About Generating Reports from Specifications

If you print a financial statement using the G/L Print Financial Statements screen, you do not see the report specification. Instead, Financial Reporter opens the financial specification in Microsoft Excel, processes the specification commands in the Spec range of the spreadsheet, and prints the report.

In contrast, if the spreadsheet contains no Spec range, Financial Reporter recalculates the spreadsheet for the ranges of accounts, account groups, or segments specified on the G/L Print Financial Statements screen, and then prints the whole spreadsheet, or the print area defined in the spreadsheet.

Generating Statements Using the Financial Statement Designer

When you edit a report specification (using the Statement Designer), you can also test the statement specification you are editing.

To generate the final report, use FR View. For details on using FR View, see FR Menu Commands.

FR View generates the report using the same print options that you use to print a report from the Print Financial Statements screen. However, it provides two additional Include options:

• Audit information. If you select this option, Financial Reporter lists the results of the account number references in column A of the report range of the spreadsheet. This information allows you to check the numbers of all accounts included in your statement (as long as you enter D in column D of the report).

• Formulas. If you select this option, Financial Reporter inserts a formula in each cell of the final report where you need to insert General Ledger information. You can then update the report at any time by recalculating the spreadsheet.

  Important! Spreadsheets with formulas are much larger than standard report specifications. Generating statements that include formulas also takes longer, because Excel calculates the value of each formula as it generates them.

After you generate a report, you can preview it by clicking File > Print in Excel.

About Using Selection Criteria

You can specify selection criteria on a default specification line, on individual specification lines, and in formulas. With all these possibilities for account selection, you must be very clear which criteria are actually in effect.

Important! Accounts must meet restrictions and criteria specified on the FR View screen.

The first restriction you place on account selection is with the FR View screen (or with the G/L Print Financial Statements screen). Report-level account range filtering is in effect for any account reference that specifies a range of accounts.

For more information, see About Selection Criteria for Filtering Accounts.

Overriding Account Ranges

You can override FR View screen ranges in two ways:

• By specifying segment codes that are outside the ranges defined on the FR View screen.
• By using the $ prefix in individual account number references.

Unless you override the FR View screen, accounts must both fall within the specified range and meet other criteria specified on the FR View screen.

If you specify any selection criteria in column B of a default specification line, that criteria is in effect unless you override it.

You can override the criteria on a single line by placing a new criteria expression in column B. The criteria expression is in effect only for the line on which you define it. If you specify a criteria for a single formula in the line, the line criteria is ignored.