1.     Introduction:

The GL Explorer is an on-line Drill Down Enquiry facility for use with your Financial Reports including Profit & Loss Reports, Balance Sheets, Trial Balance and Extended Business Analysis (BI Code) Reports in order to facilitate detailed examination of the underlying make-up of the figures and amounts contained in these reports.

Its layout and sequence exactly follows that of your existing Reports and is based on the “Sort Order” sequencing which was used to design these reports.  In summary, every General Ledger Account Code belongs to a General Ledger Sub-Category which, in turn, belongs to a General Ledger Category.  Each General Ledger Category has a “Sort Oder” code which determines the sequence in which the Categories are presented on your Reports.  Each General Ledger Sub-Category also has a “Sort Order” Code which determines the sequence they are presented within each General Ledger Category.  And finally, the General Ledger Codes are presented in numerical or alphabetic sequence within General Ledger Sub-Category.  For more information on the design of your Financial Reports refer to the Article entitled “How do I Modify or Re-Design the P & L and Balance Sheet Reports?”.

As well as progressively providing more detail regarding the make-up of the financial figures in the GL Categories, Sub-Categories and so on, at the lowest level (GL Account Code) the program also links out to a specific version of the Transaction Browser which displays all the transactions making up a particular GL Account Code Amount and, of course, any of these transactions provides further links to the Supplier Account, Bank Account or whatever.  The full facilities available within the Transaction Browser are detailed in the Article “How do I Use and Customise the Transaction Browser?”.

2.     Select the Parameters for a Specific Enquiry:

To begin Go To > General > Balance &Transaction Enquiry > GL Explorer which will invoke the following Window;

The top part of this screen facilitates the various selection Parameters.  On the left hand side you can choose which type of Report you wish to examine (Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet or Trial Balance).  Next to that you can choose either Period values or Year to Date values, followed by the first comparative column - “Actual” values, “Budget” values or “Revised Budget” values. 

Underneath the “Dataset” parameters is the Period and Year selection for that Dataset.   You then select the Comparison column - which again comprises Actual, Budget and Revised Budget, together with its date selection parameters.  If you wish to compare this year values with last year, then use the Date Parameters to achieve this.   Finally, Click on the “Apply Filter” button to display the chosen values with their variances as shown on the previous page.

The “Analyse By” parameter set is used for BI Code Report based Enquiries - where you can examine individual Locations, Divisions or Departments - depending on what you have previously set up in the “Analysis” section of the system;

In this particular example Company (which is Project oriented) the Analysis Groups are “Project”, which facilitates P & L reporting for each Project, or each “Activity” (e.g. “Mechanical”, “Electrical”, “Chemical”, etc.) or by “Project Manager”.   The details of how to implement Departmental Accounting are contained in the Articles “How do I Implement Extended Business Analysis?”, “How do I Implement Job or Project Analysis?”, and “How do I Produce my Extended Business Analysis Reports?”. 

Firsts select the Dimension you want to examine from the Drop Down List.  This will then (after a few seconds) “inform” the lower Drop Down List with all the possible entries against your chosen Element - Projects in this instance.  Choose one followed by “Filter” to display the values for that particular Project.

Had you chosen “Activity” as your first selection then the lower Drop Down list would contain all the possible Activities which you have set up for reporting.

Use the “Refresh” option at the bottom of the Window to update your data at any time.  Don’t forget that other users may well be adding new transactions to the system while you are examining the data. The symbol highlighted in “Red” is a short piece of Help Text wherever you encounter it.  There is no “Save” option.  The system automatically saves the last set of Parameters you used and will re-present them the next time you access this facility.  However, if you continue with that set of Parameters, it’s important that you use the “Refresh” button to ensure you are looking at the very latest data.

3.     Using the Drill Down Facilities:

Turning to the facilities available in the lower half of the window;

Use these highlighted Buttons to Drill down to the next level - i.e. from General Ledger Category to General Ledger Sub-Category and from General Ledger Sub-Category to General Ledger Account Code. Click on the Buttons again to close up the detail level back to the summary level.

Click on any of the Amounts highlighted in “Blue” to Drill out to the Transaction Browser Window to view the list of transactions making up that Amount;

The full facilities available in the Transaction Browser window are described in the Article; “How do I Use and Customise the Transaction Browser?

Again, Click on any of the fields displayed in “Blue” in this Window to examine any of the transactions in detail (or “Edit” them);

The Editing and Amendment facilities available on each Transaction are documented in the Article; “How do I Amend, Correct, Reverse or Delete a Transaction?”

The “Export” Button on the bottom left hand corner of the General Ledger Explorer Window facilitates the output of the Enquiry in a number of Formats;