Creating FRX Sanity Checks

Every once in a while, you may find yourself in the situation that your FRX report is not generating correct data. Don’t blame FRX. Frx is a great reporting product, but like all computer programs, the numbers created by the report are only as good as the quality of the instructions. Where I see most errors for FRX reports is in how they were set up for handling new changes. Typically these new changes involve adding new Accounts to your Chart of Accounts or adding new entries to your Sub accounts.

It is often these new entries which cause bad data to be generated, because the FRx reports exclude these new entries. Here are a few ideas to help catch these types of errors.

Idea 1:

Ask the FRx software to look for inconsistencies in Row and Columns.

Log into FRx, click on the Catalog button and go into the catalog area

Now you need to navigate as follows: Click on the tab in the middle of the screen called: Report Options. Next Click on the lower row of tabs on the one labeled: Advanced.

This is the display you should see.

In the form currently displayed there in the upper left corner are two check books under the heading Exception Reports: Report mission accounts and report duplicate accounts.

I like to turn on the option, report mission accounts.

This exception report only shows up when you print your FRx reports to a printer, not when you print your reports to the screen. The exception nature of these reports is nice because a report is only generated when an error is flagged.

Frx determines what the lowest and highest account numbers which are in the row definition for this report. Frx reports any accounts between this range which are not included, but have an account balance. Please note if the accounts are outside of this range of accounts in your row definition, then the exception report will not be generated.

I do not like to flag the exception report based on duplicates. There are certain row definitions which are correct, yet they will be flagged as a duplicate because of the way totaling is done. This decision to use the duplicate accounts should be on your experience with your report definition structure.

Idea #2:

When creating a balance sheet, I have developed my row logic to include a single line for cash and cash equivalents. This value is incorrectly printing out on my report.

Answer.

First I would ask FRx to help by resetting the transactional detail for this report to be at the finance and account level. This is done by changing the detail level combo box to account or financial and account level. This gives you the ability to see which accounts and sub accounts are populated on each line of the report.

Here is an example of a single line on a Profit and Lost report when that line is displayed in an account report:

Now you have displayed both the account and sub accounts which made up this single summary line on the higher level report. You can now research which line is wrong or missing and start locating where your error occurred when you set up your report.

When research for errors you can always go back to the trial balance report. Sometimes you can use the summary & drill down capabilities of Solomon to also quickly research the report. This option tends to work best when your accounts are contiguous and follow a natural numbering pattern in your chart of accounts. For instance, if you wanted to know what detail line was in a cash range which followed the structure 103?, you could use the inquiry summary account tool and drill down from this:

Go to General Ledger, and Account Summary Inquiry.

Next drill down on a single line in the detailed grid area by focusing the mouse on one of the lines and then clicking on the button labeled details at the bottom right corner. Here are the results where we drilled down on account 1030.

You have in this last screen a detail by account/ sub account and balances for each unique line as well as a total across all lines displayed (see bottom of screen)

Idea 3:

When developing row definitions, and you are determining the range for a totaling operation, then follow these simple ideas to set your range up as wide as possible.

For instance, here is a sample of Frx row code for totaling:

I draw your attention to row code 2325. This is a totaling line which is adding the three lines for row codes; 2184, 2200, and 2300. Please note that the Column D for row code 2325 shows the range to be used in totaling. The upper limit is set to the blank description line 2167 and the lower limit is set to the underscore line row code 2313.

The advantages of using such broad ranges is that if a new account was to be inserted within these ranges, then this new account would be correctly included.

I have found over the years that the adding of a new account is one of the main culprits in producing incorrect reports. To save yourself embarrassment, always find ways to create “mini” sanity checks on your Frx reports. You will find that a little planning in this area can make a big difference in always producing accurate FRx reports.