Data ManagementReports

Balance Sheet

A guide to Balance Sheet in Fynapse.

Overview

A balance sheet is an accounting report that summarizes a business’s financial position at a specific point in time, summarizing what it owns, what it owes, and the resulting equity.

Why Do We Need Balance Sheet?

The primary purpose of balance sheet is to provide information about a business’s assets in a specific point in time, a snapshot e.g. the end of a fiscal quarter or year, unlike an income statement, which covers a period of activity over a selected timeline, e.g. a year.

A balance sheet is built around the fundamental accounting equation:

Assets = Liabilities + Equity

  • Assets — what the company owns or controls (cash, inventory, property, receivables, etc.), usually split into current (short-term) and non-current (long-term).
  • Liabilities — what the company owes to others (loans, accounts payable, accrued expenses), also split into current and non-current.
  • Equity — the residual value belonging to owners/shareholders after liabilities are subtracted from assets (share capital, retained earnings, etc.).

Key Characteristics

  • Available after all Journals were properly posted to the Subledger
  • Includes all Accounts from the Chart of Accounts labeled as Balance Sheet in the Financial Statement column
  • Provides data for a specified point in time.

Prerequisites

For balance sheet to work, you need to correctly configure the Chart of Accounts, so that the Accounts are correctly grouped in the report. Use the Financial Statement and Type columns to group Accounts into Balance Sheet and further group them within these categories.

For more details and a sample Chart of Accounts, refer to Chart of Accounts.

Balance Sheet Screen

The Balance Sheet screen comprises:

  • Report settings - a section which allows you to configure the dates and filters you want to use to create reports
  • The grid - the grid with the generated report
  • The display panel - located above the grid, allows you to configure how the data is displayed in the report
  • The Export button - which allows you to export the report into a CSV file

Report Settings

In order to generate a report you have to configure the following settings:

  • Reporting Currency - the currency used in the report
    • When Multiple Currencies functionality is disabled this drop-down contains Transaction currencies
    • When Multiple Currencies functionality is enabled this drop-down contains Reporting currencies
  • Date - the date for which the report will be generated
  • Comparison switch - when enabled, the report will generate a comparison between the selected dates
    • Difference highlight threshold (%) - determines what percentage the results should differ to be highlighted in red
  • Filter - drop-down where you select dimensions from the Dimension set list that will be used to aggregate data
  • Exclude yearend cleardown journals - allows you to filter out Journals from accounts configured for yearend cleardown process

Display Settings

Display settings allow you to configure how the data will be displayed in the grid.

It comprises the details of the report, i.e. Dates and Units, and allows you to configure:

  • Negative number format - default set to brackets
    • Brackets
    • Minus sign
  • Units - default set to millions
    • millions
    • thousands
    • whole number
  • Decimal places - default set to 3
    • Range 0-3

You can drill-back to the Journals that comprise the report by clicking on the amounts in the grid.

Tutorials

  1. Go to Reports > Balance Sheet.
  2. In the Report settings section, select the settings for the report:
    1. Currency - the currency used in the report
      1. When Multiple Currencies functionality is disabled this drop-down contains Transaction currencies
      2. When Multiple Currencies functionality is enabled this drop-down contains Reporting currencies
    2. Date - the date for which the report will be generated; by default set to Specific date
      Depending on the type of time period you specify, you will be prompted to choose either a specific date or a period/quarter start end based on the selected Fiscal Calendar.
      1. Specific date - select a specific date from the calendar
      2. Period start - start date of the period selected, determined by the selected Fiscal Calendar
      3. Period end - end date of the period selected, determined by the selected Fiscal Calendar
      4. Quarter start - start date of the quarter selected, determined by the selected Fiscal Calendar
      5. Quarter end - end date of the quarter selected, determined by the selected Fiscal Calendar
      6. Financial year start - start date of the selected financial year, determined by the selected Fiscal Calendar
    3. Comparison - when enabled, the report will generate a comparison between the selected time periods; comparison always mirrors the selected timeframe, e.g. period vs period for Period start
      1. Difference highlight threshold (%) - set the percentage value above which differences will be highlighted in red
  3. In the Filter section, from the Attributes drop-down select the dimensions you want to use to aggregate the data. This is optional.
    When you select multiple dimensions, the aggregation is hierarchical based on the top-down order of the dimensions. You can move the dimensions in the hierarchy using the move up and move down arrows. You can also add additional filtering conditions for the dimensions.
  4. Click the Generate report button.

Watch a video about Balance Sheet