Lesson 8: Formatting a Report

Formatting: Row Displaying Settings

Multiple printing control properties are used to control the displaying of values in a particular row.

Suppress Empty and Hide Zero

The Suppress Empty row attribute prevents the displaying of empty rows in the report. The Hide Zero attribute prevents the displaying of zero values in the row.

In the Printing Control column of the Row Sets (CS206010) form, you can specify the row's position in the report and the way the row displaying will be controlled. You can select one of the following options:

Line Break: Use this option to show the next row in a new line.
Hidden: Use this option to hide the row. You may need to use this option if you want to use the values of the row in some calculations but do not need to display the row itself.
Merge Next: Use this option to merge the data in the row with the data in the next row. You can use this option in a sequence of rows if you need to merge the data of multiple rows. The description of the merged row corresponds to the description of the first row with the Merge Next option. You may need to merge the data in rows if you need to display a row with the data from diﬀerent data sources.
Start Box: Use this option to show the data of the row in a frame whose upper border is placed above the row with the Start Box option.
End Box: Use this option to show the data of the row in a frame whose lower border is placed under the row with the End Box option. If End Box is not specified in the Printing Control column in any row below the row with the Start Box option, then all the rows from the row with the Start Box option to the last row in the row set are displayed in the frame.

Linked Row

You can use linked rows when some rows of the report should be displayed depending on whether a particular row is displayed. If the linked row is not displayed in the report, all the rows with the code of the linked row in the Linked Row column of the Row Sets (CS206010) form will not be displayed in the report either.

Column Group

In the Column Group column of the Row Sets (CS206010) form, you specify the group of columns where the values from the current row will be printed. Every column group selected for the current row can include one column or multiple columns. When a column group is specified for the current row, the same value should be specified as the Printing Group attribute for the columns that will be included in this analytical report where the values from the current row will be inserted. For example, if the values from the row with the R01 code should be displayed in columns A and B, the Column Group column of the row should have the same value as the Printing Group attribute defined for columns A and B. Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 90

Formatting: Column Displaying Settings

Multiple printing control properties are used to control the displaying of values in a particular column.

Suppress Empty and Hide Zero

The Suppress Empty column attribute prevents the displaying of empty columns in the report. The Hide Zero attribute prevents the displaying of zero values in the column.

Printing Group

You use the Printing Group attribute to define the group of rows where the values from the current column will be printed. Every printing group can include one row or multiple rows, and can be assigned to a single column set or multiple sets. When a column group attribute is specified for the current row, the same column group should be assigned to the Printing Group attribute for the column set that will be included in this analytical report.

Unit Group

You use the Unit Group attribute to include the current column in the unit group. Unit groups are used to generate summarized or aggregated reports; they define the groups of columns to be displayed in some specific reports. Unit groups include the column sets and row sets in hierarchically organized units that can be used to summarize the values in the report formed from the various column sets and row sets.

Printing Control

You use the Printing Control attribute to specify how the columns will be displayed in the report:

Print: The column will be displayed in the report.
Hidden: The column will be hidden from the report and used only to store some values.
Merge Next: The column will be merged with the next one in the report.

Visible Formula

You use the Visible Formula attribute to define the conditions of hiding a column when you run the report. If you do not want to have needless columns (for example, those with no data) in the report, you can hide a column or multiple columns by specifying appropriate hiding conditions in the Visible Formula box. Hiding a column does not remove the column or its data at all. The column will be displayed when the report is generated outside the specified conditions. For example, suppose you have an annual report that has twelve columns, each of which accumulates data by month. If you run the report in March, it will contain the data for the three months (from January to March), so only three columns will contain data. In that case, there is no need to display other columns that have no data. Thus, you can specify conditions to hide the columns depending on the period of time when you run the report. For the Visible Formula attribute, you can specify such values as =True (for displaying the column), =False (for hiding the column), or a formula with specific conditions for hiding the column depending on the @StartPeriod parameter. Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 91

Formatting: Formatting of Cells

Format Specifiers

You use format specifiers as the value of the Format attribute on the Column Sets (CS206020) form (for a column cell) and on the Row Sets (CS206010) form (for a row cell) to convert the data selected from the data source to the string value used in the executed report. To specify the format for the column or row cells, you can use the standard formats defined for the format function in .Net. The following table contains the format specifiers that are frequently used in analytical reports of the GL type.

Format Specifier     Name                    Description

0                    Zero placeholder        If the value being formatted has a digit in the position where the 0
                                             appears in the format string, then that digit is copied to the result
                                             string. The position of the leftmost 0 before the decimal point and
                                             the rightmost 0 after the decimal point determines the range of dig-
                                             its that are always present in the result string. The 00 specifier causes
                                             the value to be rounded to the nearest digit preceding the decimal,
                                             where rounding away from zero is always used. For example, format-
                                             ting 34.5 with 00 would result in the value 35.

#                    Digit placeholder       If the value being formatted has a digit in the position where the
                                             # appears in the format string, then that digit is copied to the re-
                                             sult string. Otherwise, nothing is stored in that position in the re-
                                             sult string. Note that this specifier never displays the 0 character
                                             if it is not a significant digit, even if 0 is the only digit in the string.
                                             This specifier displays the 0 character if it is a significant digit in the
                                             number being displayed. The ## format string causes the value to be
                                             rounded to the nearest digit preceding the decimal, where rounding
                                             away from zero is always used. For example, formatting 34.5 with ##
                                             would result in the value 35.
                                             Example: Applying the ,##0.00 format specifier will result in the
                                             following value: 12,345.60.

.                    Decimal point           The first . character in the format string determines the location of
                                             the decimal separator in the formatted value; any additional . char-
                                             acters are ignored. The actual character used as the decimal separa-
                                             tor is determined by the regional settings.

Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 92

Format Specifier    Name                    Description

,                   Thousand separator      This character serves two purposes. First, if the format string con-
                    and number scaling      tains a , character between two digit placeholders (0 or #) and to the
                                            le of the decimal point if one is present, then the output will have
                                            thousand separators inserted between each group of three digits
                                            (counting from the right) to the le of the decimal separator. The
                                            actual character used as the decimal separator in the result string
                                            is determined by the regional settings. Second, if the format string
                                            contains at least one , character immediately to the le of the deci-
                                            mal point, then the number will be divided by the number of , char-
                                            acters multiplied by 1000 before it is formatted. For example, the for-
                                            mat string 0,, will represent 100 million as simply 100. The , character
                                            indicates that scaling does not include thousand separators in the
                                            formatted number. Thus, to scale a number by 1 million and insert
                                            thousand separators, you would use the format string #,##0,,.

%                   Percentage place-       The presence of the % character in a format string causes a number
                    holder                  to be multiplied by 100 before it is formatted. The appropriate sym-
                                            bol is inserted in the number itself at the location where the % ap-
                                            pears in the format string. The percent character used is dependent
                                            on the regional settings.

C or c              Currency                The numbers in the report row or column will be converted to strings
                                            that represent the currency amounts. The precision specifier indi-
                                            cates the number of decimal places to be shown.
                                            Examples: c, c2
                                            You can use a currency symbol in the report rows, such as the U.S.
                                            dollar symbol ($) or the Euro symbol (€). To set up the required sym-
                                            bol, use the format string as shown in the following example.
                                            Example (for Euro): \€ #,##0.00
                                            Any symbol that you type after the backslash (\) will be printed as it
                                            is.

D or d              Decimal                 This format is supported for integral types only. The number is con-
                                            verted to a string of decimal digits (0 to 9), preceded by a minus sign
                                            if the number is negative. The precision specifier indicates the mini-
                                            mum number of digits in the resulting string. If required, the number
                                            is padded with zeros to its le to produce the number of digits given
                                            by the precision specifier.
                                            Examples: d, d4

For more information about cell formatting, see Cell Formatting.

Cell Format Order

Sometimes the row and the column defining a cell may have a format specified. In this case, you must define the Cell Format Order attribute of the column, which determines the source of the format that will be applied to the cell. You can select either of the following options:

Row: The format from the row will be used.
Column: The format from the column will be used. Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 93

Rounding of Column Values

By specifying the Rounding attribute, you set up the level of rounding that will be used in each particular column of your report to round the values. You can select one of the following types of rounding for a column and get the result shown:

No Rounding: 1,234,567,891.23
Whole Dollars: 1,234,567,891
Thousands: 1,234,567.9
Whole Thousands: 1,234,568
Millions: 1,234.6
Whole Millions: 1,235
Billions: 1.2
Whole Billions: 1

Formatting: Layout Settings

Printing style settings determine how the text in the report will be formatted. The style parameters include the text formatting options you can specify for the report pages and for the individual rows and columns.

Report Formatting Parameters

You can set up the page structure (including the report page and margin sizes), select the font attributes (the font name, size, style, and color), and set up the text alignment and background color attributes for the text lines in the report. The formatting settings defined for the whole report include the report attributes for the page formatting, and the printing style for the report text. You specify the report formatting parameters, described in the following table, on the Report Definitions (CS206000) form of the Analytical Report Manager.

Report Layout Parameter             Description

Margins                             Includes elements you can use to specify the margin size settings for the re-
                                    port page, which can be set in pixels, points, picas, centimeters, millimeters,
                                    or inches. You can specify the following margins:

Le: The size of the le margin of the report page.
Top: The size of the top margin of the report page.
Bottom: The size of the bottom margin of the report page.
Right: The size of the right margin of the report page.
Print Area Includes elements you can use to specify the size of the report page, which can be set in pixels, points, picas, centimeters, millimeters, or inches. You can specify the following sizes:
Width: The report page width.
Height: The report page height.
Default Font Style Includes elements you can use to specify the style parameters, including font formatting, background color, and text align options, for the report. These parameters are the same as the settings specified for the row and column Style parameters used to define the printing style for the rows and columns. Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 94
Report Layout Parameter Description
Paper Kind The paper kind used to print the report. Select the appropriate kind from the extensive list of available options.
Landscape A check box that indicates (if selected) that the report should have landscape orientation, with the shorter side running top to bottom so wider columns can be accommodated. If the check box is cleared, portrait orientation is used, which means that the longer side runs top to bottom.

Row Formatting Parameters

On the Row Sets (CS206010) form, you can set up any particular row in the report to visually emphasize it by using text alignment, font name, size, style, color, and background color. The formatting parameters defined on the row level include setting up the row attributes for the row formatting, and defining the printing style for the text in the row. To define the row formatting, set the following row parameters.

Row Formatting Parameter           Description

Page Break                         A check box that, if selected, indicates that a page break should be inserted af-
                                   ter the line in the printed report.

Height                             The row height in the printed report (in pixels).

Indent                             The indent value used for the row in the printed report (in pixels).

Line Style                         The line style used when the Line option is selected for the row type in the
                                   Type box.

Column Formatting Parameters

On the Column Sets (CS206020) form, you can set up any particular column in the report to visually emphasize it by using text alignment, font name, size, style, color, and background color attributes. The formatting parameters defined on the column level include setting up the column formatting, and defining the printing style for the text in the column. Column formatting is frequently used to highlight some columns in the report (for example, when the highlighted columns display totals calculated for some reporting periods, and they must have a notable formatting). To define the column formatting, set the following column attributes.

Column Formatting Parame-           Description
ter

Width                               The column width (in pixels).

Auto Height                         A check box that indicates (if selected) that the height of the cell in the select-
                                    ed column should be adjusted. You can use this attribute when you need to
                                    move a long string of text to the next line inside the cell.

Extra Space                         The extra space added to the column (in pixels).

Suppress Line                       A check box that indicates (if selected) that lines should not be displayed.

Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 95

Style Parameters

Style parameters are the text formatting parameters specified for the entire report or for individual row or column. You specify the text formatting parameters for a report, row, or column in the style section of the Report Definitions (CS206000) form or in the style dialog box (shown below), which you invoke from the Row Sets (CS206010) or Column Sets (CS206020) form.

In the style dialog box, you can specify the following formatting parameters.

Formatting parameter              Description

Text Align                        The alignment for the text in the report lines.

Color                             The text color.

Backgr. Color                     The background color.

Font                              The font name.

Font Size                         The font size.

Bold                              A check box that indicates (if selected) that the value of the cell should be bold.

Italic                            A check box that indicates (if selected) that the value of the cell should be itali-
                                  cized.

Strikeout                         A check box that indicates (if selected) that the value of the cell should be
                                  struck out.

Underline                         A check box that indicates (if selected) that the value of the cell should be un-
                                  derlined.

Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 96

Formatting: To Display Totals in a Separate Column

The following activity will walk you through the process of modifying a report to display totals in a separate column.

Story

Suppose that you are a technical specialist at SweetLife Fruits & Jams who is responsible for building and supporting analytical reports. The company's accountant has requested that you move the totals of the Balance Sheet report to a separate column. The functionality of ARM reports does not allow you to move the data of specific rows to specific columns, but you can manage the printing of specific rows in specific columns by using column groups. That is, you can display particular rows in only particular columns (for example, display the totals in a separate column and do not display them with the source data).

Configuration Overview

In the training dataset, the following tasks have been performed for the purposes of this activity:

On the Row Sets (CS206010) form, the F350RS12 row set has been created.
On the Column Sets (CS206020) form, the F350CS12 column set has been created.
On the Report Definitions (CS206000) form, the F350RD12 report definition has been created with the F350RS12 row set and the F350CS12 column set specified.

Process Overview

You will modify the row set and the column set of a copy of the Balance Sheet report on the Row Sets (CS206010) and Column Sets (CS206020) forms, respectively, to move the totals to a separate column. You will then review the updated report on the Report Definitions (CS206000) form.

Step 1: Reviewing the Existing Report First, you will review the existing version of the Balance Sheet (Separate Totals) report, which is a copy of the Balance Sheet report. Do the following:

On the Report Definitions (CS206000) form, open the report definition with the F350RD12 code.
On the form toolbar, click Preview. The report form opens in a pop-up window.
On the Report Parameters tab of the report form, specify the following report parameters:

Company: SWEETLIFE
Ledger: ACTUAL
Financial Period: 12-2023

On the report form toolbar, click Run Report. The Balance Sheet (Separate Totals) report is opened in a pop-up window. The following screenshot highlights the totals that you are going to move to the new column. Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 97
Figure: The report before modification

Step 2: Assigning Column Groups to Rows of the Row Set As part of moving totals to a new column, you need to assign separate column groups to all rows of the GL type, which represent the source data, and to all columns of the Total type, which represent the totals in the printed report. To assign column groups to rows of the row set, do the following:

On the Row Sets (CS206010) from, open the row set with the F350RS12 code.
For each row of the GL type, type DATA in the Column Group column.
For each row of the Total type, type TOTAL in the Column Group column.
On the form toolbar, click Save.

Step 3: Assigning Printing Groups to Columns of the Column Set To display the GL rows in one column and the total rows in another, modify the column set of the Balance Sheet (Separate Totals) report as follows:

On the Column Sets (CS206020) form, open the F350CS12 column set.
On the table toolbar of the lower table, click New to create a new column (column C).
Set the Printing Group attribute of column B to DATA. Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 98
```
   Only the rows with the DATA column group or no column group will be displayed in this column.
```
Set the Printing Group attribute of column C to TOTAL. Only the rows with the TOTAL column group or no column group will be displayed in this column.
On the form toolbar, click Save.

Step 4: Adjusting the Column Settings and Layout To adjust the settings and layout of the columns, while you are still on the Column Sets (CS206020) form with the F350CS12 column set open, do the following:

Assign the attributes of column C the following values (so that they are exactly the same as the settings of column B):

Format: #,##0.00;(#,##0.00)
Width: 140

Click the Style attribute of column B.
On the form toolbar of the lower table, click Copy Style.
Click the Style attribute of column C.

On the form toolbar of the lower table, click Paste Style.

              You can click the cell of any attribute of a column to copy the column's style or paste the
              copied style.

Double-click the Data Source attribute of column C, and click the magnifier button to open the Data Source dialog box.
In the dialog box, set Amount Type to Ending Balance.
Click OK to close the dialog box.
Change the Width attribute of column A to 460. This will reduce the original width by the width of the new column so that the report can still fit the paper size aer the modification. 10.On the form toolbar, click Save.

Step 5: Reviewing the Changes in the Report To review the changes you have made to the report, do the following:

On the Report Definitions (CS206000) form, open the report definition with the F350RD12 code.
On the form toolbar, click Preview. The report form opens in a pop-up window.
On the Report Parameters tab of the report form, specify the following report parameters:

Company: SWEETLIFE
Ledger: ACTUAL
Financial Period: 12-2023

On the report form toolbar, click Run Report. The Balance Sheet (Separate Totals) report is opened in a pop-up window. Although the totals are now displayed in a separate column and the original column does not show these totals, the total values became zero. Also, the modified report has almost no descriptions in the first column. Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 99
Figure: The updated report with the moved totals

Step 6: Displaying the Row Descriptions The modified report has only a few row descriptions in the first column because the first column of the column set has no printing group defined. Only the rows with no column group defined are displayed in this column. To display row descriptions in the first column, do the following:

On the Column Sets (CS206020) form, open the column set with the F350CS12 code.
In the Printing Group attribute of column A, specify DATA. With this setting, only the rows with the DATA column group or with no column group will be displayed in this column. Rows with the TOTAL column group will not be displayed in this column.
On the table toolbar of the lower table, click New. A new column, D, is added.
Click any attribute of column D.
On the table toolbar of the lower table, click Shi Le twice.
Click any cell of column D in the upper table.
On the table toolbar of the upper table, click Shi Le twice. The new column D is now column B. The column to display the data of the GL has become C, and the total column has now become D.
In the lower table, specify the following settings in column B so that they match the settings of column A:

Type: Calc
Cell Evaluation Order: Column
Value: =@RowText Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 100
Width: 460
Extra Space: 10
Suppress Line: Selected

In the Printing Group attribute of column B, specify TOTAL. With this setting, only the rows with the TOTAL column group or with no column group will be displayed in this column. 10.On the form toolbar, click Save.
Now the report has all the needed row descriptions in two diﬀerent columns (A and B); however, you need them to be displayed in a single column.

Step 7: Displaying Diﬀerent Column Groups in a Single Column To display both column groups in one column, while you are still on the Column Sets (CS206020) form with the F350CS12 column set open, do the following:

In the Printing Control attribute of column A, select Merge Next.
In the Printing Control attribute of column B, select Hidden. With these settings, column B will be hidden in the printed report, and its values will be merged to column A.
On the form toolbar, click Save.

Step 8: Reviewing the Changes in the Report To review the changes you have made to the report, do the following:

On the Report Definitions (CS206000) form, open the report definition with the F350RD12 code.
On the form toolbar, click Preview. The report form opens in a pop-up window.
On the Report Parameters tab of the report form, specify the following report parameters:

Company: SWEETLIFE
Ledger: ACTUAL
Financial Period: 12-2023

On the report form toolbar, click Run Report. The Balance Sheet (Separate Totals) report opens in a pop-up window. Your report should look similar to the one shown in the following screenshot. The row descriptions for both the GL rows and the total rows have appeared in the report. The total amounts are still zero.
Close the pop-up window. Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 101
Figure: The updated report with row descriptions

Step 9: Getting Row Values from Particular Columns The totals in your report are zero because in the row set, the formulas for totals depend on the values of other rows. For example, the total for current assets is calculated with the following formula: =sum('00100', '00196'). This formula adds the amount of all the rows of the row set, from the 00100 row up to the 00196 row. (These are the GL rows.) The system gets the values from these rows in the same column of the generated report but because of diﬀerent column groups in the modified report, these rows are not printed in the same column with totals anymore, so the sum is zero. Instead of combining the row values with the =sum('00100', '00196') or the =@00100 + @00120

... formula, add the values of particular cells by using the value(row , column) function. With the value() function, you can get the value from a particular row ('00100', '00120', and so on) and a particular column. For GL rows, you need to get values from column C. For already calculated totals, you need to get values from column D. To fix the calculation of totals, do the following:

On the Row Sets (CS206010) form, open the row set with the F350RS12 code.
Modify the Value attribute of the total rows as follows:

Total Current Assets (code 00198): =value('00110', 'C') + value('00120', 'C') + value('00121', 'C') + value('00125', 'C') + value('00130', 'C') + value('00135', 'C') + value('00136', 'C') + value('00140', 'C')
Total Assets (code 00350): =value('00198', 'D') + value('00205', 'C') + value('00210', 'C') + value('00215', 'C') + value('00220', 'C') + value('00225', 'C') + value('00230', 'C') + value('00235', 'C') Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 102
Total Current Liabilities (code 00498): =value('00415', 'C') + value('00420', 'C') + value('00425', 'C') + value('00430', 'C') + value('00435', 'C') + value('00440', 'C') + value('00445', 'C')
Total Liabilities (code 00598): =value('00498', 'D') + value('00515', 'C') + value('00520', 'C') + value('00525', 'C') + value('00530', 'C') + value('00535', 'C')
Total Shareholders' Equity (code 00698): =value('00615', 'C') + value('00620', 'C') + value('00625', 'C') + value('00630', 'C') + value('00633', 'C') + value('00635', 'C') + value('00640', 'C') + value('00645', 'C')
Total Liabilities & Shareholders' Equity (code 00750): =value('00598', 'D') + value('00698', 'D')

On the form toolbar, click Save.

Step 10: Reviewing the Updated Report To review the updated report, do the following:

On the Report Definitions (CS206000) form, open the report definition with the F350RD12 code.
On the form toolbar, click Preview. The report form opens in a pop-up window.
On the Report Parameters tab of the report form, specify the following report parameters:

Company: SWEETLIFE
Ledger: ACTUAL
Financial Period: 12-2023

On the report form toolbar, click Run Report. The Balance Sheet (Separate Totals) report is opened in a pop-up window. Your report should look similar to the one shown in the following screenshot. Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 103
Figure: The updated Balance Sheet report

Formatting: To Display a Column for a Particular Unit

In this activity, you will add a column that will be displayed only when a particular unit of a unit set is selected.

Story

Suppose that you are a technical specialist at SweetLife Fruits & Jams who is responsible for building and supporting analytical reports. The company's management has requested that you modify the existing Profit & Loss Quarterly report to display the consolidated data for the whole company and the detailed quarterly amounts for each of its branches. They also need the report to show the year-over-year annual performance.

Configuration Overview

In the training dataset, the following tasks have been performed for the purposes of this activity:

On the Column Sets (CS206020) form, the F350CS14 column set has been created.
On the Unit Sets (CS206030) form, the F350US14 unit set has been created.
On the Report Definitions (CS206000) form, the F350RD14 report definition has been created with the F350CS14 column set and the F350US14 unit set specified. Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 104

Process Overview

In this activity, you will do the following:

On the Unit Sets (CS206030) form, you will assign a printing group to each of the units in the unit set.
On the Column Sets (CS206020) form, you will add a column to the column set to calculate the percentage, which compares the account balances of the selected financial year to the account balances of the previous financial year. You will then define this column to be displayed for only the first unit of the unit set.
On the Report Definitions (CS206000) form, you will review the resulting report.

Step 1: Reviewing the Existing Report To review the existing version of the Profit & Loss - Quarterly report, do the following:

On the Report Definitions (CS206000) form, open the report definition with the F350RD14 code.
On the form toolbar, click Preview. The report form opens in a pop-up window.
On the Report Parameters tab of the report form, set Financial Period to 12-2023.
On the report form toolbar, click Run Report. The Profit & Loss - Quarterly report opens in a pop-up window.
On the report form toolbar, click the Groups button to open the le pane with the report units (see the following screenshot). Notice that six columns are displayed for the whole company (which is the first unit of the defined unit set).
Close the pop-up window.
Figure: The Profit & Loss - Quarterly report before modification Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 105

Step 2: Assigning Printing Groups to Units To assign a printing group to each unit of the unit set, do the following:

On the Unit Sets (CS206030) form, select the unit set with the F350US14 code.
In the le pane, click the ROOT node of the unit set.
In the table row of the table (which is the row of the U1 unit), enter 1 in the Printing Group column.
On the form toolbar, click Save.
In the le pane, click the U1 unit.
In the table row in the right table, enter 2 in the Printing Group column for units U2, U3, and U4.
On the form toolbar, click Save.

Step 3: Adding a Column with Year-over-Year Performance Data To add a column that will display the year-over-year annual performance, do the following:

On the Column Sets (CS206020) form, open the column set with the F350CS14 code.
On the table toolbar of the lower table, click New to add a column.
In the new column (which will be the rightmost column H), specify the following attributes:

Type: Calc
Cell Evaluation Order: Column
Value: =G/B
Format: #,##0.00% Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 106
Width: 100

In the upper table, do the following: a. In the cell of the fourth row of column H, type the following header: ='% YOY'. b. Copy the style of the fourth row of column G to the fourth row of column H. c. Copy the style of the fih row of column G to the fih row of column H.
In the lower table, do the following: a. Select any attribute of column G. b. On the table toolbar, click Copy Style. c. Select any attribute of column H. d. On the table toolbar, click Paste Style.
On the form toolbar, click Save.

Step 4: To Display Columns for Particular Units You need to display column H only for the first unit, and columns C through F for all other units. While you are still on the Column Sets (CS206020) form with the F350CS14 column set open, do the following:

In column H of the lower table, specify the Unit Group value as 1, which is the Printing Group value that you specified for unit U1 of the unit set.
In columns C through F, specify the Unit Group value as 2, which is the Printing Group value that you specified for units U2, U3, and U4 of the unit set.
On the form toolbar, click Save.

Step 5: Reviewing the Updated Report To review the updated version of the Profit & Loss - Quarterly report, do the following:

On the Report Definitions (CS206000) form, open the report definition with the F350RD14 code.
On the form toolbar, click Preview. The report form opens in a pop-up window
On the Report Parameters tab of the report form, set Financial Period to 12-2023.
On the report form toolbar, click Run Report. The Profit & Loss - Quarterly report is opened in a pop-up window.
On the report toolbar, click the Groups button to open the le pane with the report units. Notice that only the columns with yearly data and year-over-year performance are displayed for the whole company (see the following screenshot). Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 107
Figure: The Profit & Loss - Quarterly report for SweetLife (unit U1) aer modification
In the le pane, click Head Oﬀice and Wholesale Center, which corresponds to unit U2, as shown in the following screenshot, and review the report. Lesson 8: Formatting a Report | 108

Figure: The Profit & Loss - Quarterly report for the head oﬀice (unit U2) aer modification Additional Materials: Best Practices | 109

Additional Materials: Best Practices We recommend that you heed the following suggestions when you are developing an Analytical Report Manager (ARM) report.

Using Proper Naming Conventions and Descriptions

You should develop naming conventions so that you can easily identify the report definitions, row sets, and column sets that are used together in the same reports. If you have multiple column sets that are used with the same row set in diﬀerent report definitions, you can name the column sets with a prefix that helps you identify the row set with which each column set is used. For example, the names (codes) of the report definition, the row set, and the column set of each report can be similar. For the predefined reports in the system, all of these codes start with D. Thus, for your reports, we recommend that you start the codes with any character except D. Also, you should specify a report description that matches the report title. On the Report Definitions (CS206000) form, specify a description that matches the title of the report in the Site Map section of this form. This will help you find the report when you select its report definition code.

Creating Copies of Reports Before Modifying Them

If you want to modify a default report, you should create a copy of it, including the row set and the column set, and modify the copy. This way, the changes you make will not aﬀect the existing reports.

Saving and Reviewing Reports Frequently

While you are modifying a report, we recommend that you regularly save each portion of your changes to the row set or the column set. For example, save the row set aer you have added each new row. You should review your report regularly to see the changes you have made. These reviews will ease troubleshooting, because you can detect issues sooner and trace them to their causes more easily.

Reserving Codes for Future Use

When you are creating a report, you should reserve row codes—that is, omit a particular number or a range of numbers aer each row code. For example, if the code of the first row of your row set is 0010, omit the numbers 0011 through 0019, and add the next row with the 0020 code. Similarly, you should then omit the numbers 0021 through 0029 and use the 0030 code for the next row; you then continue using multiples of 10 as the codes. The order of rows in a row set depends on their codes. If you do not specify any sorting conditions for the row set, the rows are displayed in the report in the order in which they are listed in the row set. Reserving row codes gives you the ability to add new rows between existing ones. For example, if you decide to expand a row of an existing report, you will be able to add a subtotal aer this row.

Keeping Sorting Conditions in a Row Set Together

You should keep all rows with sorting conditions together in a particular row set. The location of rows with sorting conditions in the row set does not aﬀect sorting conditions. For easier maintenance of row sets, we recommend that you add the rows with sorting conditions to the end of each row set and keep all conditions listed together.

Using Templates for Quicker Report Execution

We recommend that you save the parameters of a particular report, which are specified on the report form, as a template so that you can run the report quickly. For example, for test scenarios, you can save the report parameters to be used for testing as the default report template for the specific report. Because you have created the default Additional Materials: Best Practices | 110

template, you can just open the report and then run it immediately without needing to remember and specify all the report parameters. You can use templates for other routine tasks as well. You can also specify default values of the report parameters in the report definition. If you do, and if the values were specified for testing purposes, remember to clear these default values when you finish developing the report.

Using Account Classes

You may want to use account classes to aggregate the data of some accounts instead of using complicated masks. Selecting accounts by account classes is a flexible approach that is also easy to use and maintain. Moreover, the selection of data by account classes works faster than the selection by account-subaccount ranges specified in the data source does. When you define the chart of accounts or any time aer, you can define account classes and then use them in analytical reports. To select a set of particular accounts in the data source of a report row or a report column, you can create an account class and assign this class to the needed accounts. You can define any number of custom account classes.

          We recommend that only accounts of the same type be grouped into an account class. Retrieving
          data of an account class that includes accounts of diﬀerent types to be displayed in a single row of an
          analytical report may lead to unexpected results.

Using Appropriate Formulas for the Reversed Sign of the Trial Balance

You need to use appropriate formulas for analytical reports if the balances should be shown in them with the reversed sign. The Sign of the Trial Balance option, which is specified on the General Ledger Preferences (GL102000) form, defines how the trial balance is displayed on reports and inquiries:

If the sign of the trial balance is normal, the credit balances for liability and income accounts are displayed with the plus sign, so that the following equation is adhered to: Assets + Expenses = Liabilities + Income.
```
               YTD Net Income is excluded from these equations.
```
If the sign of the trial balance is reversed, the credit balances for liability and income accounts are displayed with the minus sign, so that the following equation is correct: Assets + Expenses + Liabilities + Income = 0. However, the reversed sign of the trial balance does not aﬀect analytical reports, because analytical reports do not consider the type of accounts. That is, the second equation is not correct for analytical reports, which always show the credit balance of liabilities and income with the positive sign.

Using Uppercase for Row Codes and Unit Codes in Formulas

You should use uppercase when referring to the codes of rows and units in formulas. The codes of rows in row sets and units in unit sets can be up to 10 alphanumeric characters. The letters of codes are always uppercase. Thus, it is very important to use the appropriate letter case of codes in formulas. For example, the expression =@RowCode1+@RowCode2 in a formula would return an exception because lowercase letters are specified in the codes.

Preceding Row Codes and Unit Codes with @ in Formulas In formulas, you have to precede a row code and a unit code with the @ character, such as =@UNITCODE1+@UNITCODE2. However, you should not use the @ character with a row code or a unit code in functions. Thus, for example, you would use =Sum('ROWCODE01', 'ROWCODE10') in this function rather than =Sum(@ROWCODE01, @ROWCODE10). Additional Materials: Best Practices | 111

Taking Advantage of Merging ARM Reports

Acumatica ERP supports merging multiple ARM reports to be sent as a single HTML or PDF file.