FAQs

Does drilldown require a Dynamics GP license?

No.

Does drillback require a Dynamics GP license?

Yes. In addition, the user who is trying to drill back must be logged into the Dynamics GP database that is requested from the drillback.

Can you drill down/back on every number in an Excel workbook?

Every cell which contains an ActivReporter function has drilldown/drillback capability. This includes Activity, Balance, Beginning Balance, Debit Activity, etc. Drilldown/drillback is also available on all YearToDate functions.

You cannot drill down/back on Excel functions such as Sum(), Average(), etc.

When you drill down on a financial amount in a balance sheet, are all the historical transactions which comprise the amount shown?

Yes. Every transaction is shown in detail to precisely represent the amount on the financial statement, even if there are hundreds of thousands of transactions. The speed of ActivReporter makes this possible. There are also predefined filters to limit what you see to current period transactions or current year transactions. And if the amount represents multiple accounts, the total by account is available, too.

Are ActivReporter financials accurate with year-to-date and retained earnings before the books are closed?

Yes. ActivReporter financials report the correct year-to-date profits and retained earnings even before the Dynamics GP books are closed for the prior year. You do not need to maintain separate financial designs for "before closing" and "after closing".

Does ActivReporter support the Dynamics GP reporting ledgers (IFRS, Local)?

Yes! Any financial design can report separately, or in any combination, the amounts from any reporting ledger (Book, IFRS, Local).

Does ActivReporter support versioning of Excel workbooks?

Yes. If you store workbooks in the ActivReporter database (best practice), you can recall all prior versions of the workbook. This feature is entirely automatic. There is no need to remember to save a backup copy. Any change to the financial design creates a historical record.

This feature significantly improves the Excel user experience by allowing you to restore a prior version of the workbook if need be. If a workbook becomes corrupted for any reason, you have a backup copy!

Are there reserved rows, columns, or cells in ActivReporter workbooks?

No. By convention, and to facilitate ease-of-use, any row or column can be used for indirect referencing, but these rows/columns are not required or reserved.

Which rollups are created during the seeding process? How are they used?

During the seeding process, five rollups are created from the Dynamics GP data.

  • GP Account Type. GP Account Type is the rollup of the following four account types:
    • 1=Posting accounts
    • 2=Unit accounts
    • 3=Posting allocation accounts
    • 4=Unit allocation accounts
  • GP Posting Type
    • 0=Balance sheet accounts
    • 1=Profit and loss accounts
  • GP Categories. These directly correlate with the standard GP categories.
  • GP Balance Sheet. This is the standard GP categories limited to accounts with a posting type of "0"; i.e., balance sheet accounts.
  • GP Income Statement. This is the standard GP categories limited to accounts with a posting type of "1"; i.e., profit and loss accounts.

What is rollup "999" in the GP Balance Sheet rollup?

The balance sheet rollup "999" was introduced to make it easy to refer to the net amount of all profit and loss accounts. You can use "999" anytime you need to refer to all activity for all accounts with a posting type of "1" (P & L accounts). This is very useful when creating balance sheets where you want to show year-to-date, month-to-date, or historical profit.

Can I include unposted items in my financial designs?

Yes. Mark the Include Unmerged Entries not on Hold checkbox in the Financial Options dialog to universally include unposted amounts (the contents of the GL10000 and GL10001 tables) on the financial statement.

Where are the balance-brought-forward (BBF) entries in ActivReporter?

ActivReporter only includes BBF entries which constitute the "beginning of time" postings. BBF entries made at the beginning of each fiscal year (intervening BBFs) are not seeded and are not used. When the database is seeded, ActivReporter analyzes the intervening BBFs and makes the necessary adjustments to honor these numbers in the event they have been manually edited with PSTL or database statements.

ActivReporter does not need the intervening BBF entries to produce the Excel-based financial statements.

Where are the P/L entries in ActivReporter?

ActivReporter uses the P/L postings to create the retained earnings amounts just as Dynamics GP does. However, the P/L postings also contain offsets to each of the P & L accounts to make the entry a balanced entry. In Dynamics GP, P & L accounts after close are always assumed to start with a zero balance. The posting in ActivReporter formalizes this as an actual posting which clears the P & L accounts to zero. In addition, ActivReporter flags the P/L entry as a closing entry.

What happens when a financial design is flagged as "obsolete"?

Storing your Excel financial designs in ActivReporter rather than in the Windows file system gives you control of the design. Using the ActivReporter database to store designs allows you to put notes on the designs, see who has modified designs and when, and retain multiple versions of the design.

In addition, you can flag designs as "obsolete". This does not permanently delete the design, but logically puts it in a virtual trash can which is never emptied. An obsolete design is no longer visible in the HD view unless you mark the Include Obsolete checkbox. Of course, you can always permanently delete a design if you so desire.

Can I see period debit and credit activity on ActivReporter financial statements?

Yes. The ActivReporter functions DebitActivity() and CreditActivity() are available in Excel to supply these amounts above and beyond the net activity by period provided by the Activity() function. These values are required to produce the standard trial balance report.

Can I report on multiple budgets with ActivReporter?

Yes. Dynamics GP permits multiple budgets for the same account and period. ActivReporter identifies these and can report on any specific budget, or all budgets for any period. Budgets can be treated as totally separate items or as additive items (beginning budget with "delta" modifications).

You can identify the budget to report on in the financial design itself, or request specific budget information when the final financial design is printed.

How many distinct row definitions (rollups) can ActivReporter support?

Essentially an unlimited number.

I want to report divisions in columns and years on rows. Is this possible with ActivReporter?

Yes. Accounts or account aggregations (think: categories) can be listed across the top of a financial design and periods down the rows.

Can I automatically move financial designs from Management Reporter to ActivReporter?

As a matter of fact, yes. ActivReporter includes a facility to extract Management Reporter row definitions to create ActivReporter rollups. Some row definitions (account negation) are not transferred. These can be edited once the bulk of the information is in an ActivReporter row definition. Column definitions and tree definitions are not transferred, but can easily be recreated in ActivReporter.

Does ActivReporter have a missing account analysis available like Management Reporter does?

Yes. This is a byproduct of the ActivReporter architecture and is nearly trivial to produce.

Does ActivReporter support reporting trees like Management Reporter does?

Yes. In fact, our support is even more extensive. You can specify segment or rollup limits while designing or printing financial designs. Combining this with iteration yields powerful reporting tree functionality.

Which events require reseeding the ActivReporter database?

  1. Restoring the Dynamics GP database from backup.
  2. Installing a new version of Dynamics GP.
  3. Moving the Dynamics GP database to a different server.
  4. Running PSTL tools on the Dynamics GP GL data files (probably requires a reseed).
  5. Closing the fiscal year in Dynamics GP. This currently requires reseeding; however, removing this requirement is being considered for a future release of ActivReporter.

Which parts of Excel are restricted or limited when using ActivReporter?

None. The full functionality of Excel is available. ActivReporter only adds functions to the Excel application; the user's Excel experience is not curtailed.

ActivReporter functions can also be added to any Excel workbook which was created apart from ActivReporter.

Does ActivReporter support report groups like Management Reporter does?

Yes. If you want to combine financial designs in a group, the best method is to create a workbook with each financial design on a separate tab. When printing, the entire group prints together.

Is it hard to learn how to produce financial reports using ActivReporter?

ActivReporter is simply Excel with more functions. If you understand how to use Excel formulas such as Sum(), Average(), or Count(), you can learn to use the special functions which ActivReporter adds to Excel such as Balance(), YearToDate(), etc.