Built-in finance analysis tools

Path: Business functionality > Finance > Financial analytics > Built-in finance analysis tools · tier official · system finance · narrative reviewed (checked by Opus)

Overview

This section groups the analysis tools that come with Business Central finance. Three pages describe analysis tasks: comparing actual general ledger amounts to budgeted amounts, analyzing cash flow with charts and worksheets on the Accountant Role Center, and producing the payment practices report on vendor payment times. A fourth page explains the general ledger and chart of accounts. It covers how account categories, dimensions, and posting groups structure financial posting.

Key points

• Actual versus budget analysis: view filtered GL budget data and compare actual and budgeted amounts across accounts and periods, including multi-period views.
• Cash flow analysis on the Accountant Role Center offers a cash cycle chart, cash flow chart, and income and expense chart.
• A cash flow forecast and a cash flow worksheet support forecasting, with timeline filtering for the charts.
• The payment practices report compares agreed and actual payment periods and shows the percentage of on-time payments.
• The payment practices report covers average payment period and actual payment terms, and supports vendor grouping.
• Authorities in several countries require the payment practices report from large companies.
• The general ledger and chart of accounts page explains how to structure posting with account categories, dimensions, and posting groups.
• Other setup topics on the chart of accounts page include invoice rounding and address formats.

Learn pages

• Analyze Actual Amounts Versus Budgeted Amounts: This article describes how to analyze actual amounts versus budgeted amounts as a means of gathering, analyzing, and sharing your company data.
• Analyze cash flows: Describes how to use the Cash Cycle, Income & Expense, Cash Flow, and Cash Flow Forecast charts to analyze the past and future flow of money in and out of your company.
• Payment practices report: Learn how to easily create the Payment Practices report for vendors and customers.
• Understand the general ledger and Chart of Accounts: This article describes the general ledger, chart of accounts, and account categories.

Videos, posts and code changes

Linked by a Haiku matcher with a grounding quote from the item’s summary (link/topics.ts); machine-generated.

• #10179 [master] Financial Report Recalculate clears Global Dimension filters (code change): “Recalculating a financial report no longer clears Global Dimension filters”
• #12213 [Financial Reports] Add row and column definition preview (code change): “Financial report row and column definitions now include preview capability”

Business Central pages and reports

The pages, reports and queries this hub’s Learn pages name (ms.search.form, API reference), joined to the code by exact object id (data/index/docs-objects.json); a page shows the table it runs on.

• Page 18 “G/L Account List” · on Table 15 “G/L Account”
• Page 20 “General Ledger Entries” · on Table 17 “G/L Entry”
• Page 37 “Where-Used List” · on Table 90 “BOM Component”
• Page 65 “Rounding Methods” · on Table 42 “Rounding Method”
• Page 99 “G/L Account Where-Used List” · on Table 180 “G/L Account Where-Used”
• Page 118 “General Ledger Setup” · on Table 98 “General Ledger Setup”
• Page 120 “G/L Budget Entries” · on Table 96 “G/L Budget Entry”
• Page 121 “G/L Budget Names” · captioned “G/L Budgets” · on Table 95 “G/L Budget Name”
• Page 312 “Gen. Business Posting Groups” · on Table 250 “Gen. Business Posting Group”
• Page 313 “Gen. Product Posting Groups” · captioned “General Product Posting Groups” · on Table 251 “Gen. Product Posting Group”
• Page 314 “General Posting Setup” · on Table 252 “General Posting Setup”
• Page 395 “General Posting Setup Card” · on Table 252 “General Posting Setup”
• Page 422 “G/L Balance/Budget” · on Table 15 “G/L Account”
• Page 552 “Gen. Prod. Posting Group Conv.” · on Table 551 “VAT Rate Change Conversion”
• Page 569 “Chart of Accs. (Analysis View)” · on Table 376 “G/L Account (Analysis View)”
• Page 570 “Chart of Accounts (G/L)” · on Table 15 “G/L Account”
• Page 634 “Chart of Accounts Overview” · on Table 15 “G/L Account”
• Page 686 “Payment Practice Data List” · on Table 686 “Payment Practice Data”
• Page 687 “Payment Practice Card” · captioned “Payment Practice” · on Table 687 “Payment Practice Header”
• Page 689 “Payment Practice List” · captioned “Payment Practices” · on Table 687 “Payment Practice Header”
• Page 762 “Finance Performance” · on Table 485 “Business Chart Buffer”
• Page 790 “G/L Account Categories” · on Table 570 “G/L Account Category”
• Page 791 “G/L Accounts ListPart” · on Table 15 “G/L Account”
• Page 840 “CF Forecast Statistics FactBox” · captioned “Cash Flow Forecast Statistic” · on Table 840 “Cash Flow Forecast”
• Page 841 “Cash Flow Worksheet” · on Table 846 “Cash Flow Worksheet Line”
• Page 847 “Cash Flow Forecast Card” · on Table 840 “Cash Flow Forecast”
• Page 848 “Cash Flow Comment” · on Table 842 “Cash Flow Account Comment”
• Page 849 “Cash Flow Forecast List” · captioned “Cash Flow Forecasts” · on Table 840 “Cash Flow Forecast”
• Page 850 “Cash Flow Forecast Entries” · captioned “Cash Flow Ledger Entries” · on Table 847 “Cash Flow Forecast Entry”
• Page 851 “Chart of Cash Flow Accounts” · on Table 841 “Cash Flow Account”
• Page 857 “Cash Flow Manual Revenues” · on Table 849 “Cash Flow Manual Revenue”
• Page 858 “Cash Flow Comment List” · on Table 842 “Cash Flow Account Comment”
• Page 859 “Cash Flow Manual Expenses” · on Table 850 “Cash Flow Manual Expense”
• Page 860 “CF Entries Dim. Overview” · captioned “CF Forcst. Entries Dimension Overview” · on Table 847 “Cash Flow Forecast Entry”
• Page 862 “Cash Flow Account Card” · on Table 841 “Cash Flow Account”
• Page 863 “CF Entries Dim. Matrix” · captioned “CF Forcst. Entries Dim. Overv. M.” · on Table 847 “Cash Flow Forecast Entry”
• Page 865 “Report Selection - Cash Flow” · on Table 856 “Cash Flow Report Selection”
• Page 866 “Cash Flow Availability Lines” · captioned “Lines” · on Table 930 “Cash Flow Availability Buffer”
• Page 867 “CF Availability by Periods” · on Table 840 “Cash Flow Forecast”
• Page 868 “Cash Flow Forecast Statistics” · on Table 840 “Cash Flow Forecast”
• Page 869 “Cash Flow Forecast Chart” · captioned “Cash Flow Forecast” · on Table 485 “Business Chart Buffer”
• Page 1158 “Cash Account Balances” · on Table 15 “G/L Account”
• Page 1818 “Cash Flow Forecast Wizard” · captioned “Set Up Cash Flow Forecast”

Source: Microsoft Learn (CC BY 4.0). Descriptions are Learn’s own.