Financial Reports

Two Optional Extras Beyond the Standard Setup

Automatic Fiscal Year Creation

If you use explicit Fiscal Year records (rather than just the simple month/day setting covered earlier in this course) — for example to model a genuinely irregular fiscal calendar — a scheduled action can automatically create each new fiscal year's record ahead of time based on your existing pattern, so nobody has to remember to set one up manually before the current one ends.

The Formal Closing Wizard

As explained earlier in this course, the Balance Sheet's Retained Earnings/Net Income split is computed live, with no closing journal entry required — this is the standard, recommended approach and needs nothing further from you.

A separate, optional Fiscal Year Closing wizard also exists (Accounting > Actions > Fiscal Year Closing) for businesses whose jurisdiction or auditor specifically requires formal, posted closing and opening journal entries at year-end, rather than relying on a dynamically-computed report. It generates configurable closing entries per a template, moves through Draft → Processed → Posted, and tags the resulting entries with a Closing Type for identification.

Important: Don't Use Both Approaches Carelessly

If you post formal closing entries with this wizard, their counterpart must go to the same "Undistributed Profits/Losses" equity account that the dynamic Balance Sheet calculation already excludes from its own prior-year rollup — otherwise the same year's earnings can get counted twice (once by the live calculation, once by the posted closing entry), throwing the Balance Sheet out of balance. Unless your accountant or jurisdiction specifically requires formal closing entries, the simplest and safest approach — used throughout this course — is to rely on the live calculation alone and skip this wizard entirely.

Where the Cash Actually Went

Profit and cash are not the same thing — a business can be profitable on paper while running out of cash (e.g. if customers are slow to pay). The Cash Flow Statement (Accounting > Reporting > Cash Flow) explains the difference.

The Three Activity Groups

• Operating Activities – cash from normal business operations, starting from Net Profit and adjusting for non-cash items and changes in receivables/payables/inventory.
• Investing Activities – cash spent on or received from fixed assets and investments.
• Financing Activities – cash from loans, owner contributions, or distributions.

Opening Cash + Net Cash from all three groups = Closing Cash, which should tie exactly to your actual bank balances at the report date.

Executive Summary

Go to Accounting > Reporting > Executive Summary for a single condensed page aimed at non-accountants: revenue, profitability, cash, and a handful of key ratios, each with a period-over-period comparison — the report to hand an owner or board member who doesn't need (or want) the full Balance Sheet/P&L detail.

From Ledger to Tax Filing

Go to Accounting > Reporting > Tax Report. Every tax-relevant transaction, grouped into the boxes/lines your tax authority's return actually asks for (tax collected on sales, tax paid on purchases, net due).

Using It

1. Select the tax period matching your filing frequency (monthly/quarterly/annual, depending on your jurisdiction).
2. Review each tax grid line — click through to the underlying invoices/bills if a number looks off.
3. Export or use the figures directly to complete your official return.

Tax Lock Date

After filing, set a Tax Lock Date (Settings > Invoicing > Fiscal Periods) up to the filed period's end date — this prevents anyone from later editing a transaction that's already been reported to the tax authority, which would make your filed return and your books disagree.

Multi-Jurisdiction Businesses

If you operate across regions with different tax rules, fiscal positions (see the Accounting course's "Fiscal Positions" article) determine which taxes apply to which transactions, and this report reflects that automatically — you don't need to manually separate transactions by jurisdiction.