Trial Balance

The Accounts dimension within Longview contains a Trial Balance hierarchy that reflects the financial account structure of an organization.

Foundational symbols are supplied to support Longview’s Trial Balance hierarchy. Customers can then supplement the existing out of the box hierarchy by creating additional symbols below these foundational symbols.

Trial balance foundational symbols

Depending on a selection made during the installation of your Longview application, there are two ways the foundational Trial Balance hierarchy can be deployed:

Trial balance system attributes

Attributes are deployed within your Longview system in order to specify the different Trial Balance symbols in your hierarchy. Depending on your Longview system type, different trial balance attributes can be deployed and different attribute values can be set.

Trial balance attributes - Solutions Framework

The following system attributes will be deployed with solutions framework for all Longview system types:

Trial balance attributes - Longview Close

The following additional system attributes will be deployed and/or set if your system type is Longview Close

Managing your trial balance

Manage Trial Balance allows you to create and delete trial balance accounts, and edit the properties of existing accounts.

Accessing manage trial balance

From Solutions Framework or Longview Close systems:

1. Select the Consolidate module.
2. Select the Administration category.
3. Expand Accounts.
4. Click Manage Trial Balance. The Manage Trial Balance dialog appears and contains the following options:
   • Import
   • Manage
   • Export

From Longview Tax systems:

1. Select the Tax Provision module.
2. Select the Administration category.
3. Expand Accounts.
4. Click Manage Trial Balance. The Manage Trial Balance dialog appears and contains the following options:
   • Import
   • Manage
   • Export

Importing trial balance accounts

The import option in the Manage Trial Balance dialog allows you to create and update trial balance accounts in the database from a .csv file.

To import accounts:

1. For Option, select Import.
2. Select the .csv file to import from.
3. To skip confirmation of each new parent assignment, check the Automatically confirm parent assignment option.
4. Click OK. A table will be displayed showing the summary of all actions performed by the import.

   Note: If there are any issues with the file, a table will be displayed indicating the issues. No changes will be made to the trial balance hierarchy.

.csv file example (Solutions Framework and Longview Close):

.csv file example (Longview Tax):

where:

Managing trial balance accounts

The Manage option in the Manage Trial Balance dialog allows you to create, update and delete accounts from within the Manage Trial Balance table.

To manage accounts:

1. For Option, select Manage.
2. Select the account to manage. In the Manage Trial Balance table, the list of accounts selected is displayed.

Working with the hierarchy

Manage trial balance displays the selected account in a hierarchical view. The view is initially expanded two levels below the selected account.

To change the level of expansion:

1. Click a collapsed hierarchy icon to expand the hierarchy one level below the selected symbol.
2. Click an expanded hierarchy icon to collapse the hierarchy to the selected symbol.
3. Right-click on the top row and select one of these options:
   1. Expand All for Selected Row: to expand the entire hierarchy below the selected symbol.
   2. Collapse All: to collapse the entire hierarchy.
4. Right-click on a parent row and select one of these options:
   1. Expand All for Selected Row: to expand the entire hierarchy below the selected symbol.
   2. Collapse All: to collapse the entire hierarchy.
   3. Collapse Parent: to collapse the hierarchy to the parent of the selected symbol.
5. Right-click on a leaf row and select one of these options:
   1. Collapse All: to collapse the entire hierarchy.
   2. Collapse Parent: to collapse the hierarchy to the parent of the selected symbol.

Adding an account

To add a new account:

1. Select a row in the table. The new account will be assigned as a child of the selected account.

   Note: You can add a new account that has similar settings to an existing account by selecting a row and clicking duplicate.

2. Click Add. The Add dialog appears.
3. Fill in the following fields:

   1. Name: Enter the name of the account. The name of the account is limited to 31 characters.

   2. Description: Enter a description for the account. The description of the account is limited to 100 characters.

   3. Parent: Select or enter the name of the parent to assign the account to.

      Note: You can also click the search button to open the symbol selector dialog to access advanced search options.

   4. Sort Order: Enter a number to define the order of the account under the parent. Accounts are sorted from low to high. Accounts added with a sort order of 0 will appear last, in the order the account was created.

4. Click OK to add the new symbol to the table.

   Note: Accounts are not added to the database until you click Apply.

5. For each account added fill in the following additional fields:
   • For Solutions Framework and Longview Close systems:

     • Balance Type: Select DEBIT or CREDIT to indicate the type of balance that is treated as positive in Longview.

     • Foreign Exchange Treatment: Select the treatment for the account in foreign exchange calculations. By default, this is set to Monetary for a new account. For more information, see Options for FX Treatment.

   • For Longview Tax systems:

     • Weight: Select +, -, or 0 to specify the mathematical effect of the child symbol on its parent symbol.

Deleting an account

Delete an account by selecting the row and clicking delete. The account is not deleted from the database until you click Apply.

Modifying an account

You can change the properties of an existing account:

1. Modify the description by editing the value in the Description cell.
2. Change the Balance Type by selecting a different value

   Note: This applies to Solutions Framework and Longview Close systems only.

3. Change the order the account appears under its parent by modifying the Sort Order value.
4. Change the treatment of the account for foreign exchange calculations by selecting a different value.

   Note: This applies to Solutions Framework and Longview Close systems only.

5. Change the Weight of the account by selecting a different value.

   Note: This applies to Solutions Framework and Longview Close systems only.

To change the parent of an account:

1. Select the row in the table.

2. Click Edit. The Edit dialog appears.

3. Enter or select a new parent.

4. Click OK.

No changes are made to the database until you click Apply.

Applying changes

To apply changes to the trial balance, click Apply.

For new rows in the table:

• Each new account will be added under the selected parent symbol.
• Each new account will update the ZFXAccountType symbol attribute according to the ‘Foreign Exchange Treatment’ setting specified.

Note: This applies to Solutions Framework and Longview Close systems only.

For modified accounts:

• Any description changes will be applied.
• Any changes to the Balance Type setting will be applied.

  Note: This applies to Solutions Framework and Longview Close systems only.

• Any changes to the Weight setting will be applied.

  Note: This applies to Solutions Tax systems only.

• If the parent account is changed, the account will be reassigned to the new parent with the specified sort order.

  Note: If an existing symbol becomes a parent, virtual status will be set to ON.

• Any changes to the Sort Order (same parent account) will be applied.
• Any changes to the Foreign Exchange Treatment setting will be applied.

  Note: This applies to Solutions Framework and Longview Close systems only.

For deleted accounts:

• Each deleted account will be confirmed before deleting.
  • If confirmed, the related symbol is deleted.
  • Otherwise, the row is restored to the table.

Results:

• All actions performed are presented at the end of processing with:
  • Each row identified by its symbol name.
  • The action performed or the reason any error occurred.
• Any valid changes, not cancelled, are applied.

Refreshing the accounts

• Click Refresh to refresh the list of accounts.
• Click Symbols to change the selected trial balance account and refresh the list of accounts.

In either case, if there are any unapplied changes, you will be prompted to apply or discard any changes that have not yet been applied.

• Choose Apply Changes to apply any changes made, then refresh the list of accounts. If there are any errors the refresh will not be performed.
• Choose Discard Changes to discard any changes made, then refresh the list of accounts.
• Click Cancel to return to the table without refreshing the list of accounts.

Exporting from the accounts table

1. Click Export to export from the accounts table to a .csv file.

2. Select the .csv file to export to.

   Note: If the file selected does not currently exist, it will be created during the export process.

3. Click OK. A confirmation dialog will appear.
4. Click View File to view the exported file.

Exporting trial balance accounts

The Export option in the Manage Trial Balance dialog allows you to export trial balance accounts and their related settings from the database to a .csv file.

To export accounts:

1. For Option, select Export.
2. Select the .csv file to export to.

   Note: If the file selected does not currently exist, it will be created during the export process.

3. Select symbols to export.
4. Click OK. A confirmation dialog will appear.
5. Click View File to view the exported file.