Glossary

Using Opening Balance Roll Forward Profit & Loss Reports to Streamline the Year-end Close Process

Written by Nils R. | May 15, 2022 7:00:00 AM
How can Reconciliation Reports Drive Faster and Better Decisions? As Controllers increasingly become key innovators in the Year-end Close Process, they must rely on modern self-service corporate performance management (CPM) and business intelligence (BI) tools. Using interactive Reconciliation Reports like the Opening Balance Roll Forward Profit & Loss Report template shown below enables them and users from the accounting teams to experience near real time balance checks and reconciliation controls that help drive faster and more accurate decisions.

Who uses Opening Balance Roll Forward Profit & Loss Reports and What are Some Key Analytical Features? In today’s fast-paced business environment, Controllers are under high pressure to supply end users like accountants and reporting managers with timely and concise Reconciliation Reports. Companies use key features like the ones below to support their users with accurate and efficient year end closes that helps drive more better planning and analysis:
  • Columns for Prior Year Actual, Prior Year Opening Balance (OBA), Prior Year OBA + Current Period Actual, and Current Year OBA
  • Verifies the ending balance of activity for prior year
  • Confirms opening that the balance for the current year is zero

The Opening Balance Roll Forward Profit & Loss Report template can be used as a key element of the Year-end Close process:

The Opening Balance Roll Forward Profit & Loss Report is a ready-to-use Reconciliation Report from the Solver Marketplace.

A Brief Description of the Opening Balance Roll Forward Profit & Loss Report Template Reconciliation Reports like the one seen in the image above are interactive and parameter driven and typically contain sections with automated reconciliation with comparative columns. One of the important features that aid the user in the analysis process is the ability to use this report along with an Opening Balance Roll Forward Balance Sheet report to verify the retained earnings. Opening Balance Roll Forward Profit & Loss Reports are often used in conjunction with inter-company reconciliation reports, trial balances, profit & loss variance reports, and balance sheets including roll-forward reports.

Data Integration to Transaction Systems Most organizations these days want automated and streamlined planning, reporting and analysis. However, many of the benefits described earlier rely on best of breed Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools and/or Business Intelligence (BI) capabilities as well as data marts or data warehouses that use pre-built integrations to the organization’s ERP system. Oftentimes, they also need integrations to other key data sources like CRM, subscription systems, payroll tools, etc. Modern, cloud-based ERPs like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance (D365 Finance), Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Sage Intacct, Acumatica, Netsuite and SAP have robust APIs which allow for dynamic integrations to CPM and BI tools that are fully automated and flexible to run on a schedule or on-demand.

Additional Resources to Aid with Research of Templates, CPM and BI Tools
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