Microsoft FRx Report Design Essentials I
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.
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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
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
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.
• About FRx Software products
• Terminology
• Demo company account structure
• Sample report demonstration
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.
• 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
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.
• 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
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.
• 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
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.
• Review basic report design concepts
Lab
• What's Wrong?
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.
• 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
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.
• 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
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.
• Review basic report design concepts
Lab
• Modifying Building Blocks
Chapter 9: Using the DrillDown Viewer
This chapter shows students some additional functionality available within the DrillDown Viewer.
• 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
Chapter 10: Working with Specification Sets
Specification sets contain all the building blocks created during report design.
• 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
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.
• Practice the report design concepts learned thus far in class
Lab
• Create a Summary Income Statement
• Departmental Summary Income Statement
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.
• 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