Analyzing Financial Statements in Microsoft Excel

  • Article

In Dynamics NAV, you can see KPIs and get overviews of the company's financial state. You can also open lists in Excel and analyze the data there. But you can also export heavy financial statements such as the balance sheet or the income statement to Excel, analyze the data, and print the reports.

In the Business Manager and Accountant Role Centers, you can choose which financial statements to view in Excel from a drop-down menu in the Reports section of the ribbon. When you choose a statement, it will be opened in Excel or Excel Online. An add-in connects the data to Dynamics NAV. However, you have to sign in with the same account that you use with Dynamics NAV.

Getting the Overview and the Details in Excel

In the ribbon, choose the relevant Excel report, and let it open so you can get the overview that you were looking for. In this version of Dynamics NAV, we offer the following Excel reports:

  • Balance Sheet
  • Income Statement
  • Cash Flow Statement
  • Retained Earnings Statement
  • Aged Accounts Payable
  • Aged Accounts Receivable

Let's say you want to dig deeper into your cash flow. From the Business Manager or Accountant Role Center, you can open the Cash Flow Statement report in Excel, but what actually happens is that we export the relevant data for you and create an Excel workbook based on a predefined template. Depending on your browser, you might be prompted to open or save the workbook.

In Excel, you see a tab where the data is laid out for you on the first worksheet. All the data that was exported is also present in other worksheets in case you need it. You can print the report right away, or you can modify it until you have the overview and the details that you want. Use the Dynamics NAV Excel Add-in to further filter and analyze data.

The Dynamics NAV Excel Add-in

Your Dynamics NAV experience includes an add-in for Excel. Depending on your subscription, you are logged in automatically, or you must specify the same login details that you use for Dynamics NAV.

With the add-in, you can get fresh data from Dynamics NAV, and you can push changes back into Dynamics NAV. However, the ability to push data back to the database is disabled for the financial Excel reports in the list above.

See Also

Dynamics 365 Business Central
Finance
Setting Up Finance
The General Ledger and the Chart of Accounts
Working with Dynamics NAV