Please watch the video in 1080p because it is recorded in High Resolution.
Please note the script of the presentation is below so you can read along with the demonstration if you like.
(Note. We have swapped my photo for the cartoon character. I hope you like it!)
Hello and welcome to our latest blog post.
I am really pleased you have come back to see our latest video!
I am Sofi, your BIDA AI Assistant.
I will be reading this blog post for you today, on behalf of Mihai.
I am really pleased to be able to bring you some news that I think will really interest you.
This video is intended for companies who have Business Central 2023 installed on premise.
This video is an update on the BIDA forty six blog post.
We have updated the Excel workbook to make the demonstration even better.
So, as ever, on with the demo!
Demonstration
Here we are in the BIDA General Ledger Beginning of Time Balances Demonstration workbook.
You can download this workbook from the button below.
Firstly, you can see that we have allowed for 5 years of beginning of time balances.
The data being used is the version 23 demonstration database, that only has two years of data in it.
The headings and GL account name panes are frozen.
We will scroll to the right, so we are starting in 2023.
We will scroll down to 1999, fixed assets total.
This is because this line gives us a nice reporting line.
Now I will click on the plus sign next to the GL Account code.
Now I will click on the plus sign next to 2024.
You can see that there is no beginning of time amount for 2023 because it is zero.
An empty cell means zero.
In December 2023, the transaction amounts totaled one million, three hundred and twenty one thousand and two hundred and seventy eight dollars.
You can see this amount became the beginning of time amount for January 2024.
Then the transaction amount for document type zero, in January 2024, was thirty six thousand and forty five dollars.
This is added to the beginning of time amount to get the amount of one million, three hundred and fifty seven thousand and three hundred and twenty three dollars, for the beginning of time value for February.
We are pretty certain we do not need to explain to you how beginning of time balances work.
What we would like to explain to you, is that you can calculate such a complex thing as beginning of time balances going back 5 years, using a SQL query.
You can then send the data for that query in to Excel at a summary level.
Once you have the data in Excel you can present it in any way you please.
Now we will scroll down in the workbook, just to show you all the other GL accounts from the demonstration database are in the report.
Now we will click on the minus sign next to 2024.
Obviously, from this demonstration, you can see that you can select any combination of GL account codes from Business Central, and you can report on them in any way you like in Excel.
For most people who work in the accounting area of Business Central, you will not have seen that it is possible to calculate Beginning of Time Balances like this, without considerable effort from yourself or your IT department.
Such complex calculations as Beginning of Time Balances can now be done quite easily, if you use Meta five to send the query into Business Central and to send the results to Excel.
You can run this query right on top of your production Business Central database.
Or, you could ask your IT department to create a replica database, so that running this query does not interfere with production performance.
In either case, this demonstration shows that you can get started with much more complex queries than you might have thought possible.
Once you are doing more and more complex queries on your replica production database, and you have come to understand the value of creating a data warehouse?
Then you might be able to more easily get a budget approved to implement our data warehouse product, that is still under development at this time.
For small companies who use Business Central, it is very possible quite a wide array of reports can be written without the need to even create a replica copy of your Business Central database.
Please note.
We have included in our blog post, all the buttons needed to download all components of this report.
You are welcome to ask your IT colleagues to review the SQL that was used to create this report.
In Summary
Just to keep you interested?
We have another very interesting demonstration in development.
This demonstration shows you that it is possible to create the balance sheet from Business Central in Excel using this sort of idea.
So, if you want to be notified when that demonstration is available?
Please feel free to join our email list.
Or please grant us permission to put you on our email list.
With that?
I would like to say thank you very much for watching our video today.
I really appreciate your time and attention.
We hope you found this blog post interesting and informative.
We would love to hear your comments, so please feel free to use the comments section below.
I wish you a great day.
Thank you.
Sofi.
Your BIDA AI Assistant.
Please note. If you would like to ask your IT staff who support you, to read a more detailed blog post? You can give them the link on the button below.
We will be emailing our subscribers useful and
valuable information regarding business intelligence.
Please subscribe here to be on our general emailing list.
