Introducing the Financials Inquiries

The inquiry forms extract and display selected information. They use filters to determine the information you can view. Financials includes the following predefined control desk based inquiries:

  • Journal Inquiry
  • Account Inquiry
  • Fixed Asset Inquiry
  • Account Balance Inquiry.

These inquiries use predefined filters which are defined using Filter Designer (FLD). You can use Filter Designer to define your own inquiries, or to modify the predefined inquiries.

Note: The Ledger Inquiry option allows you to run any inquiry, including the four predefined inquiries listed above and any user defined inquiries. See 'Selecting the Control Desk Filters'. You can use the Ledger Inquiry option to view archived transactions using the Ledger Inquiry - Archive option. See 'Performing a Ledger Archive Inquiry'.

Using the Predefined Inquiries

When you use any of the predefined inquiries, you are unaware that a filter is being used. You are simply prompted to enter the inquiry selections, for example to choose the account, journal or asset you are interested in. See 'Understanding the Control Desk Entry Point'.

Note: You cannot enter negative values in a value field. If you enter an amount range, it is treated as both a negative and positive value range. For example, if you enter from 100 to 150, transactions are extracted with a value in the range 100 to 150 or with a value in the range -150 to -100.

Once you have made selections, the data is retrieved and displayed on a form. Again, the information you see is determined by the filter and result form, and can be modified.

For more information on the result forms see 'Viewing the Financials Inquiry Results'.

Viewing Related Details

Many of the inquiry result forms can display summarized or detailed information. If the results are summarized you can use the Explode action to display the details. Alternatively, if detailed information is displayed you can use the Implode action to summarize the details. For example, the Account Balance Inquiry can summarize the postings to each account, or summarize the postings to each account by period, or list the detailed postings by date for each account.

If drill associations have been defined, you can double-click on an item in the display grid to 'drill through' the data.

For example, if you are viewing the transactions posted to an account you may be able to drill through on:

  • journal number to display all of other transactions in the journal to see which other accounts were updated by the journal.
  • one of the ten available transaction analysis codes to view the description of the analysis code referenced on the transaction.

For more information on how to use the Explode, Implode and drill options see 'Using the Inquiry Results Forms'.