Subject:

How to automatically create a reporting tree.

Possible Resolution:

Before building reporting trees, first determine the various reporting structures required. The best approach is to carefully consider how the General Ledger account structure is set up. Next, draw an organizational chart of the company using the current General Ledger departments, projects, and so forth as the lowest detail level. Draw as many boxes as needed to show how the different segments might represent divisions or how regions are grouped together on higher-level reports.

1. In FRx, select File / New / Tree.
2. From the 'Edit' menu, click 'Add Reporting Units from Chart of Accts'. Define account segments and other aspects of the reporting unit to be built from the chart of accounts.
3. Under the 'Reporting Account Segmentation' section, click the plus signs (+), hooks (&), and wildcards (?) to define how to build the reporting tree.
• The plus sign (+) tells FRx to create units in the reporting tree based on the detail for that particular segment.
• The hook (&) tells FRx to go to the row format for this segment. Even though hook characters can exist anywhere in the account mask, they are typically used for the natural account segment of the account mask.
  Note: The same number of hooks and number of characters or digits in the row format must be used. The position of the hooks in the account segment does not need to be identical to the character or digit position in the row format.
• The wildcard (?) instructs FRx to avoid building the details into the tree for that segment.
4. To change the size of segments displayed, click 'Combine', and then click the segment.
5. Use the double arrows that appear on the segment's box to drag it to a new size.
6. To split a segment, click 'Split', and then click the part of the segment where the characters should be split.
7. To change any of the segments that display graphically below 'Segment Hierarchy', click the segment to move, and drag it to the segment to which it should report. How segments report to each other and ranges for each segment can be defined here.
8. To specify a range of accounts restricting the units brought to the new reporting tree from the chart of accounts, perform the following:
1. Select the segment for which you want to define ranges. Note that the cursor moves to the 'From Acct' box for that segment.
2. Type the first account in the range, and press TAB.
3. Type the last account used for this segment.
9. If necessary, change the 'Get Unit Name' section of the 'Add Reporting Units from Chart of Accounts' dialog box. Every unit in the tree has a short name that can either be the actual account code segment value (Segment Code) or a descriptive name (Segment Description) based on the General Ledger segment information.
10. Click 'OK' after account segments, hierarchies, and ranges have been defined. FRx builds a reporting tree from information in the General Ledger and displays it in the reporting tree worksheet. The worksheet cells can be used to enter or change information about each reporting unit in the reporting tree.
11. Select File / Save to save the new tree's reporting units.