Dear all,
I find Groups to collapse option very useful/beneficial for reports/statements.
However, I have noticed that Profit and Loss Statement (Actual vs Budget) does not have this capability, as (on the other hand) Profit and Loss Statement does.
Thus, @lubos, I propose to add this option also to Profit and Loss Statement (Actual vs Budget).
In that case, the Percentage & Remaining info could be displayed at group level (since respective groups will be collapsed).
The workings of the two are very different. In the P&L statement you select a date range and all accounts are visible unless you collapse some while the P&L (Actual vs Budget) requires you to select each account that you want displayed, there is thus nothing to collapse.
This is the purpose why I request that also for Profit and Loss Statements (Actual vs Budget)
while the P&L (Actual vs Budget) requires you to select each account that you want displayed, there is thus nothing to collapse
In P&L (Actual vs Budget), we should select each “account” that we want to be displayed, however we do not have the option to select “groups”. So, this was the reason behind my proposal; to have an option the statement to be displayed with summarized data (through Groups to collapse as in other statements).
Please think about it. It does not make sense. The Profit and Loss Statements (Actual vs Budget) is not really a report in the sense that it will help to create a budget for accounts where a budget makes sense. The report part comes in where that budget that you entered for such account is compared with actual account entries. In budget vs actuals the details of each account count and it would not make sense to collapse them as you may not want to create a budget for some accounts in a group or various groups. You therefore do not create a budget for a group but for some or all accounts.
The P&L report is just what it is a report of all transactions and where you are not interested in all the details allows you to collapse them.
Let’s give an example to understand my position.
We have 3 major categories (“groups”) of expenses, which include e.g. 10 accounts each.
So, in total, we have 30 expense accounts.
When we create a budget per account (30 accounts), we would like to have the respective data aggregated per group (3 groups x 10 accounts) in order to have the big picture of expenses per major category [we now do this via a spreadsheet program (Excel)].
Through Groups to collapse option we will be able to compare the actual expenses not only by account, but also by group, without having to edit the report outside of Manager.
It’s not something critical; I don’t want to dwell on it.
But either way @evans, you will have to enter the budget for each individual account as @eko already explained.
So @evans, do you merely want to be able to collapse groups after filling in the budget, or do you want to budget at group level?
This is what I really asked (I am sorry if I did not explain it clearly).
In any case, I will create a budget for some or all accounts (as @eko have described); I do not seek an option to set a budget at group level. I am only asking to be able to collapse groups after filling in the budget by account.
That doesn’t seem to be of much use, comparing actual totals of collapsed groups with collapsed totals of account budgets. Totals might seem to match perfectly while actually having no commonality whatsoever.
I totally agree with that. However, having the capability to collapse groups (as in the vast majority of the Manager reports/statements) may/will be beneficial when we want to see the big picture of budget execution (per expense group) and then, for further details if required, to see the data per account.
This would also be helpful when we want to compare time periods, to see, for example, the percentage of budget execution per expense group among years.
This derives from my experience, but I do not want to insist for its implementation; if this doesn’t seem to be of much use, I will acquire the respective information after edit through a spreadsheet program.
There is no way you could do this with the Profit and Loss Statement (Actual vs Budget), regardless of whether you could collapse groups. With this report, you compare a single set of budgeted account values against one time period and one time period only. If you want to compare results from year to year, you must use the standard Profit and Loss Statement report, creating multiple columns for different time periods.
This is just an example. The comparison between years can be achieved manually, by exporting two (or more) different Profit and Loss Statements (Actual vs Budget).
So what you describe is a very specialized report, the result of which is the ability to compare your forecasting accuracy from year to year for broad groups of accounts, not even individual categories of income or expense. If you find that useful, go ahead and create such a report. But understand that it is in no way close to any standard financial report.
It is impossible for the program to anticipate every unique preference for information presentation. So it focuses on widely used financial statements and allows copying of data so users can manipulate it as they desire.