Budget Reporting Issues

David T. sunfish62 at yahoo.com
Fri Aug 28 12:49:06 EDT 2015


Hi,

In the course of trying to address shortfalls in documentation around reports, I began poking around in the various Budget reports and features, and I wanted some explanation on a number of points. Bear with me if I ask questions that are meaningless; I do not use the Budget features much, and probably don’t understand the original intent of the various reports. Add in the fact that I Am Not An Accountant, and you will further understand my questions.

By all means, if you know better what a report is meant to do, and can clue me in, it will help me write up accurate descriptions of the reports.

Generally, what is each report meant to do? The grouping includes:

Budget Balance Sheet
Budget Barchart
Budget Flow
Budget Income Statement
Budget Profit & Loss
Budget Report

I understand (somewhat) what these reports mean in a common sense, but what exactly are they meant to do in the context of a Budget? For example, a Balance Sheet provides a summary of all your accounts as of a certain date. But what does a Budget Balance Sheet report? The numbers I get match neither the budget numbers *nor* the actual numbers. 

More generally, I believe that the data presented in the reports is derived from the budget, with the exception of of the Budget Report, which includes both Budget and Actual amounts. Is this right?

I have similar questions regarding the other reports in this grouping.

Which Budget?
Each of the reports under the Budget grouping automatically loads with a particular budget as its base. If a data file has more than one budget, however, it appears that the report automatically opens using the first listed budget. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for these reports to open using the last accessed budget? Furthermore, there does not appear to be any way to sort the list of budgets; they are always stored newest to oldest. So whatever budget you created last, that’s the default budget for every report.

Which Information?
It would seem to me that any report that is based on a budget should only display accounts for which budget information has been provided. In my tests of a few of the budget reports, however, I have found that the various reports include different account sets. The Budget Balance Sheet and Budget Flow includes all accounts (and the Omit Zero Balance option on the Balance Sheet does not always work). The Budget Barchart includes some subset of accounts that I simply can’t fathom, I just know that it isn’t the budget. The Budget Income Statement and Budget Profit & Loss Statement are the same report; both include all accounts by default. Budget Report includes all accounts, and there is no way to show only accounts from the budget.

Before I start trying to write documentation for these reports, I’d like some input from folks who have used (or written) these reports to be sure I get an accurate description.

TIA,
David


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