Tailoring Presentation of General Ledger Balances

This document explains how you capture and report user-selected and multi-dimensional information for analysis of customers, product or market profitability. This is done by creating "filters" for retrieving information from the general ledger balance file. These filters are balance keys, accounting structures, and column templates.

For information about the maintenance of the balance file, see Maintaining the General Ledger Balance File.

Outcome

Balances are stored in the general ledger balance file (FBAVAL) according to the balance key and accounting structure definitions. The information is available online in 'GL Balance File. Display' (GLS215) and via M3 Report Generator.

Enter a period in (GLS215/B) and select a balance key together with a column template to review the information. Use the Zoom function in (GLS215) to drill down to the original detail transactions for each balance.

Use the balance keys to select information when defining report templates in 'Report. Open' (RGS600). In the online report generator, via 'User. Display for Report Distribution' (RGS220), you can also drill down from the report totals to the detail transactions displayed in 'General Ledger. Display Transactions' (GLS210).

Fore more information on how the system is affected, refer to the listed documents in the See Also section.

Before You Start

  • You have identified the company's financial monitoring and reporting needs in different situations.
  • Accounting identities are defined in 'Accounting Identities. Open' (CRS630).
  • Budgets to be included in the balance file must have the 'Update balance file' check box selected in 'Budget. Open' (BUS100/E).

Follow These Steps

  1. Name Accounting Structure Levels

    With the predefined balance keys, you can present values per accounting dimension in an ascending order. By creating your own balance keys with accounting structures, you can group and aggregate values in a hierarchical model matching your organization, for example.

    Begin by defining the one set of levels to use for the company or division in 'Accounting Structure. Define Level' (CRS647). In practice, this means that you assign a name or heading to each level per language and specify for which accounting dimension the levels are reserved.

    You can define up to nine levels. However, in reality a structure with three or four levels is sufficient in most cases.

  2. Create Accounting Structures

    Start creating the structures themselves in 'Accounting Structure. Open' (CRS645). The first step is to select the accounting dimension you chose for the levels and assign each level a user-defined designation. (These designations will be displayed in the balance file.) The next step is to connect one or more accounting identities or other accounting structures for each level. (On level 1, only accounting identities can be selected.) The idea is to group together non-sequential identities or structures.

    You can add the reporting potential by adding accounting structures holding other accounting dimensions.

  3. Create Balance Key and Link to Accounting Structure

    Balance keys function as the filter you select to retrieve values from the general ledger balance file. Balance keys 1 to 8 are predefined, consisting of accounting dimensions in various combinations, and activated automatically.

    However, in addition to those you can create and manually activate up to 91 user-defined balance keys in ''GL Balance File Key. Open' (GLS690). Among the key values you may include, there are the accounting structure levels you defined in activity 1.

  4. Populate Balance Key

    After this, you populate the balance key, that is, you retrieve values from the general ledger for this new balance key in 'GL Balance File. Update with Outcome' (GLS915). For budget values, 'GL Balance File. Update with Budget' (GLS920) is used.

  5. Create Column Template

    In addition to the balance dimension definitions, you need to define the columns to be displayed for each dimension by creating a template. This template specifies the headings to use, which types of amounts to show, and from which budgets any budget values should be retrieved, among other things.

    You do this in 'Column Template - Balance Inquiry.Open' (GLS216).

  6. Definitions for Retrieval of General Ledger Balances

    Balances are stored in the general ledger balance file (FBAVAL) according to the balance key and accounting structure definitions. The information is available online in 'GL Balance File. Display' (GLS215) and via M3 Report Generator.

    Updates to the general ledger balance file can be manually triggered.

Example: How to Use Accounting Structures in Balance Keys

Your organization looks like this:

Director Lisa Wilks
Sales Marketing
Christina Anderson John Smith Sara Dupont David Mueller

You wish to review information per employee on the lowest level and per responsible director on the highest level. Each employee is registered as a separate cost center (accounting dimension 2) in your charts of account. Therefore, you base all levels on accounting dimension 2 and define the following names in 'Accounting Structure. Define Level' (CRS647):

  • Level 1: Employee
  • Level 2: Department
  • Level 3: Responsible

Then you start with creating each level in 'Accounting Structure. Open' (CRS645). They are all based on accounting dimension 2, since the base level should include cost centers in this dimension.

  • Level 1: Sales Staff
  • Level 1: Marketing Staff
  • Level 2: Sales Dept
  • Level 2: Marketing Dept
  • Level 3: Director Wilks.

After this, you connect the accounting identities or structures to each level in the same program:

  • Level 1: Sales Staff: Cost centers Anderson, Christina; Smith, John
  • Level 1: Marketing Staff: Cost centers Dupont, Sara; Mueller, David
  • Level 2: Sales Dept: Accounting structure Sales Staff
  • Level 2: Marketing Department: Accounting structure Marketing Staff
  • Level 3: Director Wilks: Accounting structures Sales Dept and Marketing Dept.

You create a new balance key in 'GL Balance Key. Open' (GLS690) reserved for actual values (outcome). On the F panel, select the accounting structure levels together with the accounting dimensions whose values should be displayed. You order them by assigning them a number:

  • 10 Director
  • 20 Department
  • 30 Employee
  • 40 Accounting dimension 2 (Cost center)
  • 50 Accounting dimension 1 (Business account).

When selecting the balance key together with a column template (see below) in 'GL Balance File. Display' (GLS215), the record 'Director Wilks' is now displayed with the accumulated amounts for the selected period. By using the Zoom option you can expand the entire structure with totals displayed for each level:

  • Director Wilks
    • Sales Dept
      • Anderson, Christina
      • Smith, John
    • Marketing Dept
      • Dupont, Sara
      • Mueller, David

On the cost center level, you will now be able to drill down to review each individual transaction.

Related topics