Financial reporting FAQ

Article
05/21/2024

This article provides answers to frequently asked questions about Financial reporting.

How do I restrict access to a report by using tree security?

The following example shows how to restrict access to a report by using tree security.

The USMF demo company has a Balance sheet report that not all Financial reporting users should have access to. You can use tree security to restrict access to a single report so that only specific users can access it.

Sign in to Financial reporter report designer.
Go to File > New > Tree Definition to create a new tree definition.
Double-tap (or double-click) the Summary line in the Unit Security column.
Select Users and Groups.
Select the users or groups that require access to the report.
Select Save.
In the report definition, add your new tree definition.
In the tree definition, select Setting. Then, under Reporting unit selection, select Include all units.

How do I identify which accounts don't match my balances?

If you have a report that doesn't have matching balances, use the following procedures to identify each account and variance:

Go to financial reporter report designer.
Create a new row definition.
Select Edit > Insert Rows from Dimensions.
Select MainAccount.
Select OK.
Save the row definition.
Create a new column definition.
Create a new report definition.
Select Settings and unmark this option.
Generate the report.
Export the report to Microsoft Excel.

In Dynamics 365 Finance, follow these steps:

Go to General ledger > Inquiries and reports > Trial balance.
Set the following fields:
- From Date – Enter the start date of the fiscal year.
- To Date – Enter the date that you're generating the report for.
- Financial Dimension – Set this field to Main Account set.
Select Calculate.
Export the report to Excel.

You should now be able to copy the data from the Financial reporter Excel report to the Trial Balance report, so that you can compare the Closing Balance columns.

When I design a report in Report designer, or when I generate a financial report, I received the following message: "The operation could not be completed due to a problem in the data provider framework." How should I respond?

The message indicates that an issue occurred when the system tried to retrieve financial metadata from the data mart while you were using Financial reporting. There are two ways to respond to this issue:

Review the integration status of the data by going to Tools > Integration status in Report designer. If the integration is incomplete, wait for it to be completed. Then retry what you were doing when you received the message.
Contact Support to identify and work through the issue. There might be inconsistent data in the system. Support engineers can help identify the issue on the server and find the specific data that might require an update.

How does the selection of historical rate translation affect report performance?

The historical rate is typically used with retained earnings, property, plant and equipment, and equity accounts. The historical rate might be required, based on guidelines of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) or generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). For more information, see Currency capabilities in financial reporting.

How many types of currency rate are there?

There are three types:

Current rate – This type is typically used with balance sheet accounts. It's usually known as the spot exchange rate and can be the rate on the last day of the month or another predetermined date.
Average rate – This type is typically used with income statement (profit/loss) accounts. You can set up the average rate to do either a simple average or a weighted average.
Historical rate – This type is typically used with retained earnings, property, plant and equipment, and equity accounts. These accounts might be required, based on FASB or GAAP guidelines.

How does historical currency translation work?

Rates are specific to the transaction date. Therefore, each transaction is individually translated, based on the closest exchange rate.

For historical currency translation, the pre-calculated period balances can be used instead of individual transaction details. This behavior differs from the behavior for current rate translation.

How does historical currency translation affect performance?

When data that is presented on the reports is updated, there might be a delay because amounts must be recalculated by checking transaction details. This delay is triggered every time that the rates are updated or more transactions are posted. For example, if thousands of accounts are set up for historical translation a couple times per day, there might be a delay of up to an hour before the data on the report is updated. On the other hand, if there is a smaller number of specific accounts, the processing times for updates to the report data can be reduced to minutes or less.

Likewise, when reports are generated by using currency translation for historical type accounts, there will be extra per-transaction calculations. Depending on the number of accounts, report generation time can more than double.

What should I do if my beginning/opening balances in the multi-company consolidation report don't match the Trial Balance after running year-end close without transferring dimensions?

This occurs because financial reporting doesn't support year-end close without transferring balance sheet dimensions, which is a recommended best practice. If year-end close is run without transferring these dimensions, the beginning balance will be posted to a different dimension than the previous year’s balances, leading to discrepancies.

What are the limitations of financial reporting in accessing and reporting on archived data, and how does it affect currency translation?

Financial reporting is unable to access archived data; other data explorers must be utilized for this purpose. Reports generated for archived years won't return any data. Previously generated reports can be viewed without the ability to drill down into transaction details. It’s advisable to export or print these reports with transaction details before archiving. Regarding currency translation, it disregards the opening amount carried forward from archived years, affecting translated retained earnings. This limitation isn't a concern if currency translation isn't used or if the opening amount is already zero.

What are the estimated Data mart integration intervals?

Financial reporter uses 16 tasks to copy data from Dynamics 365 Finance to the financial reporter database. The following table lists these 16 tasks and shows the interval that specifies how often each task runs. The intervals can't be changed.

Name	Interval	Interval timing
AX 2012 Account Categories to Account Category	41	Minutes
AX 2012 Accounts to Account	7	Minutes
AX 2012 Companies to Company	300	Seconds
AX 2012 Companies to Organization	23	Minutes
AX 2012 Dimension Combinations to Dimension Combination	1	Minutes
AX 2012 Dimension Values to Dimension Value	11	Minutes
AX 2012 Dimensions to Dimension	31	Minutes
AX 2012 Exchange Rates to Exchange Rate	17	Minutes
AX 2012 Fiscal Years to Fiscal Year	13	Minutes
AX 2012 General Ledger Transactions to Fact	1	Minutes
AX 2012 Organization Hierarchies to Tree	3,600	Seconds
AX 2012 Scenarios to Scenario	29	Minutes
AX 2012 Transaction Type Qualifiers to Fact Type Qualifier	19	Minutes
Maintenance Task	1	Minutes
MR Report Definitions to AX7 Financial Reports	45	Seconds
MR Report Versions to AX Financial Report Versions	45	Seconds

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