Financial Reports

Two Optional Extras Beyond the Standard Setup

Automatic Fiscal Year Creation

If you use explicit Fiscal Year records (rather than just the simple month/day setting covered earlier in this course) — for example to model a genuinely irregular fiscal calendar — a scheduled action can automatically create each new fiscal year's record ahead of time based on your existing pattern, so nobody has to remember to set one up manually before the current one ends.

The Formal Closing Wizard

As explained earlier in this course, the Balance Sheet's Retained Earnings/Net Income split is computed live, with no closing journal entry required — this is the standard, recommended approach and needs nothing further from you.

A separate, optional Fiscal Year Closing wizard also exists (Accounting > Actions > Fiscal Year Closing) for businesses whose jurisdiction or auditor specifically requires formal, posted closing and opening journal entries at year-end, rather than relying on a dynamically-computed report. It generates configurable closing entries per a template, moves through Draft → Processed → Posted, and tags the resulting entries with a Closing Type for identification.

Important: Don't Use Both Approaches Carelessly

If you post formal closing entries with this wizard, their counterpart must go to the same "Undistributed Profits/Losses" equity account that the dynamic Balance Sheet calculation already excludes from its own prior-year rollup — otherwise the same year's earnings can get counted twice (once by the live calculation, once by the posted closing entry), throwing the Balance Sheet out of balance. Unless your accountant or jurisdiction specifically requires formal closing entries, the simplest and safest approach — used throughout this course — is to rely on the live calculation alone and skip this wizard entirely.

From Ledger to Tax Filing

Go to Accounting > Reporting > Tax Report. Every tax-relevant transaction, grouped into the boxes/lines your tax authority's return actually asks for (tax collected on sales, tax paid on purchases, net due).

Using It

1. Select the tax period matching your filing frequency (monthly/quarterly/annual, depending on your jurisdiction).
2. Review each tax grid line — click through to the underlying invoices/bills if a number looks off.
3. Export or use the figures directly to complete your official return.

Tax Lock Date

After filing, set a Tax Lock Date (Settings > Invoicing > Fiscal Periods) up to the filed period's end date — this prevents anyone from later editing a transaction that's already been reported to the tax authority, which would make your filed return and your books disagree.

Multi-Jurisdiction Businesses

If you operate across regions with different tax rules, fiscal positions (see the Accounting course's "Fiscal Positions" article) determine which taxes apply to which transactions, and this report reflects that automatically — you don't need to manually separate transactions by jurisdiction.

Who Owes You, Who You Owe

Partner Ledger

Go to Accounting > Reporting > Partner Ledger. Every transaction for one or more selected customers/vendors — invoices, payments, credit notes — with a running balance. This is the report you send a customer when they ask "what's my current balance and history with you."

Aged Receivable

Go to Accounting > Reporting > Aged Receivable. Outstanding customer invoices bucketed by how overdue they are:

• Not Due / Current
• 1–30 days overdue
• 31–60 days overdue
• 61–90 days overdue
• 90+ days overdue

This is the standard collections tool — work the far-right (most overdue) buckets first, and watch for customers who consistently drift further right over time.

Aged Payable

The mirror image for vendor bills you owe — same aging buckets, used for cash-outflow planning: which bills are due soon, and which are already overdue on your side.

Reconciling to the Balance Sheet

The total of Aged Receivable should tie to the Balance Sheet's Receivables line, and Aged Payable to Payables — if they don't match, something was posted directly to the receivable/payable account outside the normal invoice/bill workflow and needs investigating.

The Detail Behind Every Summary Report

General Ledger

Go to Accounting > Reporting > General Ledger. Lists every journal item, grouped by account, for the selected period — the complete, unabridged audit trail. Use this when a summary report's number needs full line-by-line justification (for an auditor, or your own sanity check).

• Filter by account, journal, or partner.
• Each line shows date, journal, reference/description, debit, credit, and running balance.
• Click through to the originating invoice/bill/journal entry.

Trial Balance

Go to Accounting > Reporting > Trial Balance. One row per account: opening balance, total debit movement, total credit movement, and closing balance for the period.

• The classic checkpoint before closing a period: total debits must equal total credits across every account.
• Often exported to hand to an external accountant/auditor as the starting point for their own workpapers.

When to Use Which

Trial Balance answers "what's the balance of every account" at a glance; General Ledger answers "show me every transaction that built up to that balance" for one or a few accounts. Start with Trial Balance to spot which account looks wrong, then drill into General Ledger for that specific account.

Where the Cash Actually Went

Profit and cash are not the same thing — a business can be profitable on paper while running out of cash (e.g. if customers are slow to pay). The Cash Flow Statement (Accounting > Reporting > Cash Flow) explains the difference.

The Three Activity Groups

• Operating Activities – cash from normal business operations, starting from Net Profit and adjusting for non-cash items and changes in receivables/payables/inventory.
• Investing Activities – cash spent on or received from fixed assets and investments.
• Financing Activities – cash from loans, owner contributions, or distributions.

Opening Cash + Net Cash from all three groups = Closing Cash, which should tie exactly to your actual bank balances at the report date.

Executive Summary

Go to Accounting > Reporting > Executive Summary for a single condensed page aimed at non-accountants: revenue, profitability, cash, and a handful of key ratios, each with a period-over-period comparison — the report to hand an owner or board member who doesn't need (or want) the full Balance Sheet/P&L detail.

Revenue, Costs, and Net Profit Over a Period

Go to Accounting > Reporting > Profit and Loss. Unlike the Balance Sheet, this report always covers a date range (default: this fiscal year to date).

The Waterfall

1. Revenue – all income accounts.
2. Less Cost of Revenue – direct costs of what you sold.
3. = Gross Profit
4. Less Operating Expenses – overhead, salaries, rent, etc.
5. = Operating Income (or Loss)
6. Plus Other Income / Less Other Expenses – non-operating items (interest, one-off gains/losses).
7. = Net Profit

This Net Profit figure — scoped to the current fiscal year — is exactly what the Balance Sheet's "Net Income (Current Year)" line pulls in live.

Comparing Periods

Use the comparison filter to add columns for prior months/quarters/years side by side — the fastest way to spot a cost that's crept up or a revenue line that's slipping, rather than staring at one period in isolation.

Budgets on the P&L

If budgets are configured (see the Budgets course), enable "Show Budgets" to add a Budget column and variance alongside Actuals directly on this report.

Assets = Liabilities + Equity

Go to Accounting > Reporting > Balance Sheet. This report is always "as of" a single date, not a period — it shows what the business owns, owes, and is worth at that instant.

Assets

• Current Assets – Bank and Cash Accounts, Receivables, other Current Assets, Prepayments.
• Fixed Assets – Equipment, property, and similar (see the Fixed Assets course for the depreciation side).
• Non-current Assets – Long-term assets not classified as fixed.

Liabilities

• Current Liabilities – Payables and other short-term obligations.
• Non-current Liabilities – Long-term loans and obligations.

Equity: Retained Earnings & Net Income

The Equity section has exactly two top-level lines:

• Retained Earnings – every prior fiscal year's earnings rolled up, plus your real equity accounts (Share Capital, Reserves, Owner's Drawings, etc.). Click to expand and see each contributing account.
• Net Income (Current Year) – this fiscal year's profit or loss to date, computed live from the Profit and Loss report — not a number you ever have to manually close or post a journal entry for. It automatically becomes part of Retained Earnings once the new fiscal year starts.

Because Net Income is computed dynamically rather than posted via a year-end closing entry, the split between "this year" and "prior years" depends entirely on your Fiscal Year setting (previous article) being correct — this is the single most common cause of a Balance Sheet that doesn't balance or a "Net Income" figure that looks too large or too small.

Verifying It Balances

The report itself shows ASSETS and LIABILITIES + EQUITY as two separate totals — they must always be equal. If they aren't, check the fiscal year setting first, then look for a manual journal entry that posted directly against an equity account in an unusual way.

Off Balance Sheet Accounts

A final section lists accounts that don't belong in the main equation (e.g. guarantees, commitments) — shown separately and only when non-zero, so they're visible without distorting the core Assets/Liabilities/Equity totals.

Why the Fiscal Year Matters

Every report that splits "current year" from "prior years" — most importantly the Balance Sheet's equity section — relies on knowing exactly when your fiscal year starts and ends. Most companies close on December 31, but plenty don't: some countries and industries commonly use a different date (for example, many private companies in some countries use June 30).

Setting It

1. Go to Settings > Invoicing > Fiscal Periods.
2. Set the Fiscal Year field: a month and a day (e.g. December 31, or June 30).
3. This is per-company — each company in a multi-company setup can have its own fiscal year end.

This one setting is what every report uses to decide what counts as "this year" versus "prior years" — get it right before relying on the Balance Sheet's Retained Earnings/Net Income split (next article) or the Profit and Loss report's default "This Year" filter.

Changing It Later

Changing the fiscal year end after you already have a full year of transactions will shift what every report considers "current year" going forward. Do this deliberately (e.g. at a genuine change of accounting period) rather than casually — it's a real accounting decision, not just a display preference.

What This Module Is

The Financial Reports engine (Accounting > Reporting) generates all of your statutory and management financial statements directly and continuously from your ledger — there is no separate "close the books, then generate reports" step; every report reflects live data as of the moment you open it.

Reports Included

Common Controls Across Every Report

• Date filter – a specific date (Balance Sheet) or a date range (P&L-style reports), with quick options like This Month/Quarter/Year and a custom range.
• Comparison – add one or more prior-period columns side by side (e.g. this month vs last month vs same month last year).
• Journals filter – restrict to specific journals (useful to isolate one business line or company branch).
• Hide zero lines – collapse rows with no activity so the report stays readable.
• Export – PDF and XLSX from every report, for sharing or further analysis.
• Multi-company – run a single company or a consolidated view across several, if you manage more than one.

Every Number Is Clickable

Click any line's amount to drill down into the underlying journal items — the report is never a dead-end number, it's always one click away from the actual transactions that produced it. This is the fastest way to answer "why is this number what it is" without leaving the report.