Flexi Levels - Reorganise Sort and Group your Accounts

iconfinder_select_rearrange_backlog_items_order_list_up_2673027.png Flexi Levels - Account Grouping and Sorting

 

chart of accounts (COA) is a created list of the accounts used by an organization to define each class of items for which money or its equivalent is spent or received. Wilkipedia

When reporting on the activities of a business you may wish to see high level summary reports along with further detail level reports. So it's useful to collapse a number of accounts into one group or header level and sort these depending upon your need.

Most accounting products have GL account headers and sub-accounts or may have account levels, however these are usually fixed and users need to decide on the level of summary or detail at the time the chart of accounts is defined. Changing this later is painful.

Bi4Cloud provides functionality to read existing GL account levels and then allows you to:

  1. Define you own Report Levels/Groups - Flexi Levels
  2. Group accounts and levels into these new report Flexi Levels
  3. Determine and control the sorting position on the report of that Flexi Level
  4. Use together with Jobs (MYOB), Class (QuickBooks) or Tracking Codes (Xero)

and all of these features are implemented using a simple drag and drop user interface.

Add_GeneralExpense.gif

The program allows the definition of up to 4 levels and arrangement of accounts and sub-levels with a completely flexible mix and match of groups and levels. 

This grouping and sorting feature is available from the menu option GL Group and Sort from the Cool Stuff version by clicking on the Cool Stuff button on the admin page.

In the current release this feature works best in Google Chrome

The first time this is run the existing chart of accounts is read and analysed for any account levels and hierarchy that already exist. By default the program will put accounts into groups based upon account types:

  • 1 Assets
  • 2 Liabilities
  • 3 Equity
  • 4 Income 
  • 5 Cost of Sales
  • 6 Expenses
  • 8 Other income
  • 9 Other Expense

and it will display something like this depending upon your accounting software. More Details

GS01.png

Clicking on an arrow expands the level

Right clicking on a group displays an Option Box to allow you to create a

  • Top Level Group or a
  • Child of the current item

GS02.png

The newly added group will appear at the end of the list 
In our example we added a Top Level Group called  General Expenses.

Next left click to drag it to the position you need.

GS03.png

The newly created group element can be moved to either change the sort position it appears in, or drop it into another group. Left click on your mouse and drag the element. The highlighted box that follows the mouse pointer will show an icon graphic of a plus sign or an insertion icon to indicate the proposed action if you release the mouse button. 

Below see the Insert icon graphic this inserts the element between other groups.

GS04.png

Below see the + icon graphic (plus sign) this adds the element to (or under) the highlighted group.

GS05.png

To see more details about any displayed Group or Account you can left click on the item and a blue dialog displays name, source and level information. The sample below shows information about an account.

GS06.png

and this screen shows the message for a User Defined group.

GS07.png

The following screens show how to create a Child Group Travel  under 6 - Expenses and then dragging  Travel - International and Travel - National accounts into it.

Add_Travel.gif

First create the Child Group Travel by selecting Add Child Group

GS10.png

The child group Travel is created as a Level 2 Group

GS11.png

and the two Travel accounts are then dragged, one at a time, into the Travel group

GS12.png

 

WARNING -  Currently this group and sort feature is a Beta release so to minimise your frustration PLEASE  press Save button after every few actions to save your work

 

What does this look like in reports ?

Below is the output of the Bi4 Profit and Loss report with the Analyse By dimension set to GL Flexi Level 1 and highlighted in orange is the new General Expense group that was defined as Level 1.

GS20.png

In our second example we change the Analyse By to GL Flexi Level 2 and this shows the combined Travel group in orange that was defined as a Level 2 group with other Level 2 Accounts / Groups.

GS21.png

The above examples have been kept simple for clarity to show the created groups however any of the defined Report Levels can participate in reports as an Analyse dimensions or any of three (3) sub-total dimensions.

As with all Bi4Cloud reports these can be saved as favourites for later recall, shared with other users or automatically emailed at user defined periods  providing more automation, better consistency and repeatability than spreadsheet methods.

 

Bi4Cloud.com

 

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