description rows that are repeated at the top of each page.
- A Heading row is a row inserted into a statement as a column heading, and automatically flows to the next page(s) when a natural page break occurs. A Heading row will not automatically flow to the next page when a manual page break has been inserted into the statement.
Formulas
In Row Properties of an Accounts, Totals, or Storage Name row, place your cursor in the Amounts field and press F5 on your keyboard to open the Formula dialog. You may also place your cursor in the Contents field of the Cell Properties box, and press the F5 key to open the Formula dialog. From here you may choose from a number of options to create and insert a formula into your financial statement that is specific to your needs.
Yes. First, select the desired cell or column in the statement. Click the Formula button next to the Location field (in the Cell Properties box). In the Formula dialog, select the first department, click the + button, and then select the second department. Amounts for both locations will be added together in the selected cell or column.
See also
You can. As with any row in a financial statement, you can move the beginning or ending row by clicking and dragging it to different location, thereby changing the range of rows to which the conditional expression applies. You must first highlight the entire row by clicking on the row number and then click and drag it. A red line appears under the row and the mouse pointer will look like this example.
Exporting and importing financial statements
Choose the menu option Utilities > Export, and select one of the following file types from the drop-down list in the Save As Type field of the Export dialog:
- XML Export (*.xml)
- Comma Separated Export (*.csv)
- Tab Delimited Export (*.txt).
Account groups
An account group is a named collection of accounts. The Financial Reporter module uses account groups to increase the flexibility of a statement by allowing multiple clients to use the same statement definition. Some account group names are pre-defined, but account group definitions are client specific.
To define account groups for a client, choose Setup > Account Groups.
See Account Groups [Setup menu]
Base is the account group used in percent formulas within the program's pre-formatted sample statements. Base should be defined (in the Setup > Account Groups dialog) as the accounts that total the amount you define as 100 %.
Period indicators
Yes. Be sure to verify that the IF row of the conditional expression is set up correctly and includes a period indicator. Otherwise, the conditional expression will not display when the statement is printed.
To verify that there is a period indicator, click in every cell on the IF row. In the Cell Properties on the left side of the screen, the Period field should contain information (such as CY, 1PY, CP, etc.). The conditional expression uses the period indicator to determine whether a condition is met.
See Variables [Insert menu]
When in Cell Properties with your cursor in the period field, press the F5 key to open the Formula dialog.
See Formula [Edit menu]
Row and cell properties
The rows and cells in a statement require different treatment and different property definitions, so the two modes exist as a simple way to provide this separation.
Rounding
- From the Financial Statement Editor window, choose File > Properties. In the Statement Properties dialog, select either Regular or Location in the Rounding option field.
- Choose Location if the statement has only a single location on it (either as the entire statement, or as a single column on the statement).
Notes
- If the rounded grand total over the year does not equal zero for all accounts, the difference goes into the rounding account.
- You can specify the rounding account in the Statement Properties dialog by selecting the appropriate account from the drop-down list in the Rounding account field.
- It is important that the rounding account be a balance sheet account (even for an income statement).
Charts and graphs
Choose Edit > Chart and check the change sign box on the Data Definition tab.
See Sample Statements and Charts (PDF) for more information on how to create charts and graphs in the Financial Statement Editor.
Displaying negative numbers in a financial statement
General questions
No. The Financial Reporter module has been specifically designed to run on the 32-bit Windows platform, and your old statements from the WS2 (DOS) program cannot be converted to the new format. However, because of the increased power and flexibility of the Financial Reporter module, you will find that not only is creating new statements much simpler than in WS2 but that the new program offers a completely different level of financial reporting. With the help of pre-formatted sample statements and the ability to use standard account groups and text variables, you can very quickly create professional-quality statements that can be used for multiple clients.
See Creating and editing financial statements
You can add together period indicators to total individual periods within the current and prior years to create a rolling statement. Use the CP-x period indicator to add together, for example, to create quarterly reports for monthly clients that are accurate as you move to each processing period.
See Creating a rolling financial statement using period indicators
starts the Verify function, which checks for errors in the current statement.
See File menu