Generating Financial Statements in Dynamics 365 Financials

In this post, I’ll introduce the out of the box financial reporting capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Financials Business Edition.I’ll also explain how you can set up and generate key financial statements. More specifically, the Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Statement of Cash Flows and Statement of Retained Earnings.

Topics include the following:

• Setting up G/L Account Categories
• Assigning G/L Account Categories on G/L Accounts
• Generating Account Schedule function
• Printing Financial Statements

• Easier reporting: Financial statements can be generated in just a few clicks.
• Simplified User Experience: General Ledger accounts can be grouped into categories for high level analysis of the Chart of Accounts and Financial Statements
• Automatic refresh: The Generate Account Schedule function automatically creates and updates the Financial Statements structure

Prior to setting-up the General Ledger account categories, a well-designed Chart of Accounts should already be implemented. G/L accounts need to be mapped with these categories to personalize the structure of your financial statements.  The G/L account categories – shown in an indented structure – define the layout of the basic financial statements.  There are existing default categories which can be used as starting point when creating your G/L account categories for the first time.

Example: Tax liabilities can be created as a separate G/L account category on the Liabilities section of the Balance Sheet.

1. Search for G/L Account Categories on the search box

2. On the G/L Account Categories window, select the Edit List Function

3. Click New to insert a new line

4. On the new line, enter the description of the new G/L account category (i.e. Tax Liabilities)

5. The related account category (Liabilities) will auto populate on the Account Category field. If different, you can look up and choose from the pre-defined account category list (Assets, Liabilities, Equity, Income, Cost of Goods Sold, Expense).

6. The G/L Accounts in Category field will be auto populated with G/L account no.(s) once the Account subcategory is assigned on the G/L account card (see “Assigning G/L Account Categories to G/L Accounts” for more information).

7. Fill-in the Additional Report Definition field to define the structure of the Statement of Cash Flows and Retained Earnings reports. Note that this field can be assigned to Balance Sheet accounts only and it contains the following pre-defined list.

• Operating Activities
• Investing Activities
• Financing Activities
• Cash accounts
• Retained Earnings
• Distribution to Shareholders

8. Use the indent/outdent functions to manage the hierarchy of accounts and subcategories and move up/down functions to arrange the order of G/L account categories.

1. Open the G/L account card. On the Account Subcategory field, use the ellipsis button to select the relevant g/l account category.

Note: The related Account Category should be also assigned on the Account Category field. For posting accounts, mapping of the account category and account subcategory fields are required for Financial Statements reporting.

2. Once the subcategory is assigned on the g/l account card, the g/l account no. will be automatically updated under the G/L accounts in Category field on the G/L Account Categories window (see below).

After you have created the g/l account categories and mapped the g/l accounts with the relevant categories, the next step is to generate the account schedules for the financial statements.

1. Go to the G/L Account Categories window

2. Click Edit List and select Generate Account Schedules action. This function will auto generate the account schedules for the financial statements directly from the G/L account categories created.

Notes:

• Run the generate account schedule action if there’s a change in the account category structure or if a new G/L account is created. This function will refresh the Account Schedules.
• Manual changes made to the Account Schedules which are different from the G/L Account Category definition will be lost if the Generate Account Schedules action is executed again. This applies to the manual edits made to the Account Schedules for the Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Statement of Cash Flows, and Statement of Retained Earnings. These are defined as default reports on the General Ledger Set-up page.

Below are the steps to print the most commonly used financial statements in Dynamics 365 Financials.

1. From the Home page, on the actions tab, select Financial Statements. Or, search for “Account Schedules” in the search box.

2. Choose the report that you want to view/print from the financial statements list (Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Statement of Cash Flows, Statement of Retained Earnings). For this example, select Balance Sheet.

3. Specify the report date on the Ending Date field (i.e. 06/30/17).

4. Click Send To and select the file type output.
Note: Reports cannot be printed directly to the printer on Dynamics 365 Financials. The following are the only options available:

5. And Presto, here is your Balance Sheet!

• Part 1 – Microsoft Dynamics 365: First Impressions
• Part 2 – Microsoft Dynamics 365: What You Need to Know
• Part 3 – Microsoft Dynamics 365: Into the Future

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