Define a Basic Financial Report Using the Reporting Web Studio

This is the first of six topics on designing a financial report with Financial Reporting Web Studio.

You can use Financial Reporting Web Studio to design traditional financial report formats such as balance sheets, profit and loss statements, and cash flow reports. You can also design nontraditional reports for financial or analytic data that include text and graphics.

In this example, you're designing a basic financial report.

1. From the Financial Reporting Center work area, select the Tasks panel tab and click Open Workspace for Financial Reports.

2. On the Tools menu, select Launch Financial Reporting Web Studio.

3. On the File menu, select New, Report.

4. On the toolbar, click the Grid icon. Grids are tables that contain data from external database connections.

5. In the design canvas, draw a box to create the grid. The Database Connection Properties dialog box opens.

   Tip: When creating a grid, best practice is to leave space in the design canvas for other objects, such as a company logo and report title.

6. Select the Data Sources list and select the data source for the chart of accounts that the report is based on. A unique cube exists for each combination of chart of accounts and accounting calendar.

   Tip: Best practice is to always turn on suppression in financial reports at the Database Connection Server level. You can verify the setting by highlighting the grid, and then selecting Data Query Optimization Settings on the Task menu. For most reports, best practice is to turn on suppression for the entire grid. Then turn suppression off for columns and rows that must always display.For more information about suppression settings, refer to the Defining Basic Conditional Suppression section in the Financial Reporting Web Studio User's guide.

7. Click OK. The Dimension Layout dialog box opens.

Arrange the Dimensions

Use the Dimension Layout dialog box to arrange the dimensions on your report. For this report, the accounting periods display on the columns and the revenue and expense account information displays on the rows. The company appears on each page and can be selected at runtime.

1. Drag the Accounting Period dimension to the Columns axis.

2. Drag the Account dimension to the Rows axis.

3. Drag the Company dimension to the Page axis.

4. Click OK to close the Dimension Layout dialog box.

Define the Rows

Use the Select Members dialog box to define the revenue and expense account rows.

1. Select the revenue parent account.

   1. Double-click the Account cell. The Select Members dialog box opens with a default member selected.

   2. Remove the default Account selection from the Selected area by clicking it to select it and then clicking the Remove from Selected icon.

   3. In the Search field, enter the value for the account that represents total revenue and click the Search icon.

   4. Select the account from the search results and click OK. The account moves to the Selected area.

   5. Click OK. The Select Members dialog box closes.

2. Now insert a text row to add space between the revenue and expense accounts.

   1. Select the last row in the grid by clicking the row header.

   2. On the Insert menu, select Row, then Text.

3. Insert a row for the expense accounts.

   1. Right-click the last row header.

   2. On the Insert Row menu, select Data. Notice the default value for the new row is the revenue parent account.

4. Select the expense parent accounts.

   1. Double-click the account value in the new expense account row. The Select Members dialog box opens with the revenue parent account selected.

   2. Remove the revenue parent account selection from the Selected area by clicking to select it and then clicking the Remove from Selected icon.

   3. In the Available area, expand the Account member, and continue expanding until you find the expense parent accounts for the report.

   4. Select the accounts and click the Add to Selected icon to move them to the Selected area.

   5. Select the Place selections into separate rows option so each account appears in its own row on the report.

   6. Click OK. The Select Members dialog box closes.

Save and Preview the Report

Save the report and leave it open for the next topic, which is adding a formula to a financial report.

1. Click the Save icon.

2. Select the folder with your name and enter the report name and description.

3. Click Save.

4. Optionally preview the report in HTML or PDF format using the File menu or toolbar.