For businesses not using an ERP solution, month end can be an ongoing challenge taking as long as 2 weeks a month preparing for. This can involve extracting data from multiple systems, a myriad of spreadsheets, and various tweaks and changes to the data. For global companies this may even have to be done to satisfy multiple GAAP requirements.
Access to data and the creation of key reports should be easy for finance teams. This forms such a huge part of the role of the finance department that any inefficiencies in creating these reports can have a significant operational cost. Using a system like Microsoft Dynamics GP or any of the dynamics ERP solutions (NAV, AX or 365 for Finance and Operations) provide you with the capability to do just that and believe it or not, you can set it up in such a way that key reports can be generated by the click of a button.
Management Reporter is a standard reporting tool in Dynamics. It is often overlooked at month end but it can be a powerful tool to aid reporting. In Management Reporter it is possible to set up key reports and have them generate on a regular basis. The reports are tailored to your needs and it doesn’t take a developer to set them up. It can normally be set up to your specification working with a Dynamics partner and their financial consultants. Management Reporter is not the only tool which can assist at month end but it does go a long way when you need to report from GP. Some global organisations perform benchmarking across several countries using Management Reporter. This includes non-financial accounts being used to track volumes of product for more detailed analysis.
When you start to use Management Reporter as part of your month end pack, you will find a significant decrease in the length of time spent on month end. You will also have more information available to you for analysis purposes. This can include data from external spreadsheets, actual values posted in GP, budgets and forecasts if they are held in spreadsheet format or actually imported into the GP tables.
Management Reporter connects to GP through the company tables, financial periods and the general ledger (including budgets). With well-defined chart of accounts which caters for a range of reporting requirements, Management reporter and GP can contribute significantly to reducing the time to close and report the month.
There are a few other reporting options in GP which can help on the day to day running of the business. These include:
- Smartlists to quickly extract data to MS Excel. These can also be linked to Export solutions with active macros which can then prepare data in a set format.
- The Account Roll-up function which is an in-system check allowing a user to customise how they see data reported in different combinations (i.e. a breakdown by cost centre or department).
- Inbuilt reconciliations between the sub-ledgers and the GL for daily checks on any imbalances.
- A number of other reporting functions, both within in GP and in 3rd party solutions, which can be added to GP to give richer reporting outputs.
If you are already using Dynamics GP and month end isn’t an easy process where most of the reporting you need is available at the touch of a button, then a revisit of your set up and reporting in the system is in order. It is one of the greatest features.
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