Financial reporting

Path: Business functionality > Finance > Financial analytics > Financial reporting · tier official · system reporting · narrative reviewed (checked by Opus)

Overview

Financial reporting lets you build reports from the general ledger using row definitions, column definitions and G/L account categories. You can start from out-of-box reports, copy existing ones, or design your own. Dimensions, analysis views, G/L budgets and statistical accounts extend what a report can show.\n\nA suggested reading order: start with "Primary capabilities of financial reporting", then read about account categories and report selection. Next, use the row and column definition pages and the design and build guides. Walkthroughs cover Trial Balance, Balance Sheet, Income Statement and cash flow forecast reports. After that, the pages on viewing, Excel integration, scheduling and KPI web services cover output and distribution.\n\nOther pages cover operations. Auditing uses the change log, telemetry, permission sets and notifications. One telemetry page covers lifecycle events for row, column and report definitions and includes KQL samples. The other covers usage when reports are run on-screen or from the request page. The troubleshooting page and the FAQ explain how to balance reports to the general ledger and test report designs.

Key points

• Reports are built from row definitions (formulas, subtotals, account categories, cash flow accounts, cost types) and column definitions (net change, balance, budget comparison, period formulas, percentages).
• Column definitions support up to 15 columns in PDF exports.
• Account categories and subcategories map G/L accounts to produce balance sheet and income statement reports; report selection can be changed in General Ledger Setup.
• Dimension perspectives and analysis views allow analysis by some or all values of a dimension, with PDF and Excel output.
• Reports can be viewed on-screen with drill-through, exported to PDF or Excel, printed, and scheduled with email delivery.
• Excel integration includes templates, layouts, a default layout and data updates.
• Auditing combines the change log, telemetry, permission sets and change notifications; the auditing page is tagged 2026 release wave 2.
• Lifecycle telemetry tracks creating, modifying, copying, exporting, importing and deleting definitions, with KQL samples; usage telemetry tracks report runs on-screen or from the request page.

Learn pages

• Analyze data by dimensions: This article describes how you can analyze business data by dimensions to gain greater insight into your business.
• Analyze data for some or all values of a dimension: Learn how to set up dimension perspectives that let you analyze data for all dimension values in one financial report.
• Analyzing financial report lifecycle trace telemetry: Learn about the telemetry for financial report lifecycle telemetry in Azure Application Insights.
• Analyzing financial report usage trace telemetry: Learn about the telemetry for financial report usage telemetry in Azure Application Insights.
• Auditing and financial reporting: Learn how to track the changes people make to your financial reports.
• Build financial reports using financial data and account categories: Describes how to use financial reports to create various views and reports for analyzing financial performance data.
• Column definitions in Financial Reporting: Describes how column definitions in financial reporting work.
• Create custom financial reports: Learn how to create your own trial balance, balance sheet, and income statement reports.
• Design your own financial reports: Learn how to structure and design custom financial reports.
• Financial Reporting FAQ: FAQ for the Financial Reporting feature in Business Central.
• Integrate financial reports with Excel: Describes how to use financial reporting together with Excel.
• Make cash flow forecasts using financial reports: This walkthrough describes how you can use financial reports to make cash flow forecasts in Business Central.
• Organize report data using account categories: Learn how to categorize general ledger accounts for reporting purposes.
• Primary capabilities of financial reporting: This article provides an overview of what you can do with financial reporting.
• Report selection for finance reports in Business Central: Describes how to setup which financial report definitions should be used for the core finance reports such as Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and Retained Earnings.
• Row definitions in Financial Reporting: Describes how row definitions in financial reporting work.
• Set Up and Publish KPI Web Services Based on Financial Reports: This article describes how to show the financial-report KPI data based on specific financial reports.
• Troubleshoot Financial Reporting: Describes how to troubleshoot some typical issues in financial reporting.
• Use Statistical Accounts to Analyze Non-Transactional Data: Describes how to use statistical accounts as another source of data for your analyses.
• View a financial report: Describes how to view a financial report on-screen, as a PDF, or in Excel.

Videos and posts

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

• 📝 Adding Notes to Financial Report Lines 📊 (community post): “AL extension adds line-level notes to financial reports (Account Schedules)”
• What’s Cooking in Business Central: Sneak Peek into New Financial Reporting Enhancements (part 1) (video): “financial reporting; report definitions; internal description”
• What’s Cooking in Business Central: Financial Reporting Enhancements (part 2): Telemetry (video): “telemetry; financial reporting; application insights; row definitions”
• What’s New: Financial Analytics (2025 release wave 2) (video): “Dynamic date headers in financial reporting; Additional reporting currency support”
• What’s New: Financial Reporting (for Administrators) (2025 release wave 1) (video): “financial reporting; telemetry; audit; change log; permissions; financial report definitions”
• What’s new: Enhanced Financial Reporting (2026 release wave 2) (video): “financial reporting; chart of accounts; account categories; row definitions”
• What’s New: Financial Reporting (for Report Users) (2025 release wave 1) (video): “financial reporting; user interface; negative number formatting; pdf export”
• What’s New: Financial Reporting (for Report Authors) (2025 release wave 1) (video): “financial reporting; report definitions; row definitions; column definitions”
• What’s New: Enhanced Financial Reporting (2026 release wave 1) (video): “financial reporting; tile view; report categories; lifecycle status”
• Work with your Financial Reports in a Spreadsheet inside Business Central (Advanced Spreadsheets) (video): “financial reports; spreadsheet export; advanced spreadsheets; live data”

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 103 “Account Schedule Names” · captioned “(Financial Report) Row Definitions” · on Table 84 “Acc. Schedule Name”
• Page 104 “Account Schedule” · captioned “(Financial Report) Row Definition” · on Table 85 “Acc. Schedule Line”
• Page 108 “Financial Reports” · on Table 88 “Financial Report”
• Page 118 “General Ledger Setup” · on Table 98 “General Ledger Setup”
• Page 195 “Acc. Sched. KPI Web Srv. Setup” · captioned “Financial Report KPI Web Service Setup” · on Table 135 “Acc. Sched. KPI Web Srv. Setup”
• Page 196 “Acc. Sched. KPI Web Srv. Lines” · captioned “Financial Report KPI Web Service Setup” · on Table 136 “Acc. Sched. KPI Web Srv. Line”
• Page 197 “Acc. Sched. KPI Web Service” · captioned “Financial Report KPI Web Service” · on Table 197 “Acc. Sched. KPI Buffer”
• Page 198 “Acc. Sched. KPI WS Dimensions” · captioned “Account Schedule KPI WS Dimensions” · on Table 197 “Acc. Sched. KPI Buffer”
• Page 488 “Column Layout Names” · captioned “(Financial Report) Column Definitions” · on Table 333 “Column Layout Name”
• Page 489 “Column Layout” · captioned “(Financial Report) Column Definitions” · on Table 334 “Column Layout”
• Page 490 “Acc. Schedule Overview” · captioned “Financial Report” · on Table 85 “Acc. Schedule Line”
• Page 545 “Dim. Values per Account” · captioned “Dimension Values per Account” · on Table 352 “Default Dimension”
• Page 555 “Analysis View Card” · on Table 363 “Analysis View”
• Page 556 “Analysis View List” · captioned “Analysis Views” · on Table 363 “Analysis View”
• Page 557 “Analysis View Filter” · on Table 364 “Analysis View Filter”
• Page 558 “Analysis View Entries” · on Table 365 “Analysis View Entry”
• Page 764 “Acc. Sched. Chart Matrix” · on Table 763 “Acc. Sched. Chart Setup Line”
• Page 765 “Acc. Sched. Chart Line” · on Table 763 “Acc. Sched. Chart Setup Line”
• Page 766 “Acc. Sched. Chart SubPage” · on Table 763 “Acc. Sched. Chart Setup Line”
• Page 790 “G/L Account Categories” · on Table 570 “G/L Account Category”
• Page 2623 “Stat. Account Balance” · captioned “Statistical Account Balance” · on Table 2632 “Statistical Account”
• Page 2631 “Statistical Account Card” · captioned “Statistical account” · on Table 2632 “Statistical Account”
• Page 2632 “Statistical Account List” · captioned “Statistical Accounts” · on Table 2632 “Statistical Account”
• Page 2633 “Statistical Accounts Journal” · captioned “Statistical Account Journal” · on Table 2631 “Statistical Acc. Journal Line”
• Page 2634 “Statistical Ledger Entry List” · captioned “Statistical Account Ledger Entries” · on Table 2633 “Statistical Ledger Entry”
• Page 8364 “Dimension Perspectives” · captioned “Financial Report Dimension Perspectives” · on Table 8363 “Dimension Perspective Name”
• Page 9370 “Analysis View List Purchase” · captioned “Purchase Analysis Views” · on Table 7152 “Item Analysis View”
• Page 9371 “Analysis View List Sales” · captioned “Sales Analysis Views” · on Table 7152 “Item Analysis View”
• Page 9372 “Analysis View List Inventory” · captioned “Inventory Analysis Views” · on Table 7152 “Item Analysis View”
• Report 25 “Account Schedule” · captioned “Run Financial Report”
• Report 151 “Balance Sheet”
• Report 154 “Income Statement”
• Report 155 “Statement of Cashflows”
• Report 156 “Retained Earnings Statement”

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