Angie Barron posted on October 13, 2009 17:39
Microsoft FRx Report Writer – Most commonly overlooked features
FRx is a financial reporting and analysis tool broadly used in the mid-market of ERP systems. Despite its popularity, FRx is not 100% utilized by users and some of the most helpful features that facilitate the creation and distribution of financial reports are usually overlooked.
Examples of some of these features are as follows:
Rows
Row modifier – Book Code.
This feature is especially useful when rows should be reading data from different Books/Ledgers and showing data in the same column.
For example:
In this case, all rows are pulling data from a financial ledger, except ‘Number of Employees’, which is reading data from a statistical ledger (Head_Count).
Account Sets
These are very useful when the same group of accounts is used in several row formats.
Columns
Print Control
XCR. Change sign in column if normal balance of row CR
This feature is particularly useful in Variance calculations, when the row format has accounts which balance type is Debit or Credit.
For example:
The Variance calculation (Budget minus Actual) is reversed when the account balance type is credit (Income, liability accounts.)
P=>B, P>B. Column is printed if condition is True.
P=>B Period is equal or greater than Base period.
P>B Period is greater than Base period.
This feature can be used in Forecast reports, when Actual balances should be shown in current and prior periods and Forecast balances on future periods.
For example:
Assuming the above report is generated in April, columns from January to April are printed based on the condition P=<B. Columns from May to December are printed based on the condition P>B.
Trees
Security/E-mail.
Configuring Security/E-mail on the reporting tree facilitates the distribution of financial reports without compromising the confidentiality of the data. I found this option particularly useful in consolidated reports, where each reporting unit represents a company or a department within an entity.
Catalogs of Reports
Effective dates
Use this feature when a report should use different column formats based on the period to report. For example, a ‘Quarterly Income Statement’ might use 4 different column formats to report balances by quarter.
The column format is chosen based on the reporting period. i.e. When period to report is July, August or September, column ‘3rd Quarter’ will be automatically selected based on the ‘Effective Dates configuration (as shown below.)