Dynamics Corporate Performance Management

Taking Your Financial Reports to the Next Level with Management Reporter – Quarterly Tax Form (7 of 8)

Jill Carter — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:59:35 GMT

The next report in the “Taking your Financial Reports to the Next Level with Management Reporter” series is called “Quarterly Tax Form.” This report is designed to provide the tax information required when filing quarterly employee tax information.

The concept behind this report was to use the tax form itself as a guide. When building the row definition, each line in forum becomes a row in the row definition, then main accounts are added where appropriate, values are hard coded as needed and calculations are created.

This video includes information on how to create a similar “Quarterly Tax Form” report for your company.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

http://youtu.be/ICKdGEhpWSU

In summary, the key features included in the “Quarterly Revenue by Business Unit” were:

Customize row descriptions in the row definition
Calculation format code, CAL, for If, Then calculations

Quarterly Revenue by Business Unit - Are we making a profit?
Weekly Campaign Revenue - Are we being effective?
Weekly Material Usage - Are we being efficient?
Budget to Target - Are we hitting targets?
Postings Audit - Are we entering transaction accurately?
Statement of Cash Flow - Are we making the right investments?
Quarterly Tax Form - Are we getting the data needed for taxes?
Financial Matrix - How are we performing?

Taking Your Financial Reports to the Next Level with Management Reporter – Statement of Cash Flows (6 of 8)

Ryan Sandness — Tue, 21 May 2013 20:35:00 GMT

The sixth report in the “Taking your Financial Reports to the Next Level with Management Reporter” series is the “Statement of Cash Flows.” There are often multiple financial or strategic opportunities available to a company, but not a lot of cash for those opportunities. The need for sufficient cash to cover operating expenses needs to be balanced against opportunities to pay off debt or to make operating investments. The Statement of Cash Flows report helps in evaluating past operations and in planning future investing and financing activities.

This video contains how to create a Statement of Cash Flows report for your business.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

In summary, the key features included in the “Statement of Cash Flows" report were:

Account modifier in the Row Definition to return beginning balance or year-to-date amounts for the cash accounts rows
Non-Printing rows and columns used for calculations
Advanced cell placement for calculating the beginning cash balance

Links to other posts in this series:

Quarterly Revenue by Business Unit - Are we making a profit?
Weekly Campaign Revenue - Are we being effective?
Weekly Material Usage - Are we being efficient?
Budget to Target - Are we hitting targets?
Postings Audit - Are we entering transaction accurately?
Statement of Cash Flow - Are we making the right investments?
Quarterly Tax Form - Are we getting the data needed for taxes?
Financial Matrix - How are we performing?

Taking Your Financial Reports to the Next Level with Management Reporter – Postings Audit (5 of 8)

Ryan Sandness — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:30:00 GMT

The fifth report in the “Taking your Financial Reports to the Next Level with Management Reporter” series is called “Postings Audit.” Entering transactions accurately is important for proper reporting. Transactions should be posted to the correct accounts and dimensions with the correct amounts. The Audit report helps you evaluate how transactions were posted by providing a look a the details for each transaction in a straightforward way.

The Row Definition for the report contain a Dimension Value Set of several accounts that commonly have posting issues. Alternatively, a Row Definition similar to a trial balance containing all natural accounts could be used. The Column Definition contains the month-to-date amounts as well as several columns with specific transaction attributes. These attributes may vary by the Dynamics ERP you use, but for Dynamics GP I used the following:

Transaction Date
Audit Trail Code
Journal Entry
Distribution Reference
Source Document
Series
Originating Master Record Name

This video contains how to create a Postings Audit report for your business.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

In summary, the key features included in the “Postings Audit" report were:

Dimension Value Set to display a list of the accounts that should be reviewed.
Transaction attributes to show the journal entry number and other key transaction details.
Downloading the report to Excel, where it's easier to review large amounts of data.

Links to other posts in this series:

Quarterly Revenue by Business Unit - Are we making a profit?
Weekly Campaign Revenue - Are we being effective?
Weekly Material Usage - Are we being efficient?
Budget to Target - Are we hitting targets?
Postings Audit - Are we entering transaction accurately?
Statement of Cash Flow - Are we making the right investments?
Quarterly Tax Form - Are we getting the data needed for taxes?
Financial Matrix - How are we performing?

Taking Your Financial Reports to the Next Level with Management Reporter – Budget to Target (4 of 8)

April Olson — Mon, 13 May 2013 21:53:00 GMT

The fourth report in the “Taking your Financial Reports to the Next Level with Management Reporter” series is called “Budget to Target.” During the planning stage for a fiscal year or quarter a business often sets goals or targets they want to strive for. This report is for the budget manager to run during the budgeting process as department managers are entering their budgets.

The rows of the report contain target numbers entered in rows, expenses, and calculations to show the percentage variances. There are hidden rows used in the calculations so only the percentages show as opposed to the dollar amounts. Formatting is also used to focus the user on the initial percentages. The column contains data from Dynamics AX R2 Budget Planning.

This video contains how to create a Budget to Target report for your business.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

In summary, the key features included in the “Budget to Target" report were:

Budget integration
Advanced calculation by using row type to enter targets
Advanced calculations using non-printing rows in calculations.
Formatting to draw attention to the key lines of the report.

Links to other posts in this series:

Quarterly Revenue by Business Unit - Are we making a profit?
Weekly Campaign Revenue - Are we being effective?
Weekly Material Usage - Are we being efficient?
Budget to Target - Are we hitting targets?
Postings Audit - Are we entering transaction accurately?
Statement of Cash Flow - Are we making the right investments?
Quarterly Tax Form - Are we getting the data needed for taxes?
Financial Matrix - How are we performing?

Taking Your Financial Reports to the Next Level with Management Reporter – Weekly Material Usage (3 of 8)

April Olson — Thu, 09 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

The third report in the “Taking your Financial Reports to the Next Level with Management Reporter” series is called “Weekly Material Usage.” Tracking the efficiency of your operations can encompass different types of data and analysis, making it difficult to obtain with a single report. The Weekly Material Usage report accomplishes this and uses key features of Management Reporter to make it short and effective.

The rows of the report contain quantity data from Dynamics AX, the use of main accounts and a dimension, calculations and data from Microsoft Excel. The columns are re-used from the Weekly Campaign Revenue report and show the weeks of the month for more granular analysis.

This video contains how to create a Weekly Material Usage report for your business.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

In summary, the key features included in the “Weekly Material Usage" report were:

Book code modifiers in the row definition to bring statistical data into the report.
Data from Microsoft Excel and the general ledger in a single column.
Calculations to get costs and amounts per unit.
Formatting to draw attention to the key lines of the report.
Weekly columns for more accurate visibility into the data.

Links to other posts in this series:

Quarterly Revenue by Business Unit - Are we making a profit?
Weekly Campaign Revenue - Are we being effective?
Weekly Material Usage - Are we being efficient?
Budget to Target - Are we hitting targets?
Postings Audit - Are we entering transaction accurately?
Statement of Cash Flow - Are we making the right investments?
Quarterly Tax Form - Are we getting the data needed for taxes?
Financial Matrix - How are we performing?

Management Reporter RU5 Regional Installs Available

Jill Carter — Tue, 07 May 2013 19:38:00 GMT

Management Reporter 2012 RU5 regional installs are now available for download and include two new countries, Brazil and Japan.

The full list of available regional installs is below. Customers in countries not listed can use Management Reporter in one of the available languages, if they wish.

Taking Your Financial Reports to the Next Level with Management Reporter – Weekly Campaign Revenue (2 of 8)

Jill Carter — Mon, 06 May 2013 13:38:00 GMT

The second report in the “Taking your Financial Reports to the Next Level with Management Reporter” series is called “Weekly Campaign Revenue.” Managing the revenue associated with various marketing campaigns can be challenging. But, if you’re using dimensions in your Microsoft Dynamics General Ledger account structure, you can easily create a report in Management Reporter to help you track weekly revenue for the various marketing tactics you’ve put to use in your business.

The rows of the report display the four key marketing campaign tactics being used, as well as the total. The columns are structured to display each week in a five-week period that the marketing campaigns are being tracked, along with the total. Two charts also have been created for this report. One shows a pie chart breaking down the revenue by total marketing campaign, making it easy to see that billboards are driving the least amount of revenue. The second chart shows week-by-week revenue by campaign, allowing someone to easily pinpoint that no revenue was received by banner and search ads over a 2-week period.

This video includes information on how to create a similar “Weekly Campaign Revenue” report for your company.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

http://youtu.be/ZY3-nEYFPhQ

In summary, the key features included in the “Weekly Campaign Revenue” were:

Start and end dates were defined to create each weekly column
Charts for total revenue and weekly revenue by campaign were created in the Management Reporter web viewer

Links to other posts in this series:

Quarterly Revenue by Business Unit - Are we making a profit?
Weekly Material Usage - Are we being efficient?
Budget to Target - Are we hitting targets?
Postings Audit - Are we entering transaction accurately?
Statement of Cash Flow - Are we making the right investments?
Quarterly Tax Form - Are we getting the data needed for taxes?
Financial Matrix - How are we performing?

Taking Your Financial Reports to the Next Level with Management Reporter - Quarterly Revenue by Business Unit (1 of 8)

Jill Carter — Fri, 03 May 2013 14:44:00 GMT

The first report in the “Taking your Financial Reports to the Next Level with Management Reporter” series is called “Quarterly Revenue by Business Unit.” This report is designed to help someone like the sales manager zero in on the most critical revenue information.

Assume the company is in Quarter 3 (Q3) of their fiscal year. Because Q1 and Q2 are past, only the variance amounts (difference between actual and forecast) are shown for these quarters. For Q3, the current quarter, the report shows a lot more detail. The quarter is broken down by month, plus actual, forecast and variance amounts are displayed. Finally, for Q4, only the forecast is displayed. For the entire report, negative amounts are displayed in red to help the sales manager quickly identify the key areas for further analysis.

This video includes information on how to create a similar “Quarterly Revenue by Business Unit” report for your company.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

http://youtu.be/z7EllJ8sZjw

In summary, the key features included in the “Quarterly Revenue by Business Unit” were:

Rows were restricted by dimension (in this case, business unit)
Period ranges were entered in the column definition to designate the quarterly columns
Non-printing quarterly columns were defined to be used in calculations, but not displayed in the report
XCR was designated in the Print Control for variance columns to ensure favorable and unfavorable variances were displayed correctly

Take Your Financial Reports to the Next Level with Management Reporter -- Introduction to Blog Series

Jill Carter — Wed, 01 May 2013 19:40:00 GMT

Often when we talk about Management Reporter and Microsoft Dynamics ERPs we focus on the traditional financial statements, since that's one of the things Management Reporter does so well. Over the next couple of weeks, we are taking a different approach. We'll be showing you how to create eight different reports that not only take advantage of the flexibility in Management Reporter, but also show you how to find the hidden data in your general ledger and how to include additional data into your reports from Microsoft Excel. These reports can help you determine if your company is being profitable, effective, and efficient, hitting targets, entering transactions accurately, making the right investments, getting the data need for taxes, and performing overall.

Quarterly Revenue by Business Unit - Are we making a profit?

Campaign Revenue - Are we being effective?

Weekly Material Usage - Are we being efficient?

Budget to Target - Are we hitting targets?

Postings Audit - Are we entering transaction accurately?

Statement of Cash Flow - Are we making the right investments?

Quarterly Tax Form - Are we getting the data needed for taxes?

Financial Matrix - How are we performing?

As part of this series, we'll also provide you with tips on creating your own reports like these, so you can also get the most out of your general ledger.

Drill down to Dynamics GP DDM from within desktop viewer -- Management Reporter RU5

April Olson — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:00:00 GMT

Drilling from the account level reports to Dynamics GP 2013 inquiry screens is now available with Management Reporter Rollup 5. Users can analyze data from the source system to make quick decisions and inquiries by drilling on actual and budget data.

(Please visit the site to view this video)