How to Use Financial Reports in Business Central

Financial Reports is the tool in Business Central for building custom financial statements. It replaced the older Account Schedules feature in recent versions of Business Central, though the underlying logic is largely the same. You define how rows are structured (which accounts or totals appear) and how columns are structured (which figures to show, actuals, budget, variance, prior year), then combine them into a report.

The feature is used for P&L statements, balance sheets, department reporting, and any other structured financial output you need beyond standard G/L reports.

---

Step 1: Access Financial Reports

1. Search for Financial Reports using Alt + Q.
2. The list shows all existing financial reports. You can open an existing one to review its structure or select New to create a new report from scratch.

---

Step 2: Understand the Structure

Each financial report has two main components:

Component	Purpose
Row Definition	Defines the rows, which G/L accounts, totals, formulas, or descriptions appear
Column Definition	Defines the columns, which figures appear (net change, balance, budget, prior year, etc.)

A financial report is the combination of one row definition and one column definition. You can reuse the same row definition with different column definitions, for example, showing actuals only in one report and actuals vs budget in another.

---

Step 3: Create or Edit a Row Definition

1. Search for Row Definitions using Alt + Q, or open an existing financial report and select the Row Definition link.
2. Select New to create a new row definition, and give it a Name and Description.
3. On the row definition lines, each line represents one row in the report. The key fields are:

Field	Description
Row No.	A reference code for the row (used in formulas)
Description	The label shown in the report output
Totaling Type	How the row is calculated: G/L Accounts, Total, Formula, Cost Type, etc.
Totaling	The account range or formula (e.g., 4000..4999 or 10+20-30)
Show	Controls whether the row always shows or only when non-zero
Bold	Formats the row as bold in the output

4. Add rows for each section of your report, revenue accounts, expense accounts, subtotals, and net totals.

Example Row Structure for a P&L

Row No.	Description	Totaling Type	Totaling
10	Revenue	G/L Accounts	4000..4999
20	Cost of Goods Sold	G/L Accounts	5000..5999
30	Gross Profit	Formula	10-20
40	Operating Expenses	G/L Accounts	6000..6999
50	Operating Result	Formula	30-40

---

Step 4: Create or Edit a Column Definition

1. Search for Column Definitions using Alt + Q, or open a financial report and select the Column Definition link.
2. Select New, and give it a Name and Description.
3. On the column definition lines, each line defines one column in the report output:

Field	Description
Column No.	Reference code for the column
Column Header	The label shown at the top of the column
Column Type	Net Change, Balance at Date, Beginning Balance, Budget, Formula, etc.
Ledger Entry Type	Entries, Budget Entries
Amount Type	Net Amount, Debit Amount, Credit Amount
Formula	Used when Column Type is Formula (e.g., B-A for variance)

Example Column Structure for Budget Comparison

Column No.	Header	Column Type	Ledger Entry Type
A	Actual	Net Change	Entries
B	Budget	Net Change	Budget Entries
C	Variance	Formula	, (Formula: A-B)

---

Step 5: Create a Financial Report

1. On the Financial Reports page, select New.
2. Enter a Name and Description.
3. In the Row Definition Name field, select the row definition you created.
4. In the Column Definition Name field, select the column definition.
5. Save the record.

---

Step 6: Run the Report with Filters

1. On the Financial Reports list, select your report and choose Edit Financial Report or View Financial Report.
2. In the filter options, set:
   • Date Filter, the period you want to report on (e.g., 01/01/2025..12/31/2025)
   • G/L Budget Filter, select a budget name if your column definition includes budget columns
   • Dimension Filters, filter by department, cost center, or other dimension values to produce department-level reports
3. Select Print or Preview to view the output.

---

Common Use Cases

Report Type	Row Definition	Column Definition
Profit & Loss	Income and expense accounts	Monthly net change
Balance Sheet	Asset, liability, equity accounts	Balance at date
Department P&L	Same P&L rows	Actuals filtered by department dimension
Budget vs Actual	P&L rows	Actuals + Budget + Variance columns

---

Note on Account Schedules

If you are on an older version of Business Central, the same functionality appears under Account Schedules rather than Financial Reports. The structure, row definitions and column definitions, is identical. Microsoft renamed and reorganised the feature in Business Central 2022 Wave 1.

---

To set up the budget data used in budget comparison columns, see How to Set Up and Use Budgets in Business Central.