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Financial Reports

Read the trial balance, account enquiry, profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow, for one company or the consolidated group.

Trial Balance and Account Enquiry

The trial balance lists every account's balance for a company on a date, and account enquiry lists one account's transactions behind that balance. Together they are how a finance team checks the books before closing a month and answers "what makes up this figure?". Both are tabs of Ledger & Finance, and both can be read by ERP: Reporting holders.

Where to find it

Admin Panel → Finance:

  • Ledger & Finance — the Trial balance and Account enquiry tabs

Architect Panel → ERP - Finance:

  • Ledger & Finance — the same console for architects

Running the trial balance

  1. Choose the Company, the Book and the As at date at the top of the console.
  2. Open Trial balance. Without a start date it shows each account's debit or credit balance at the as-at date.
  3. Set Movement from (optional) to add opening and period columns: the balance at the start, the period's debits and credits, and the closing balance.
  4. Use Find an account and Type to narrow the list. Figures in brackets are negative.
  5. Select an account to see its transactions on the Account enquiry tab.
  6. Export writes a CSV; Print prints the table.

The options

  • Consolidate the group: the trial balance of the company and every subsidiary under it, translated into the group currency with intercompany balances eliminated. Offered only for a company with subsidiaries. The article on consolidation in this section explains how.
  • Before the year-end close: leaves out the year-end closing journal, so the year's profit and loss balances show as they stood.
  • Add every book together: a comparison only. A company keeping two books repeats entries in each, so they count twice; never use it as the company's figures.

Account enquiry

  1. Open Account enquiry and search for the Account by code or name.
  2. Set From (blank means the start of the financial year) and To.
  3. Optionally narrow by Counterparty or Cost centre.
  4. Press Show transactions. Each line shows its date, journal, narrative, debit, credit and running balance, opening from the balance at the start.
  5. Open a journal from its number to see all its lines and where it came from. Export the list as CSV when you need it elsewhere.

What goes wrong

  • The trial balance does not balance: every journal posted through the ledger is proved balanced, so rows were written to the ledger datastores directly, or deleted from under it. Find them before closing; the close check fails until it balances.
  • "The 'movement from' date is after the 'as at' date": correct one of the dates.
  • Figures look doubled: Add every book together is ticked.

Worked example

Before closing September the controller sets As at to 30 September and Movement from to 1 September. Bank charges show a period debit of 1,240.00 against 310.00 in August. They select the account, which opens Account enquiry for September, and find a 930.00 line coded from the bank feed by a rule that matched a supplier payment. They reverse the journal with a corrected copy and the account returns to its usual level.

Recommendations

  • Read the trial balance with movement columns at every month end and compare with the month before.
  • Drill from the trial balance rather than searching accounts by hand.
  • Keep the book at the top deliberate: it decides which book every report reads.
  • Treat an unbalanced trial balance as urgent: it means something bypassed the ledger.

Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow

The Statements tab of Ledger & Finance produces the three primary financial statements straight from the ledger: profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow, for one company or the consolidated group, with a comparison period. Because amounts are translated when they post and posted journals never change, a closed period's statements give the same figures every time they are run.

Where to find it

Admin Panel → Finance:

  • Ledger & Finance — the Statements tab; statement headings are renamed on the Chart of accounts tab

Architect Panel → ERP - Finance:

  • Ledger & Finance — the same console for architects

Producing a statement

  1. Choose the company and book at the top.
  2. Open Statements and choose Profit and loss, Balance sheet or Cash flow.
  3. Choose the Period (for the balance sheet, the Date): This month, Last month, This quarter, Last quarter, Year to date, Last financial year, or Custom dates with From and To (As at for the balance sheet).
  4. Under Compare with, choose Nothing, Prior period or Prior year.
  5. Under Scope, tick Consolidated group for the company and its subsidiaries (offered only when it has subsidiaries).
  6. Select an account to see its transactions on Account enquiry. Figures in brackets are negative. Export writes a CSV; Print prints it.

How each statement is built

  • Profit and loss: revenue, cost of sales and Gross profit; other operating income and operating expenses to Operating profit; finance income and costs to Profit before tax; tax to Profit for the period. A consolidated statement splits the profit into the part attributable to owners of the parent and to non-controlling interests.
  • Balance sheet: non-current and current assets, current liabilities, Net current assets, Total assets less current liabilities, non-current liabilities, Net assets, and equity with the year's unclosed result to Total equity.
  • Cash flow: the indirect method from balance-sheet movements, in Operating activities, Investing activities and Financing activities, with the Effect of exchange rate changes on cash, the Net change in cash, and cash at the start and end of the period.

Year-end closing journals are left out of the profit and loss, so the month holding a close still shows its trading.

Where an account appears

Each account's Statement heading on the chart places it. An account without one is placed by its type: income under revenue, expense under operating expenses, asset under current assets, liability under current liabilities, equity under equity. Its Cash-flow category places it in the cash flow; without one, bank accounts are cash, equity is financing and everything else is operating. Heading accounts with accounts under them appear as sub-totalled groups.

To word the headings your own way, open the Chart of accounts tab and press Statement headings…. You can rename a heading, or leave it blank to return to the standard name, but not add or remove one. The names apply to every company.

What goes wrong

  • A cost appears under operating expenses instead of cost of sales: give the account the Cost of sales heading on the chart.
  • "The balance sheet does not balance": rows were written to the ledger datastores directly. Check the trial balance.
  • "Nothing to report": no balances fall in the chosen period. Pick another period, or post journals first.
  • The cash flow does not reconcile to the bank: an account that holds cash has no Cash and cash equivalents category, or a non-cash account has it.

Worked example

For the September board pack the controller runs Profit and loss for This quarter compared with Prior year, and the Balance sheet as at 30 September compared with Prior year. The board prefers "Turnover" to "Revenue", so they rename the heading once with Statement headings…; every company's statements now print Turnover. They export both as CSV for the pack.

Recommendations

  • Classify every account with a statement heading and cash-flow category, rather than relying on defaults.
  • Close the period before producing final statements, so the figures cannot change afterwards.
  • Use Prior year for board and management packs; it removes seasonality.
  • Check the trial balance first: a statement is only as sound as the balances beneath it.

Consolidation and Intercompany Eliminations

Consolidation reports a parent company and its subsidiaries as one group: every member translated into the group currency, intercompany balances eliminated, the investment in each subsidiary eliminated against its equity, and minority shares shown separately. It is a reporting option on the Trial balance and Statements tabs, with one posting: the intercompany elimination journal into the group's elimination company.

Where to find it

Admin Panel → Finance:

  • Ledger & Finance — Consolidate the group on the Trial balance tab, Consolidated group on the Statements tab, and intercompany rules on the Set-up tab

Admin Panel → ERP - Setup:

  • ERP Setup — the Companies tab: parent, consolidation method, ownership and the elimination company

Setting up the group

  1. On ERP Setup, Companies, give each subsidiary its Parent company, Reports to the group in currency, Consolidation method and Owned by parent (%).
  2. Add an elimination company under the parent with Elimination company ticked.
  3. On each chart, give accounts the consolidation roles: Currency translation reserve, Non-controlling interests, Profit attributable to non-controlling interests, Intercompany differences (balances that disagree), Goodwill (arising on consolidation), and the investment roles Investment in subsidiaries (eliminated on consolidation) and Investment in associates (equity method), plus Share of results of associates where you have associates. Without a role, a placeholder line is used instead.
  4. On Set-up, add an intercompany rule for each pair of companies that trade, and post recharges through the Journals tab's Intercompany recharge.
  5. Record each investment in a subsidiary on the investment account with the subsidiary's company code as the line's counterparty. The date of that first line is treated as the acquisition date.
  6. Load closing and average rates on Set-up for every currency in the group.

Running the consolidation

  1. Choose the parent company at the top. You need read access to every member.
  2. On Trial balance tick Consolidate the group, or on Statements tick Consolidated group.
  3. Open How the group was consolidated under the report. It shows the Members of the group with method, group share and currency; the Currency translation (closing rate for the balance sheet, average rates for results) and the translation difference; what intercompany was eliminated; Acquisitions eliminated with goodwill or a bargain purchase; Non-controlling interests; and Associates (equity method).

The consolidation methods

  • Full consolidation: every line in full. A member owned under 100% shows the minority's share of its equity and result as non-controlling interests.
  • Proportional consolidation: every line multiplied by the group's share.
  • Equity method: the associate's lines are not added; the investment is carried at cost plus the group's share of results since acquisition.

Posting the elimination journal

The report applies intercompany eliminations on the fly. To put them in the books, so every group figure elsewhere includes them, someone with Post access to the elimination company presses Post the elimination journal in that company. The preview shows one ELIM journal dated at the report date. It is cumulative: only the change since the last elimination is posted, so running it again with nothing new posts nothing.

What goes wrong

  • "The intercompany balances disagree": one company booked a recharge the other did not, or at another amount. The difference is shown on the intercompany differences account until the missing entry is found. Post the elimination only once it is.
  • Consolidate the group is greyed out (no subsidiaries): the chosen company is not anyone's parent.
  • Translation looks wrong: a closing or average rate is missing for a month, so a fallback rate was used.

Worked example

A UK parent owns 100% of a UK trading company and 80% of a Dutch one, and has an eliminations company. The group controller runs the consolidated trial balance at 30 September. The notes show the Dutch company translated from euros, management recharges of 120,000.00 eliminated, goodwill from the Dutch acquisition, and 20% of the Dutch equity and profit as non-controlling interests. A recharge the Dutch company had not booked shows 4,000.00 on the intercompany differences account; once it is posted, the difference clears and they post the elimination journal.

Recommendations

  • Route every intercompany charge through a rule; consolidation eliminates only what the rules describe.
  • Clear intercompany differences before posting eliminations.
  • Give every consolidation role an account on the parent's and elimination company's charts.
  • Keep the eliminations company to group finance, with Post access for nobody else.