Written by Nils R. | Aug 12, 2020 7:00:00 AM
What is
a
Profit & Loss Report with a Text Comment Column
? Profit & Loss reports with comment sections are considered interactive financial statements and are often used by finance teams to enter comments that explain financial figures. Key functionality in this type of report includes a data entry column in the middle of the report for comments. These comments can be saved to the database as a benefit for any user looking at the report on their own or in the future. You will find an example of this type of report below.
Purpose of
Financial Statements with Comment Sections Companies and organizations use Financial Statements with Comment Sections to capture explanations at the line item level in a report. When used as part of good business practices in a Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) Department, a company can improve its ability to share important analytical commentary, while reducing the chance that managers repeatedly ask the same questions about figures and variances, or lose out on the benefits in general of such commentary.
Financial Statements with Comment Section
Example Here is an example of a Profit & Loss Report with a comment section in the middle. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1742"]
Profit & Loss Report with Text Comment Column Example[/caption] You can find hundreds of additional examples
here.
Who Uses This Type of
Report
? The typical users of this type of report are: Executives and Financial Managers.
Other
Report
s Often Used in Conjunction with
Financial Statements with Comment Sections Progressive Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) Departments sometimes use several different Financial Statements with Comment Sections, along with balance sheets, cash flow reports, dashboards and other management and control tools.
Where Does the Data for Analysis Originate From? The Actual (historical transactions) data typically comes from enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage Intacct, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, SAP Business One, SAP ByDesign, Acumatica, Netsuite and others. In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the planning data most often originates from in-house Excel spreadsheet models or from professional corporate performance management (CPM/EPM) solutions.
What Tools are Typically used for Reporting, Planning and Dashboards? Examples of business software used with the data and ERPs mentioned above are:
- Native ERP report writers and query tools
- Spreadsheets (for example Microsoft Excel)
- Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (for example Solver)
- Dashboards (for example Microsoft Power BI and Tableau)
Corporate Performance Management (CPM) Cloud Solutions and More Examples
