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Report Listings & Analyses - Nominal

Article Number: 1111 | Rating: Unrated | Last Updated: Mon, Jun 19, 2023 at 6:43 PM

Datafile Software

Report Listings & Analyses - Nominal

Here you define what items are to print on the nominal ledger reports. For each report you must define the print style to use and the data items which are to print. See the Nominal Instructions for examples of these reports.

Print Control

You can define up to eight printing styles for your system through the CONFIG user — see the System User Guide. These control not only the print style such as the number of characters per inch, but also the length and width of the report. The styles so far defined are shown at the bottom of the screen when you are prompted.

Data Items

You are asked to enter up to 10 data items (depending on the specific report) to print on each report.The file structure for the file concerned (nominal accounts or transactions) shows in the right-hand window when you take the option for any particular report. However, you can use the <F4–Select> key in the usual way to select a specific data item to print. It is the data item numbers which you enter, although the item names are shown alongside too.

In addition to the data items in the file itself, you can select from a further set of items, which are derived from the data in each file up to the period number chosen for the report at run time. Use the <F7–Options> key to view these items, which are also described below.They are numbered from item number 161 upwards.

It is preferable to use, for example, item 165 — the accumulated actual balance — than to use item 47, the current balance. The current balance always shows the full year regardless of which period you ask to print, whereas item 165 accumulates only up to the period number you choose when you print.

Additional Nominal Accounts File Items

161 Accumulated Budget. The sum of each period’s budget from the start of the year to the report period number — i.e. the year-to-date budget

162 Accum Budget Variance. The difference between the budget to-date item 161 and the actual movement to-date, which is item 165

163 Period Budget. The budget figure for the report period requested

164 Period Budget Variance. The difference between the period budget item 163 and the actual result for the period, which is item 167

165 Accumulated Actual. The sum of each period’s actual results from the start of the year to the report period — i.e. the actual year-to-date result

166 Accumulated Actual Variance (Previous year actual). This is the variance between the year-to-date result in item 165, and the comparative value for the same period range last year, item 169

167 Period Actual. The movement for the period — the current period’s results

168 Period Actual variance (Previous year actual). This is the variance between the current period’s result in item 167 and the comparative value for the same period last year, item 170

169 Previous Year Actual Accumulated. This is the sum of the actual results from the start of last year to the same period last year as the report period

170 Previous Year Actual Period. The results for the same period last year

The OPTIONS Button

The Options button allows you to set defaults for how this report is printed. The items available here can also be amended at run-time if required and were discussed as part of the user section of this manual, although they are included here again for reference.

Before discussing the parameters you should note the buttons available at the footer of this parameter screen.
This option updates the individual parameters from your user default when they are set, overwriting presets where applicable.If no user defaults are set then this option is ‘greyed’ out and cannot be selected.

The report parameters available are:

Paper Size - select the paper size the report is to be printed to (i.e. A4).You can elect to leave this blank in which case the report is printed as per the last/default page size of the printer, however, if you do this you can only choose fixed pitch fonts (and the screen is a slightly different layout) – selecting a page size is mandatory to use proportional fonts.

Default Printer Font – a font dialog is display allowing you to select as required, the default font to be used for this report. If you’ve sent the page size then all fonts are available, if you haven’t set this then only fixed pitch fonts can be assigned. You can also set bold/italic attributes and font size – note that if you haven’t set a page size then the font size option is not applicable (font is sized as per previous rules).

Selecting the Font Size

Generally you can’t go far wrong with 10point. However, if you have a lot of data items on your report, and are printing in portrait, 10point may be too big to fit all the required information without overlapping fields.

The positioning of fields across the page is determined by the item size – if you view the Account Status report this shows, be default, the account code (7 characters), P/B flag (2 characters), the account name (25), and six value items (14 characters each), together with spaces between the items this gives a total of 126 characters, or columns required, across the page (think graph paper – you have 126 ‘cells’ across the page).

Those 126 columns are split equally across the available page (page size and margins taken into account) as starting positions for data items – so the account code starts at column 1, the P/B flag at column 9 (account code plus 1 space is 8), etc. If you select a font size too big then the account code may not finish printing before the P/B flag starts causing the name to overlap the end of the account code. If this occurs then you can either reduce the font size or consider swapping the report to landscape orientation if the font size would go too small.

Default to Landscape – set to default the printed report to landscape, leave blank for usual portrait orientation. You may want to set reports such as the Sales Ledger Aged Debtors Report or the Cashbook Receipts Analysis Listing to landscape to increase the size of print as these reports require a large amount of detail to be printed.

Show Time in Report Headings – set to include the printed time in the report headings in addition to the printed date.

Include Selection Criteria – set to print any selection criteria that were applied to the report.

Email as Text – if send this report via email this option allows you to send as a text file attachment as opposed to, if left blank, PDF.

Omit Full Page Headings – When printing a multi-page report the system repeats the headings for each page. Setting this option reduces the heading details for the second and subsequent pages allowing more record detail to be printed per page.

Default Output to Spooler – Usually, when printing a report, the default printer is the last print device used. Select this option to set the default printer as the spooler for this report. This acts only as a default and doesn’t prevent you electing to print the report instead.

Allow Change of Printer Alias – when these options are configured then it is assumed you are printing as ‘direct windows print’ and this is the alias set by default. Setting this option allows you to change the default alias at run-time to one of the list of Datafile configured printers. If you change the alias to a ‘DOS’ style alias then the page size (length/width) is again picked up from the Print Style Profile and fonts depend on ASCII codes configured, although other settings such as ‘include time’ etc. remain from the OPTIONS display.

Print Negatives in Red – on selected reports, assuming you have a colour printer; it may be useful to print negative values in red. This option is not applicable if the page size is left blank.

The next set of parameters allows you to specify formatting and margin settings for both portrait and landscape when the page size has been set. The appropriate setting being used based on the orientation of the output selected at run-time.

Characters Per Line – the system displays the width of the report items on the right. If you leave this value at 0 (recommended) then the report width used in determining the start column positions of data items (as discussed above with regards to font size) is the larger of either the report print items or 80 columns. You can manually set a report width – from 64 to 255 columns. You may want to increase the number of columns on (say) a landscape report with few print items to bring the fields closer together to aid in reading.

Lines Per Page – if left at 0 (recommended) then the number of lines per page is determined by the font and page size. Alternatively you can set a number of lines per page, perhaps to give a greater gap between rows of data items.

Left Margin (mm) – set the size of the left hand margin (relative to page orientation in millimetres.

Right Margin (mm) – set the size of the right hand margin.

Top Margin (mm) – set the size of the top margin.

Bottom Margin (mm) – set the size of the bottom margin.

This set of parameters allows you to specify formatting and margin settings for both portrait and landscape when the page size has notbeen set. Two columns are definable, one to use if printing in portrait, the other if printing in landscape - the appropriate setting being used based on the orientation of the output selected at run-time.

Minimum Characters Per Line – the system displays the width of the report items to the right. If you leave this value as 0 then the report width is the larger of either the report print items or 80 characters. You can manually set a report width – from 64 to 255 characters wide – but if you set a width less than the items actually printed then this is overridden by the report width at run-time.

Maximum Lines Per Page – if left at 0 then when printing a report the system will determine the number of lines per page based on the report width and the printable area of the page up to a maximum of 72 lines per page in portrait mode or 50 lines per page in landscape mode. Alternatively you can set the number of lines per page, from 16 to 255, and this is then taken into account when deciding font size to ensure that number of lines is printed. If left at 0 then when sending to the spooler the lines per page is assumed to be 72 in portrait mode and 50 in landscape. If you require an identical print from the printer and the spooler then a maximum number of lines should be set.

Left Margin – set the number of characters to be used as a margin from 1 to 64.If you require a margin then when entering the value you need to take into account the report print width – a margin of 4 characters on an 80-character report will be bigger than a margin of 4 characters on a 132-character report. If left at 0 no left margin is applied.

Right Margin – if you require a margin to be applied on the right of the report set the number of characters accordingly (again 1-64), if leave as 0 then no right margin is applied.

Top Margin – set the number of lines to leave as a margin at the top of the page (1-32 lines). If left at 0 then no top margin is applied.

Bottom Margin – set the number of lines to leave as a margin at the bottom of the page (1-32 lines). If left at 0 then no bottom margin is applied.

Finally, you can set default options that are used when you send the report to print or e-mail.

Print Device – if using a stand-alone Datafile system then you can set a default printer to output to. This option only applies when sending to a print device; if last printer was spooler or fax then this remains the default. If using a networked Datafile system then you can still set this where you are printing to a networked printer – provided all terminals have a consistent device path. If the print device isn’t valid then the normal printer is offered instead.

E-mail Address – if the report is sent to email then here you can enter an email address that is to be used by default for this report – though it can be amended at run-time.

Once you’ve set the desired parameters select the SAVE option to apply for future prints.

Trial Balance

The trial balance shows all the nominal accounts with their current debit or credit balance, and sums the debits and credits to prove that the ledger balances. You can specify that the trial balance is to print sub-totals at certain break points, by default these are defined in the nominal System Profiles, but you can nominate an item on the accounts file here – the system then prints sub-totals on change of value in this item.

The trial balance is designed to print the account-code, the account name and the balance at the end of the chosen report period in either the debit or credit column as appropriate for each account. In addition you can print a further five items for each account on each line. You would usually print the "PB” indicator as well.

Audit Trail

The audit trail is designed to print three aspects of each nominal account:

A header line of information from the account record

Transaction details which apply to this account (you can choose which transactions to print at run time)

An analysis table derived from the transactions, if you ask for this at run time

You can define up to ten items from the nominal accounts file to print in the header, and up to ten items to print from each transaction record. You have no control over the layout of the analysis table, other than whether to print it or not (via run-time parameter).

Transactions

As well as the data file items from the transactions file you can choose to print from five other items derived from the transaction data, as shown in the table below.

Additional Nominal Transaction File Items

161 DB/CR-AMOUNT — this prints the transaction value in one of two columns headed debit and credit. Were you to print the amount itself, it would print in a single column regardless of whether debit or credit

162 RUNNING-BAL —this gives a running balance from the start of the year.A balance is calculated for each transaction regardless of whether it is printed or not, so that the balance which prints against a line represents the true account balance after applying that and all previous transactions

163 ALT-ACCOUNT — if you write single journal transactions (see above) then this prints the other account code for this transaction as a cross-reference.Nothing prints for transactions with just a single account code

164 DB-ACC-NAME - This prints the account name if the transaction has a debit account recorded against it.

165 CR-ACC-NAME - As above but prints if the transaction has a credit account recorded against it

You also have the option to sort the transactions for each account by date before you print them.With the ability to enter data for any period at any time, this option is advised, since it helps to show you where the period movement figures come from.

Account Listing

Account Status

Budget Report

Comparative List

All these are general reports specified in the same way. You can print the additional nominal account date items 161–170 (as described above) on these reports as well — use the <F7–Options> key to give you a list of them.

Transaction Listing

This is a straight report of the journal entries in your system. A blank line separates the entries for one journal from those of the next.If (as would be usual) you are printing the amount then select the special item 161 instead of the data item (5) as this prints the values in separate debit and credit columns and allows you to sub-total the journals. As well as the normal transactions file items, you can also choose to print the debit and credit account names in separate columns by choosing data items 164 and 165, as shown at the bottom of the screen.

Custom Fields