The existing Financial Report display will become the Financial Report Trend display, sans most of the selectable options.

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1 Financial Report Writer Enhancement Specification Proposal Authors: John Rogelstad, Jim McCluskey Organization: The Marena Group Date: 2/8/07 - Version: Overview The current financial report writer tools provide a good foundation to allow accountants to define a variety of row structures to layout reports and present trend analysis reporting. However, there are significant drawbacks to the current set up: Users are required to select column data at run time which makes running the reports tedious and cumbersome. Casual users must have knowledge of how a Balance Sheet, Income Statement or Cash Flow Statement is built to be able to view one or the other correctly. Row level presentation requires very granular and detailed set up and requires a high degree of maintenance in environments where there may be many report layouts and frequently changing account structures. There is no way to print comparisons between periods or to budgets except to a very limited extent in the Legacy Reports. Because so much definition detail is required to build the reports and run them, there is no way to predefine a standard report suite that new users can easily use out of the box. The column layout in the screen is not translated to the printed report, which instead prints in an unfriendly list format. 2 Functional Requirements We suggest that instead of the report layout requiring a specific row definition and open options regarding calculations and columns at run time, that the logic be reversed so that a more general definition be created for the row definition, with inferred calculation and specific column definition that are predefined in the layout. All financial reports boil down to there basic types: Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash flow. We can use this fact to go a long way toward predefining calculations. The above listed issues would be addressed as follows: 1. Calculations should be derived by report type. a) Select at the layout level whether it is a Balance Sheet, Income Statement or Cash Flow Report. This defines the calculations to be used (difference, ending balance etc.) 2. Column selections are stored in the Layout. a) Allow one-to-many column presentations that can be tied to specific report templates. b) Allow the selection of common comparison references that can be used in single period presentation, such as current period to previous, current period to budget, or current period to same period in previous year. c) Split the Report Display into two options: A single period display that allows comparative reporting. A trend display similar to the existing one which allows selection of multiple period buckets. 3. Enable account series selection so that row level definition for the report layout allows the user to select a series of accounts with common attributes such as account type, sub account, type code etc. 4. Define a series of generic reports that can be used Out of the box. a) Allow copying of report layouts, so users can take the baseline system reports, copy them, and alter them to suit their environment. b) Add an Active/Inactive status to reports so accountants can hide from users the system reports, obsolete reports, or reports that are in the process of being built. 5. Build a Cross tab object for OpenRPT that allows a mechanism to take a list of data and present it in a dynamically generated horizontal bucket form. This would not only benefit the Financial Reports, but also all the calendar driven Time Phased reports.

2 2.1 Related Existing Functionality These features will build on existing row selection building functionality in the Financial Report definition system. They aim, however, to greatly simplify the creation of reports by making assumptions about calculations based on the new report type selection. The existing Financial Report display will become the Financial Report Trend display, sans most of the selectable options. The new Financial Report display will look more like the legacy Income Statement and Balance Sheet, except that users will be able to select a period and Financial Report definition the same way they do in the current Financial Report display. The ability to select a column layout definition will be new. 2.2 Conflicting features A customer recently paid for an enhancement for alternate labels for calculation headers. As the calculation definitions are now inferred, the labels become hard coded. It may be possible, or even necessary, to re-implement alternate label functionality at the new column definition screen, but we should find out if the standard labels to be used in this enhancement don't take care of the customer's requirement by design. 3 High Level Design 3.1 Basic Algorithms TBA 3.2 Schema Changes TBA 3.3 Stored Procedure Changes TBA 3.4 Windows Changes Column Layout Definition Remove existing check box options from Financial Report definition. Replace with Report Type Options: Income Statement, Balance Sheet, Cash flow. These types will determine whether difference, ending balance or debits and credits are used on displays and necessity of grand totals. Add tab pages Place original account structure definition on first tab and label Row Layout Place second list for one-to-many column layouts to be defined. Include Report Active Status

3 Figure 1: Check box options are replaced by Report Type option. Note column layouts tab.

4 A column layout maintenance screen is developed that lets you add multiple column display scenarios by letting user define: OpenRPT report template to print to Whether to show total of month, 3 months, or year Prior period Budget Statistical differences between prior period and budget Figure 2: Column layout screen allows definition of column presentation Displays would be split into two: Financial Report and Financial Report Trend Financial Report Select only one period Select which column layout to use Financial Report Trend Select multiple periods No Column layout option Grand Total applies to Income Statement and Cashflow automatically

5 Figure 3 New Financial Report view display Figure 4: New Financial Trend Report display

6 Row layout definition Figure 3: Row layout on separate tab Changes to Financial Report Item Include the ability to select multiple account filter criteria that can identify a group of accounts to be listed as an alternative to selecting a single account. Segments not in use by the organization will be hidden. If single account selection is chosen, other filter criteria are disabled. At least one of filter option or account must be chosen to save. Most calculation options eliminated as this is determined by the Report Type

7 Figure 6: Financial Report item screen. 3.5 Report Changes Cross Tab Object in OpenRPT A new Cross Tab object should be designed for OpenRPT. Initially it does not need to function with the high level of sophistication that, for example, the Crystal Reports Cross Tab does. It will be designed to work for the financial trend report, but will work for any time phased data. It should be able to turn a basic list with repetitive data into a pivot table with dynamically generated horizontal columns that may span multiple pages horizontally. The Cross Tab setup screen would need the following basic information: Formatting Title Row Header Width Column Header Width Show borders (boolean) Font Size Data Row Header field Row Sort field Column Header field Column Sort field Summarized field Summarized Operation (Sum, Avg, Min, Max, Median)

8 The following list would be presented on a summarized cross tab as such: Order Country Date Qty 1 USA 1/1/ Mexico 1/1/ Mexico 1/20/ USA 2/5/ USA 2/14/ Canada 2/10/ USA 3/1/07 20 Orders Result: Formatting Title = Orders Row Header Width = 2 in Column Header Width =.5 in Show Borders = Yes Font = Times New Roman Size = 11 Data Row Header field = Country Row Sort field = Country Column Header field = Month Column Sort field = Month Number Summarized field = Qty Summarized Operation = SUM January February March Canada Mexico USA This tool could the be used for the Financial Report Trend printout to generate a paper report that is similar to the display presentation. Standard Reports The ability to use generic definitions to define the row structure would allow OpenMFG to supply a set of standard reports based simply on Account Types. The reports would be a basic Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement, each with the following column layouts predefined: Month Data Year Data Month to Budget Year to Budget Month to Previous Month Year to Previous Year

9 3.6 Batch Manager Changes N/A 3.7 Performance and Usability Considerations These changes should generally make the Financial Report writer a great deal friendlier, easier to use and more relevant for Accountants. The removal of many calculation options may be viewed by some as taking away functionality, even though the true goal is to simplify maintenance by inferring the calculations based on the application. We believe that all the functionality a typical Accountant would need, and more, will ultimately be available. We will, however, like to hear critiques from the OpenMFG community to this approach to make sure no important functionality is lost or left out entirely. It may be possible along the way to improve the speed of the report generation be reviewing indexes and query structures for optimization. 3.8 Potential Error Handling TBA. 3.9 Potential Problems See 3.8 concerning perception of reduced flexibility Alternative Solutions Rather than predefine column layouts, we could simply allow users to select from options described above at run time. However, the important link is the report template to the column selection. When the number of columns change, the report template needs to change. It would be hard for users to figure out and remember which report template is appropriate for a given set of column selections, which is why it is preferable to predefine that. Also, more calculation options could be added back if deemed necessary. The goal here, however, it to start with a minimalist approach to capture the needs of the accounting community at large with an interface that is as simple, intuitive and easy to use as possible. 4 QA Considerations Report presentation will have significant and complex changes as to how they are calculated. Significant testing will be required to make sure they are accurate. The sponsor company, Marena, can do substantial testing with the 4 years of legacy data captured in their database. 5 Documentation Considerations Documentation concerning the financial report writer would need to be substantially overhauled to accommodate changes, new screens and the new OpenRPT related functionality. With the new series of standard system reports, it may be possible to include a Quick Start section for new users. 6 Release Considerations Upgrades will be tricky as reports that have already been defined by legacy users will now have to be categorized as Income Statement, Balance Sheet, or Cash Flow. One idea is to deactivate them, leave the value NULL and not allow them to be activated until a report type has been selected. We also need to consider whether to automatically add some column layouts to mitigate the perception that the upgrade breaks all the existing reports. We are open to input on release considerations as there is potential for substantial confusion when making changes of this magnitude.