Alternate Financial Statements

In honor of April 15 – Tax Day…Yikes!! Is it that time already?

This edition of INSIGHTS will touch on ways to customize and personalize your financial statements, depending on YOUR unique and specific needs.

We’re not gonna lie…this is going to take some front-end work to set up. But once it’s done, it’s done. And hey! Anything that is customized to your expectations and needs will require some set-up. Right? It doesn’t just happen by itself. And honestly? It’s kind of fun to do and you can’t mess it up.

First – on a NEED TO KNOW basis, and you CERTAINLY NEED TO KNOW!!

Alternate Financials are part of the GLC - General Ledger Consolidated Financials menu. There are ALL KINDS of things that can be done with Alternate Financials/General Ledger Consolidations. Clients use and love the ability to consolidate multiple companies into one big multi-company financial report. Take it a step further, consolidating multiple companies using Alternate Financials to customize report headings and descriptions. Then, there’s Partnership Financials. And Whoa! Multi-Company Partnership Financials. Sheesh! SSI Oil and Gas Accounting Software can accommodate anything you could ever want or need in the way of financial reporting.

Soooooo….

Let’s start with Single Company Alternate Financials. Walk before you run.

Level 1

Modify/customize report headings for specific financials needed.

Can be done in GL01 – Titles tab (at the top) – Financial Titles (from the drop-down) and does not require the GLC – General Ledger Consolidations module. Report headings for the Balance Sheet and Income Statement can be edited. If financials are being sent to the bank, a Financial Title Type can be created, for example, to say Balance Sheet – XXX Bank. Same with the Income Statement.

Take a peek at GL01 – Titles tab (at the top) – Financial Titles (from the drop-down). Add a single-digit code (alpha/numeric/upper or lower case) in Title Type, and appropriately edit the Title lines shown to reflect what you want the headings to say. Run GL07 to gather numbers, then GL11 – Balance Sheet. In the Titles/Format Wizard field select your newly added Financial Title Type code. Check out the report, it will reflect the report headings and titles from the new Title Type code.

There are 60 possible Title Type codes that can be created for Alternate Financials. Title Type codes can be upper/lower case alpha, and numbers 1 through 9. A ”S” (standard) Financial Title type comes to you out of the box. It can be edited, but what’s even better is the ability to create your own Financial Titles for specific needs. Specialized Alternate Financials with custom report headings and account balance consolidations can be created for the bank, for investors or partners, and for anything else you might need.

Taking it to the next level…

Level 2

Unless you’re already using your SSI Oil and Gas Accounting Software for customized financials, you’ve probably got some kind of off-line Excel spreadsheet or word document into which you’re plugging updated numbers every month. Lots of work, lots of redundancy. Same thing different day, over and over again. Yuck.

You do realize, don’t you, that customized financials can be created. The Alternate Financials that we discussed above, can be customized for more than just titles. Alternate Financials can be created to summarize groups of accounts into a single line item. Financials can be created to be a simple as a line for assets, a line for liabilities and a line for capital on a balance sheet, or more detailed. Once the Alternate Financials types are created, for let’s say like for the bank, then you can JUST RUN your financials, anywhere, any time, and don’t have to plug any numbers anywhere else?! Time-saver for sure. You have to go to the work of updating your spreadsheet all the time, why not do it once in Consolidated/Alternate Financials and BE DONE?

It’s not complicated, but some thought does need to be given on the presentation, what accounts should be combined, and the names/description of those combined account designations.

Start with a mock-up on how you want your specific needed financials to look. What accounts to combine together and what you want the combined account description names to say.

Then add the Alternate Financial codes as discussed in Level 1, and start combining accounts.

In GLC01 – Alternate Account Maintenance - the initial screen that pops up is where you need to be. Select your Report Title (added from Level 1), then enter the account number to which you want multiple accounts to roll into. We’ll use cash as a good example. Add your main Cash account. The bottom half of the screen is where you’ll add all cash accounts that you want to roll up into the “main” cash account added at the top. What is actually happening is that you are creating an “alternate” chart of accounts for your “alternate” financials…see?

DONE. Now run Alternate Financials.

Always start with a GLC07A – Alternate Trial Balance. Then you’re free to run GLC10 – Cash Flow Statement, GLC11 – Balance Sheet, GLC12 – Income Statement, GLC12Q – Quarterly Income and GLC12M – 12 Month Income using the Financial Title Report Title codes with the account grouping that lie under these codes.

Might sound complicated, but it’s really not, and will save countless hours messing around in Excel or building financials in Word.

There’s ALL KINDS of documentation in SSI Help to further walk you through the process. Remember, you can always right-click on a menu option button and get to the Help for that button, quick and easy.

If you’d like more information on adding the General Ledger Consolidation/Alternate Financials module to your carousel of SSI Oil and Gas Accounting products, contact us for a quote!

Just one more way SSI works to make YOUR job EZier.

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