Using Balance Sheets with Comparison to Prior Year and Variances to Streamline the Monthly Reporting Process

    How can Financial Statement s Drive Faster and Better Decisions? As Corporate Controllers increasingly become key advisors in the Monthly Reporting Process, they must rely on modern self-service corporate performance management (CPM) and business intelligence (BI) tools. Using interactive Financial Statements like the Balance Sheet with Comparison to Prior Year  template shown below enables them and users from the finance and accounting teams to experience near real time asset, liability and equity metrics that help drive faster and better decisions. Who uses Balance Sheets with Comparison to Prior Year and Variance Templates  and What are Some Key Analytical Features? In today’s fast-paced business environment, Corporate Controllers are under high pressure to supply end users like financial managers with timely and concise Financial Statements. Companies use key features like the ones below to support their users with effective analysis that helps drive in-depth balance sheet analysis:
    • Current versus last year comparison with variance indicators
    • Dynamic rows where the user can expand any account category to review individual accounts and drill to journal entries
    • Parameter-driven where the user can run the report on demand to see various snapshots in time and for different business units
    The Balance Sheet with Comparison to Prior Year and Variances template can be used as a key element of the Monthly Reporting process: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2560"] Example of a Balance Sheet with Comparison to Prior Year and Variances to Streamline the Monthly Reporting Process Example of a Balance Sheet with Comparison to Prior Year and Variances to Streamline the Monthly Reporting Process[/caption] The Balance Sheet with Comparison to Prior Year and Variances template is a ready-to-use Financial Statement from the Solver Marketplace. A Brief Description of the Balance Sheet with Comparison to Prior Year and Variances Template Financial Statements like the one seen in the image above are interactive and parameter driven and typically contain sections with presentation quality balance sheet layout ready for viewing. One of the important features that aid the user in the analysis process is the ability to access self-service, web-based variance reports that any user with security rights can run on demand to analyze asset, liability and equity data. Balance Sheet with Comparison to Prior Year and Variances templates are often used in conjunction with balance sheet trend reports, cash flow and profit & loss reports, KPI dashboards and cash flow budget models. 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
    February 24, 2022