Using Main Account Categories to shape up Financial Reports and Power BI Financial Insights in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations

In Microsoft Dynamics 365, reporting has come a long way to help satisfy the reporting needs of a typical organisation. With the traditional Financial reports and the brand new Financial Insights dashboard introduced in the 7.3 release, the reporting needs are being addressed in a very practical fashion.

Every report uses the default main account categories which are predefined in Finance and Operations. Many organisations overlook the importance of the Main account categories but with simple setup, they provide a great starting point for building the reporting pack needed by many organisations.

In this blog, I will explain the use of Main account categories and their practicality as a starting point for the out-of-the-box statutory reports. In addition, I will illustrate how the same setup also works with the new Financial insights workspace within General Ledger. Financial Insights uses the Power BI embedded to bring together key performance indicators, charts and financial statements. The focus is on analytical reporting and supporting various roles within the organisation to interpret the financial results and make decisions. More information here Financial Insights in D365.

To follow this blog, it is recommended to have a basic understanding of Financial reports (known as Management reporter prior to D365) to be able to configure the Row definitions detailed in the sections below. Here is a link to information on Management reporter training.

Main Account Categories

The out-of-the-box main account categories in D365 are used for the default reports in financial reporting and Power BI and they can be renamed to suit the organisation. Although they cannot be deleted, further account categories can be created and used for analysis and reporting purposes. Please note that any newly created main account categories must be added and mapped accordingly in the Row definition within the Financial reports designer in order to appear on the report output (see Step 4 below).

Review, rename and add Main account categories

The first step is to review the default Main account categories and choose the relevant main accounts which belong to this category. Each Main account must belong to a main account category. The existing main account categories cannot be deleted but they can be re-named and new categories can be added.

Step 1

Click on the required Main account category and click on Link main accounts.

Note - The order of the categories displayed in Financial statements and Financial insights is determined by the Display order on the Main account category.

Alternatively, from the Main accounts form, you can select the relevant Main account category for each account. On the Main accounts form, select the required account and the corresponding Main account category from the drop down

Main Account Type

In addition to the Main account category, the Main account type is imperative in setting the appropriate default main accounts on the Balance sheet and Financial statements within the Financial reports and Financial Insights.  

Step 2

Ensure that the Main account type (Asset/Liabilities/Equity/Revenue/Expense) is selected on the Main account.

When setting up the Main accounts, do not use the Balance sheet or Profit and Loss main account types as these are too high level and are not shown in the standard financial reports.

Step 3

Within the Financial reports workspace, click Edit and login as required.

Step 4

In the Financial reports application, select the chosen report from the Default Report Definitions list and double-click to open. I have used the ‘Rolling Quarter Income statement – Default’ as my chosen report to illustrate the setup.

Step 5

In the Row field, use the right-hand side button to open and review the Row definition that is setup on the chosen report and ensure that the out-of-the-box setup maps each row to the relevant category. If a new category was introduced, ensure that it is selected accordingly on the report row.

Step 6

Generate the report.

Financial Insights

To use the Financial Insights workspace, some technical configuration may be required, please refer to the Entity store section within the page I referred to earlier. Also please refer to the Overview of Power BI integration with Entity store for more specific information on the Entity store integration with Power BI.

The configuration described above will be reflected into the Financial insights workspace, as per below illustration.

Summary

Configuring Financial reports in D365 is simple and once the setup is complete through the Main account categories and Main account types, it is very easy to maintain. During the implementation process, once the initial configuration is completed, having provided a starting point with the client’s own data, the Financial reports can be handed over to the relevant reporting team to learn and continue to build them.