Acount type and Variance reporting on account member set up

Question

Hi
Apologies if the question may seem obvious....
However we are planning on loading monthly actual data into our application from a flat file where revenues are negative and costs are positive. For reporting purposes within the application we need to switch the signage.
Therefore when setting up account members if i tag the account type as revenue or expense will this solve the issue?
Also would anybody know what the "variance reporting" field is used for
Many thanks

Answer 1

Hi,
Variance reporting is good when you report your data from FR or WA as these tools are financially aware of account types and settings in variance reporting.
When you set an account as expense in variance reporting declines (between versions, months etc.) in your data for those accounts are taken as a positive change and vice versa. On the other hand, reduction in non-expense accounts are taken as negative change.
Hence, when you create a report where you define conditional formating on variance field, increases can be shown green in revenue accounts and red in expense accounts.
You can give this a try in Web Analysis by creating a very simple report using Sample:Basic.
The other question you ask for can be done via a calculated field in FR or WA. Or you can create a reporting version in Planning where you can multiply expense accounts by (-1) and leave the rest as they are.
Cheers,
Alp