View a financial report on-screen, as a PDF, or in Excel
After you set up definitions for your financial reports, you can start using the data to support your finance and accounting processes. The Financial Reporting feature offers multiple ways to view the reports:
- On-screen, with drill-through to the underlying numbers.
- As PDF documents designed for sharing and printing.
- As Excel files that use the template or layout of your choice.
This article describes each approach.
View a financial report on-screen
You can view any report on-screen with drill-through to the underlying numbers.
To view a financial report, follow these steps:
Choose the
icon, enter Financial Reports, and then choose the related link.Tip
Tip:
By default, the Financial Reports page displays reports in a list view. However, some people prefer a tile view. Tiles show most of the same information as the list, just in a different way. If you like tiles, it's easy to switch. In the upper right of the page, choose the View layout options icon
, and choose Tiles.On the Financial Reports page, select the financial report you want to view, and then choose the View Financial Report action.
The page has Options and Dimensions FastTabs. If the FastTabs aren't available, you might need to enable them with the Show all options action.
On the Options FastTab, specify how the report shows data. For example:
- Use the View by field to specify the period for which to summarize data. Specifying a period is a good way to make the data more granular.
- Use the Date Filter field to show amounts for a certain data or date range.
- The Show All Lines toggle specifies whether the page displays all lines, or excludes empty lines, as defined in the row definition.
- The Negative Amount Format field allows you to define how you want to format negative numbers.
On the Dimensions FastTab, you can choose to filter data according to global dimensions.
Tip
Tip:
If you change a setting, to refresh the data on the screen, use the Recalculate action.
Show or hide the Row No. field on a report
The Row No. field might show when you view a report on-screen. The field doesn't show when you view the report in a PDF. To show or hide the field, personalize the page. To learn more, go to Personalize your workspace.
Integrate financial reports with Excel
You can integrate a financial report with an Excel workbook template, adjust the layout to suit your needs, and then update the Excel template with data from Business Central. For example, this integration makes it easier to generate your monthly and yearly financial statements in a format that works for you.
To learn more, go to Integrate financial reports with Excel.
Print and save financial reports
You can print financial reports using your device's printing services. Business Central also offers options to save reports as PDF files.
Select Search (Alt+Q)
in the upper-right corner, enter Financial Reports, then choose the related link.On the Financial Reports page, select the report to print, then choose the Print/PDF action.
In the Printer field, select the device to which the report is sent.
The (Handled by the browser) option indicates that a printer isn't specified for the report. In this case, the browser handles the printout and displays the standard printing steps. You can choose a local printer connected to your device. (Handled by the browser) isn't available in the Business Central mobile app or the app for Teams.
Fill in the fields remaining fields as necessary. Hover over a field to read a short description.
You can print the report, or send its results to a type of document, such as a PDF, XML, Word, or Excel:
- To send the report results to a type of document, choose the Send to action.
- To print the report, choose the Print action.
Tip
Tip:
The name of your company always shows in the upper right of the PDF. If you specify a Display Name on the Companies list page, that name shows instead of the name in the Name field (which isn't easy to change).
Schedule a financial report
You might have a report that you want to run regularly. To avoid having to run the report manually, you can run it according to a schedule. The schedule can produce the report as an Excel file that shows up in the Report Inbox on your Role Center, as a PDF, or both. If you want to share the report with colleagues, you can set up the schedule to send the report to them by email.
- Choose the icon, enter Financial Reports, then choose the related link.
- On the Financial Reports page, choose the Definitions action, and choose Schedules.
- In the Code field, enter a name for the schedule. For example, if the schedule runs the report on a weekly basis, you might name it "Weekly."
- In the Description field, enter text that indicates what the report shows.
- To export the report to Excel, select the Export to Excel checkbox, and then choose the template to use in the Excel Template Code field.
- To export the report to PDF, select the Export to PDF checkbox.
- To send the report to recipients by email, select the Send Email checkbox. If you choose this option, choose the Recipients action to specify who to send the report to.
- To filter the values on the report to suit your needs, choose the Custom Filters action. Hover over a field to read a short description.
- To specify when to start the schedule, and how often it runs:
- To manually specify a start date and time, fill in the Next Run Date/Time field. To calculate the start date, leave this field blank and instead, enter a date formula in the Start Date Filter Formula field. To learn more about date formulas, go to Use date formulas.
- To specify how often to run the report, enter a date formula in the Recurrence Run Date Formula field.
Review financial report runs
At some point, you might want to review previous runs for financial reports. There are a few ways to do that.
From the Financial Reports page, you can use the Audit Logs action to access information about the selected report, or all audit logs for all reports. The Financial Report Audit Logs page shows who ran what, and when, and the format of the report output. For example, was it only viewed, or was it also exported to Excel or PDF. To narrow the information, you can apply filters. To dig a little deeper into the data, you can turn on analysis mode and create mini-reports. To learn more about analysis mode, go to Analyze list page and query data using data analysis feature.
You can also review report runs that your schedule generated. From the Financial Report Schedules page, use the Logs action to access a list of earlier runs. The list shows the name of the financial report, the schedule that ran it, and the data and time it ran. You can also use the Sent Emails action to review the emails it sent.
Related information
Prepare financial reporting
Financial analytics overview
Finance
Setting Up Finance
Work with Business Central