Microsoft
FRx Report Design Essentials I
Course
8399: Two days; Instructor-Led
Introduction
The two-day Report Design Essentials - I course covers the basic report
design skills you need to create, maintain and distribute presentation
quality reports using Microsoft® Business Solutions for Analytics
- FRx. It also includes coverage of additional functionality designed
to help you create new reports, and distribute and analyze your company's
financial information. You learn about basic foundational skills, complex
calculations, drag and drop reorganization, rounding adjustments and account
sets.
A thorough understanding of these topics allows you to easily design and maintain standard and essential reports your organization needs to understand its financial position. You learn how to use templates or create customized report designs as well as how to setup self maintaining reports that will dynamically include newly added GL accounts and newly closed periods. This course also teaches you how to generate and electronically distribute reports using your in-house email system. These skills enable you to take control of the financial reporting process, allowing you to be more productive and efficient in the way you create, generate and distribute financial information, which in turn help you to enable internal and external stakeholders to make well informed decisions to positively impact your organization as a whole.
Audience
This class is ideal for:
• Novice FRx
users
• Intermediate and experienced FRx users who would like to refresh
their skills or develop broader product proficiency
• FRx Software product resellers
Top of page
At Course Completion
After completing this course, students should be able to:
• Understand
basic navigation and report creation in FRx
• Drill down, analyze, print and export from the FRx® Drilldown
Viewe™
• Efficiently create and distribute many financial reports including:
• Trial balances
• Balance sheets
• Transaction detail reporting
• Trended reports
• Side-by-side presentation
• Actual vs. Budget
• Rolling quarters
• Know some tips and tricks for increasing speed and accuracy of
month-end close
• Create presentation quality reports
• Understand security settings within FRx
• Understand many ways to improve your company's financial reporting
package
Prerequisites
Before attending this course, students must have:
• General knowledge
of Microsoft® Windows®
• Basic knowledge of accounting principles
Studet Materials
The student materials includes a comprehensive workbook and other necessary items for this class.
Course Outline
Chapter 1: Overview and Introduction
This chapter gives students a general overview of the features and benefits of using FRx for financial statement design. It also introduces the demo company that will be used in the course exercises.
Main Topics
• About FRx
Software products
• Terminology
• Demo company account structure
• Sample report demonstration
After completing this chapter, students should be able to:
• Understand
the terminology used in class
• Have a high level understanding of rows, columns, trees and how
they relate to each other in the catalog
• Generate a catalog to the DrillDown Viewer and navigate to the
various reports and drill down levels
Chapter 2: Creating a Trial Balance
This chapter focuses on one of the most basic and essential reports, a trial balance, that shows the general ledger activity for the month and/or year. A trial balance is a starting point for analyzing and reconciling account balances and activity. Once your trial balance is in balance, Income Statements and Balance Sheets, which group together certain natural or main accounts to report assets, liabilities, revenues, and expenses, may be created.
Main Topics
• Using the
"Add Rows from Chart of Accounts" feature to automatically populate
the row format with account numbers and descriptions
• Using wildcards or ranges to summarize data
• Using the Normal Balance field and how C's affect the account
presentation
• Using underscores and totals
• Using Header Codes to automatically update column headers each
month
• Use of the BASE Period and Year in the Column Layout to ease maintenance
• Setting the Report Date to an option that automatically progress
through the year for ease of report maintenance
• Defining a detail level in the catalog
• Introduce the default Formatting options
• Using existing building blocks to speed setup time
• Using the View, Subtotals function in the DrillDown Viewer
Labs
• Detailed Trial
Balance
• Summary Trial Balance
After completing this chapter, students should be able to:
• Create a new
Row Format either manually or with Add Rows from Chart of Accounts
• Add format codes and related information to a row
• Create a new Column Layout designed for current and year to date
results
• Add column headers, using either header codes or text
• Create a new catalog, defining the detail level, report date,
building blocks and formatting as desired
Chapter 3: Creating an Income Statement
This chapter focuses on another primary financial statement, the Income Statement. Income Statements may be detailed or summarized and may also compare current performance to budgeted projections or previous results.
Main Topics
• Using the
Add Rows from Chart of Accounts function to quickly create a basic template
• How proper placement of C's in the Account Balance column of the
Row Format will flip the balance of an account for presentation
• How the presentation of the accounts included determine the math
for related TOT or CAL formulas
• How to use a Special Format Mask on a row formula to determine
display
• Using system defined or custom fonts for emphasis
• Working with rounding options
Labs
• Detailed Income
Statement
After completing this chapter, students should be able to:
• Understand
the use of "C" in the Row Format
• Add a TOT or CAL format code and related information to a row
• Add a Special Format Mask to a row
• Define the font for a given row
• Edit the report header using either codes or text
• Define a font for a report header
• Define rounding options
Chapter 4: Reporting Trees
This chapter examines Reporting Trees, what they are, why to use them and most importantly, how to create and maintain them.
Trees are created by defining a number of related attributes, such as the company name and account mask. Tree depth and complexity is up to the report designers needs and may include security items, email addresses, links to external spreadsheet data and more.
Main Topics
• Characters
used with Add Reporting Units
• Segment hierarchy
• Defining a segment range
• Adding custom units to a tree
• The default Reporting Tree
• Relating Reporting Trees to Row Formats
• How trees define multiple reports in a single catalog
• Using check rows to insure all accounts are included
• Rounding options and how they relate to calculations
• How to relate description or underscore rows to other rows
• Exception reports and how they work
Lab
• Creating Reporting
Trees
• Departmental Income Statement
After completing this chapter, students should be able to:
• Understand
the symbols used in Reporting Trees
• Create a basic tree using Add Reporting Units from Chart of Accounts
• Define the hierarchy when building a tree on multiple segments
in the account mask
• Limit the range of a segment when building a tree
• Add new units to a tree
• Modify the hierarchy of a tree
• Understand how Reporting Trees relate to the Row Format
• Relate rows in the Row Format
• Add a check row or exception report to verify report accuracy
• Define rounding in the catalog
Chapter 5: Review
This chapter allows students to review the concepts learned thus far in class by correcting some errors or omissions in a report.
Main Topics
• Review basic
report design concepts
Lab
• What's Wrong?
After completing this chapter, students should be able to:
• Recognize
common errors in reports
• Correct errors in report design
Chapter 6: More on Reporting Trees
This chapter continues with the concepts learned thus far, and expands that knowledge with more complex building blocks and catalog settings.
Main Topics
• How to create
a Column Layout based on current and prior results
• Defining unit hierarchy when building a Reporting Tree
• How to split a segment to create a virtual segment in trees
• Adding custom units to a tree
• Generating specific tree units
• Using header and footer codes in the Catalog
Lab
• This year
vs. last year Income Statement
• Income Statement by location
After completing this chapter, students should be able to:
• Create a multiple
year Column Layout
• Add column header text that will span multiple columns
• Dynamically print the year in the column header
• Define the account segment hierarchy when building a Reporting
Tree
• Add custom units to a Reporting Tree
• Create a Reporting Tree containing a virtual reporting segment
• Set specific Reporting Tree units to automatically generate
• Understand the difference between using Save As and Clone to copy
an existing catalog
Chapter 7: Transaction Detail Reporting
This chapter looks at transaction details and the specific columns that work with them. These allow for reporting on such items as source journal, transaction date and transaction reference number. Common column restrictions are also introduced.
Main Topics
• Creating a
transaction detail Column Layout
• Restricting a column to either debit or credit activity
• Restricting a column to display beginning balances
• Generating a catalog to the Excel output option
• How report presentation varies between Excel and the DrillDown
Viewer
Lab
• Cash Transaction
Details
• Debit/Credit Details
After completing this chapter, students should be able to:
• Understand
how wildcards in the Row Format display multiple accounts
• Add transaction details to the Column Layout design
• Restrict a column to include debit or credits only
• Define a column to present beginning balances for the period
• Generate a report directly to MicrosofT® Excel
• Understand how the 'format as Excel outline' option affects the
output
Chapter 8: What we Know
This chapter allows students to review the concepts learned so far by taking a concept quiz and modifying an existing report.
Main Topics
• Review basic
report design concepts
Lab
• Modifying
Building Blocks
After completing this chapter, students should be able to:
• Modify an
existing report
Chapter 9: Using the DrillDown Viewer
This chapter shows students some additional functionality available within the DrillDown Viewer.
Main Topics
• Printing reports
from the DrillDown Viewer
• Using the Send function
• Export options in the DrillDown Viewer
Lab
• Viewing/Printing
Account Detail
• Using the Send feature
• Export options
After completing this chapter, students should be able to:
• Print a financial
or detail report from the DrillDown Viewer
• Send a report from the DDV
• Export a report using Formatted Excel
• Export a report using standard Excel
• Export a report to an HTML format
Chapter 10: Working with Specification Sets
Specification sets contain all the building blocks created during report design.
Main Topics
• Understand
the specification set (.F32) in the Company Information settings
• Learn to "save as" between spec sets
• Learn to export and import between spec sets
Lab
• Saving between
Spec Sets
• Export and Import between Spec Sets
After completing this chapter, students should be able to:
• Assign a specification
set to a company
• Create a new spec set
• Move building blocks between spec sets
Chapter 11: Practice
This chapter allows students to review the concepts learned so far by; creating a new summarized Income Statement Row Format, modifying an existing Column Layout and defining the Reporting Catalog. Part 2 of the exercise allows students to continue the practice by creating and adding a Reporting Tree that details departments by location.
Main Topics
• Practice the
report design concepts learned thus far in class
Lab
• Create a Summary
Income Statement
• Departmental Summary Income Statement
After completing this chapter, students should be able to:
• Create a summarized
Row Format
• Modify an existing Column Layout
• Work with catalog settings
• Create a Reporting Tree using the split function
Chapter 12: Balance Sheets
This chapter focuses on Balance Sheet design, another primary financial report. Students learn about Account Sets and how to create them, as well as functionality designed to keep Balance Sheets in balance.
Main Topics
• Account Sets
• Presentation of Balance Sheet accounts (using C in the Normal
Balance)
• Defining Year to Date Income in the Balance Sheet
• Using the XD code to suppress drill down on specific rows
• Using the Rounding Adjustments function
Lab
• Detailed Balance
Sheet
• Comparative Balance Sheet
After completing this cha