Choose a reporting period—Financial Report Writer

Use the Columns tab to specify the number of report columns, the type of value you want to in each column, and the reporting periods for which you want data.

The order in which the tabs appear in the Financial Report Writer can’t be changed.

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User type Business
Permissions Reports: List, View, Add, Edit, Delete

Reporting periods are always relative to the "As of date" for the report. For example, if you run a report as of 5/15/20xx, Current month would show data for 5/1/20xx to 5/31/20xx, Current year would show data for 1/1/20xx to 12/31/20xx, and so on.

The Financial Report Writer gives you both general and per-column date flexibility. When you select a reporting period and As of date, a preview of the date range that will be included in the report is shown for each column under the Reporting Period. If you change the As of date, the included date range changes to reflect the new information. This can help you ensure that you selected the right periods. When the report is run, the date range preview also appears to the right of the As of date in the prompts. If the previewed date range is set to an As of Date that doesn’t have a reporting period associated within the As of Date, the preview appears and Out of Range.

If you do not see the reporting period you want, you can create one. Refer to Create reporting periods for details.

To choose a reporting period:

  1. Locate the column you want to change (for example, Column 2), and click anywhere in the column.

    Clicking in the column expands the column to show the options for that column.

    2. If you use custom accounting periods where leap years may not affect you as calendar year periods, it’s recommended to use Current year to date and a -1 offset when comparing the financial statement of the previous year (full period) with the statement for the current year.

To specify a relative reporting period:

  1. Select a Reporting period
  2. Enter the number of periods in the past (Offset from prior period) or future (Offset from future periods).

If you apply an offset to Current Month to Date, Current Quarter to Date, or Current Year to Date, the report dynamically calculates the portion of the current reporting period that has elapsed and uses the same partial period for the offset column.

Using the example of Current Quarter To Date, if you run a report mid-quarter, adjustments are made to both columns to include data up to the same point in the quarter, enabling you to create true comparisons.

For some industries, financial data is often analyzed by the day. Imagine the importance of a single day's income for a restaurant on New Year's Eve, or a Friday night at a hotel.

Using the reporting period for Today in combination with an offset, you can compare any day against the same day in another year, quarter, month, or week.

  1. Set the Reporting period for 1 column to Today.
  2. Set the Reporting period for another column to Today. Then, use the Offset to specify the number of prior or future years, quarters, months, weeks, or days.
  3. On the Filters tab, select the option to prompt for the As Of Date. This allows the user to select the date that you want to use for the comparison at the time that the report is run.

Sample comparisons:

  • Pick “Today” as your reporting period, Offset = 1 prior year, As of date = 1/1/2015. The column will show the amount for New Year's day in 2014, which is 1/1/2014.
  • Pick "Today" as your reporting period, Offset = 1 prior week, As of date = Friday 7/24/2015. The column will show the amount for 1 week ago, which is Friday 7/17/2015.
Want a quick way to compare consecutive reporting periods, such as 12 months in the prior year? Learn how to expand a column by time period.

Next step: Highlight or compare by dimension