STMNTMNU Select and Print Financial Statements 1
Select And Print Financial Statements
Application Overview
The Select And Print Financial Statements application encompasses two major processes that enable your company to select and print standard or customized financial statements.
These processes are statement specifications and financial statements.
Statement Specifications
This process maintains Standard or Custom statement specifications. It controls which financial statements are to be printed on the next statement run and stores other information concerning the appearance and content of these important documents. The decision of whether to select a standard or custom specification is dependent on your specific objectives. Before proceeding further you should consider whether they are better suited to a standard or customized statement specification. You may also begin with standard statements and progress to customized statements.
In general, standard specifications are appropriate when your primary objective is to generate a standard column format that incorporates standard definitions in the Statement Layout File. But if the job requires greater flexibility, and powerful features such as printing up to 13 columns of financial information, defining specialized financial specifications, and numerical rounding then select the customized specifications option. In this section the benefits of these two unique procedures are discussed.
Standard Specifications
The Standard Specifications feature enables you to select add, change, or delete records on file. It will additionally enable the generalized clearing and selection of Standard Statement Specifications that are to be printed on the next financial statement run as well as a listing of these specifications.
The format and appearance of individual financial statements is determined by the statement's layout entered in the Statement Layout File. However, a statement defined by a particular layout must be selected before it can be printed. In addition to selecting the layout other information is required by the programs that print financial statements. This application provides for the selection of layouts and the entry of that additional information.
It is advisable to group statement specifications numerically to facilitate access when selecting them to be printed. One example of such logical grouping is to reserve specification numbers 1 through 100 for statements with the level of detail required for month‑end administrative reporting. Numbers 101 through 200 might then be reserved for quarterly reports and 201 through 300 for those statements which you wish to make public. Another such logical organization would be to group the specifications according to the types of statements to which they pertain. For instance, specification numbers 1 through 50 might be reserved for Profit and Loss Statements, numbers 51 through 100 for Balance Sheet Statements, etc.
Each user's priorities are somewhat different. Some may choose to ignore profit center and financial entity capabilities while others rely heavily upon frequent, in‑depth analysis of the activities at these levels of the company. Some users may wish to get by with one or two versions of the Balance Sheet and P&L while others may desire many versions from the highly detailed to concise summaries. Whatever your priorities, this file can be accessed and maintained most easily if it is structured according to some convenient numbering system.
When selecting specifications for the next financial statement run, unless you intend to print the same statements that were printed on the last run, you will need to modify the selections. You will probably find it most convenient to first clear all previous selections utilizing the Clear function of this application. This will set the Print Next Run? field for each specification to N.
Once all selections have been cleared it would be helpful to get a listing of specifications on file so that you could review your options and note, which specifications are to be selected.
When you know which specifications are to be selected you must then change the Print Next Run? answer for each of them to Y. If there are a small number of specifications to be selected it would be easy to access each of them individually in order to select them. You can access them in change mode by bringing them up one at a time using the F1 key option and selecting the appropriate specifications to print.
If there are a great many specifications on file and they are grouped numerically in logical order you will wish to utilize the Generalized statement selection function. This will permit you to select a range of specifications to be printed and specify which profit centers and/or financial entities are to be allowed.
When running Generalized statement selection you must enter the starting and ending specification numbers. Only specifications within this range will be considered for selection. You will then have one or more of these options for the selection criteria on which specifications will be selected within the starting and ending number range. You may choose to select specifications for which the profit center is All (consolidated statements); you may choose to select those specifications for a specific profit center or financial entity; and/or, you may choose to select specifications for All individual profit centers and all financial entities. Whichever options are chosen, only those specifications, which fall within the range that was entered, and which match the profit center and/or financial entity designations will be selected to print on the next financial statement run.
If you do not maintain profit centers in this General Ledger package you must choose the selection of specifications for consolidated statements only, when running Generalized Statement Selection. Once the specifications have been selected you may wish to get a printout showing all selected specifications. To do this run List and request to show selected specifications only.
Custom Specifications
The Custom Specifications feature also enables you to select add, change, or delete records on file. It additionally permits the generalized clearing and selection of Custom Statement Specifications that are to be printed on the next financial statement run as well as a listing of the specifications on file.
However, Custom Specifications provides a more flexible alternative than the previous selection. To begin with, it doesn't incorporate the same redundant variables that were present in Standard Specifications. Instead the specification is entered directly from two input screens. In the first you may assign a custom number, layout number, financial entity, profit center, and specify whether to print the $ sign, zero balances, bracket non-typical balances, or print during the next financial statement run.
The second input screen contains 13 areas numbered from 1 to 13., that define the columns of your financial statement.
Period Format Rounding Titles
Col. Type From To Year/Rev Number Option Line 1 Line 2
As illustrated above, each column consists of six variables that interact to define a unique setting. They include Type, Period, Year/Rev, Format Number, Rounding Option, and Title Header. Each of these affect the information subsequently displayed in each column. The following pages examine statement type options, and explore some practical applications for defining a custom specification. They provide an example of how the variables work together to help you achieve your desired objective.
Suppose that in the first column of the custom statement you want to display the actual year to date amounts associated with current G/L accounts.
Period Format Rounding Titles
Col. Type From To Year/Rev Number Option Line 1 Line 2
1. P 01 CP CY Y M Current
The P Type option indicates Present accounts.
The From To is set to delineate period 01 to the current period CP.
The Year/Rev is set to indicate the current year CY.
The resulting values will be formatted and rounded to the M millions.
The present statement type variable P references corresponding account amounts that reside in the Account Balance File. To define this column enter P as the Type. Then specify the Period to range From 01 To the current period CP, and the Year automatically displays the current year CY.
You can optionally conserve horizontal form space by decreasing the column width. This is accomplished by specifying an appropriate Rounding and Format Number option. In this column the Format Number is set to Y and the Rounding Option will round all resulting column values to the millions.
Finally, the Titles variable labels two lines of text that serves to identify the column. In the illustration above, Line 1 is labeled as "Current". These titles will print on financial statements each time an LEG command is inserted in the statement layout file.
In the second and third columns suppose that you want to display the budget for the current period versus last years budget for the same period.
Period Format Rounding Titles
Col. Type From To Year/Rev Number Option Line 1 Line 2
1. P 01 CP CY Y M Current
2. B 01 CP CY-01 Y N Current Budget
3. B 01 CP PY-01 Y N Prev Budget
Column #1 displays the Present accounts from period 1 to the current period.
Column #2 displays the Budget amounts from Period 01 to Current Period of the first revision, for current year.
Column #3 displays the Budget amounts from Period 01 to Current Period of the first revision for the previous year.
All resulting column amounts are formatted.
The rounding option is set to N .
When the budget Type option B is entered all corresponding amounts associated with Budgets in the Budget File are considered. This option enables you to specify the budget period, (CP for current period), (CB for current budget with highest revision number), or budget year (CY for current year) and budget revision number.
In our example, column #2 displays the budget B From Period 01 To the current period CP, for the current year CY, and revision number 01. A revision number of CB could also be used for current budget. The current budget (CB) is determined as the last budget revision number created in Budget File Maintenance for the account for the year. If an account had a revision number 1 and 2 on file for the budget year then revision 2 would be the current budget selected. All accounts do not have to have the same budget revision.
In Column # 4, suppose you want to display variance between the present G/L account information displayed in column #1 and the budget values displayed in column #2. By selecting the variance type V and specifying a range From 1 To 2, as illustrated below this information is displayed.
Period Format Rounding Titles
Col. Type From To Year/Rev Number Option Line 1 Line 2
4. V 1 2 Y N Variance
Column #4 displays the variance between the values entered in Column #1 and Column #2.
All resulting column amounts are formatted.
The rounding option is set to N.
When using variances, the base value of the calculation should always be entered in the "To" column.
In the next three columns you could then display comparative amounts for the years 1990, 1989, and 1988. Remember that if your fiscal year differs from the calendar year, calculate the previous year, PY, by subtracting one from the year of the last period in the Accounting Period File.
To display the comparative amounts it will be necessary to delineate a comparative C Type, and then to specify the Period to range From 01 To the current period, CP for each year you want to compare.
In our example, Column #5, will display the Comparative amounts from the previous year PY, Column #6, the Comparative amounts for 1989, and Column #7, the Comparative amounts for 1988.
Period Format Rounding Titles
Col. Type From To Year/Rev Number Option Line 1 Line 2
5. C 01 CP PY Y N 1990 Comp
6. C 01 CP 89 Y N 1989 Comp
7. C 01 CP 88 Y N 1988 Comp
Column #5 displays the Comparative account amounts From period 01 to the current period CP of the previous year PY.
Column #6 displays the Comparative account amounts from period 01 of 1989 to the current period of 1989.
Column #7 displays the Comparative account amounts from period 01 of 1988 to the current period of 1988.
All resulting column amounts are formatted.
The rounding option is set to N.
Finally, if your objective is to define a Profit & Loss statement, the appropriate starting ratio SR and ending ratio account ER ranges are specified in the Statement Layout File. You can then define a column that displays the Ratio R for these accounts.
Period Format Rounding Titles
Col. Type From To Year/Rev Number Option Line 1 Line 2
1. P CP CP CY Y N Current
2. R CP CP N N Ratio
Column #1 displays the Present account amounts From the current period CP to the current period CP.
Column #2 displays the Ratio of account amounts displayed in column #1,if the SR and ER was previously defined in your Statement Layout File.
Formatting and Rounding are not permitted in the Ratio column.