Blogiversary Top 20 (#11) Complete row setup options for NAV account schedules

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About a month ago, I published a post called Basic row setup options for NAV account schedules. This is a great place to look if you’re just getting started. However, if you’re looking for what else you can do with Microsoft Dynamics NAV account schedules, then this is where you want to be. This post will go through each and every field available on the account schedule row setup and talk about the available options. The functionality of these fields are exactly the same between the Classic and Role Tailored Clients. The only difference is in how they look on the screen and how you navigate between screens. Take a look at the pictures below to find the look you’re familiar with, but then keep reading for the explanations of what these fields will do in your financial reporting.

Role Tailored Client

This is a view of what I recommend you start with for basic row setup options.

This is a view of all available row setup options.

Classic Client

This is a view of what I recommend you start with for basic row setup options.

This is a view of all available row setup options.

Row setup options – apply to both clients

Row No. is completely optional, but highly recommended. This simple element of the row setup will eventually be one of the key features of your account schedule, allowing you to calculate and organize with ease.

Description is the one place you have to communicate, in words, what you’re showing on each line of your report.

Totaling Type:  6 options to choose from

• Posting Accounts pull data from your accounts designated as posting accounts on the G/L Account Card Account Type field.
• Total Accounts pull data from your accounts designated as a total or as an end-total on the G/L Account Card Account Type field.
• Formula allows you to calculate a basic formula on this row.
• Underline places a single underline .
• Double Underline places a double underline.
  • NOTE:  This nifty addition showed up with NAV 2009 R2. If you are NAV 2009 SP1 or earlier, this won’t be available to you.
  • Both of the underline functions are there to give folks who print account schedules directly out of NAV some formatting options. If you’re exporting to Excel you’ve got some better format options to work with than these.
• Set Base for Percent allows you to designate which row from your row setup will be used as the beginning point for a section to be included in a percent of total calculation. This feature showed up in version 5.0 and must be used together with a formula on another row to designate the end point of the section as well as some setup in the column layout. It’s a little fussy in the setup and inelegant in execution, but is still effective to get those vital comparative percentages onto your account schedules.

Totaling will be which general ledger accounts you want to pull or what formula you want to calculate, depending on what you selected in totaling type.

Row Type:  3 options to choose from

• Net Change should be used, generally, if you’re reporting on income statement accounts (revenue/expense).
• Balance at Date should be used, generally, if you’re reporting on balance sheet accounts (assets/liabilities).
• Beginning Balance will be sparingly used, but you’ll want this for your statement of cash flows at some point.

Amount Type gives you three options:  Net Amount, Debit Amount and Credit Amount. You’re going to use Net Amount almost all the time, but I suppose if you were getting very granular in your account schedules and perhaps using them for detailed reconciling reports, this might be useful. If I’m getting down to this level of transactional detail, I’m usually going to the chart of accounts instead of account schedules.

Formatting Fields:  Bold, Italic, and Underline  These basic formatting fields are there to allow you to emphasize some of the rows of your account schedules. When you select these options on any row, the whole row is effected. You are not able to effect a single “cell” for formatting. What’s the difference between underline here and underline found in the Totaling Type options? You can get a more snug fit on your underline using this option since it appears in the same row of your data instead of in a row if its own.

New Page inserts a page break. This is commonly used when separating the pages of the balance sheet showing assets on the first page and liabilities and equity on the second page. I have also seen it used when folks build multi page account schedules.

Show Opposite Sign is the option you can select to change revenue credit balances or expense debit balances to the opposite sign for the purposes of presenting this data in a more non-finance friendly manner. No salesperson wants to see sales presented with a negative sign; use this to change that credit to a positive number on your reporting.

Show allows you to designate if a row will show (the default) or be hidden on the printed account schedule only. You can click this box as much as you want, but your rows will still show on-screen or when you export to Excel. If you print directly out of account schedules, this feature will work very well for you.

Dimension Totaling is the last option available and you might have noticed that I didn’t show them on pictures above. This is because they are unique for just about every user, and depending on your analysis view setup, may even be different from schedule to schedule. You can use just one, or you can use all four of the available dimension totaling fields, in whatever combination you like. These fields act very much like the Totaling field because this is where you will tell NAV what Dimensions you want shown and totaled from your general ledger accounts.