Accounting Reports: TrendBoard User Manual
Scott Williams2023-04-27T09:24:48+10:00Release the hidden information in your accounting reports. This is a manual for using the 12Faces TrendBoard. The use of TrendBoard is designed to be self evident once you have used it once or twice. This manual will help you get started. If you continue to have difficulties, please go to either:
The Resources Menu – Community Forum
or the bottom menu: Support – if there is a difficulty with the software itself.
Logging In
In order to use TrendBoard, you must be registered for use and your particular access portal needs to be configured by 12Faces.
On the assumption that you have registered for TrendBoard, and that your Portal has been created, you can now access TrendBoard from multiple places on the website. Wherever it says “Access TrendBoard”. In particular, you should see a listing under “My Subs”.
When logging in, you will need to use the email address used when setting up. Anybody that you choose to give the login information to, will be able to see the data that you have put in. This means that you will be able to share it with other staff and/or your accounting team.
If you forget your password, or want to change it for some reason, use the “forget password” option on the login.
Start Up Steps
The first step is to enter data into each of the data fields. Once you have done this, the results will be automatically displayed on the relevant dashboard.
- Go to “TrendBoard – TrendBoard Input”.
- Complete the data entry according to the Period you choose – Annual, Quarter or Month and follow the steps below.
TrendBoard Accounting Data Entry
TrendBoard measures the trends in about a dozen aspects of your accounting reports.
There is no standard convention on how the entries in your Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet are named. 12Faces has adopted a set of names. If they are not the ones in your reports, go to the article Accounting Terminology Translator. For example, Income may be referred to as Revenue etc.
When you click on TrendBoard input, a form for data input will be displayed. This data is easily found in your Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet. A summary of each input is given below.
The following are from your Profit & Loss Report:
- Period: is either annual, quarter or month depending on what matches the period your data that you are entering covers.
- End date: is the date at the end of the month of the period. For example, last day of the month, last day of the quarter, last day of the financial year. Dates are expected in dd/mm/yyyy format and used for sorting purposes.
- Revenue: is the Income/Sales from your business. However, if you take money as cash, you should consider adding that in here as well. This is so that your Income will more accurately reflect your real Income.
- Operating Expenses: alternative names – COGS; Cost of Goods Sold; Cost of Sales; Variable Costs; Production Expenses.
- Gross Profit.
- Staff Wages: the money paid to your staff as Wages and Salaries. Include your own wage here if you are an owner. If you are not paying yourself a reasonable wage, consider increasing the Staff Wages by the extra Wage that you should be earning. This will give a better estimate of how profitable your business is in a real world situation. If you want a figure for your Wage, calculate what you would earn if you worked for someone else in the same position.
- Staff Benefits: any costs associated with the staff. For example: training, entertainment and travel. Also, if statutory requirements for Retirement, Health and other such charges are not in your Staff Wages figure in your Profit and Loss, they should be added here.
- Overhead Costs: the Fixed Costs of operating your business, for example, leases, bank interest, electricity etc. In most instances, the Staff Salaries and Wages will also be included in this figure. That is what we expect when you enter your data into TrendBoard. Alternative names: Fixed Costs; Overheads.
- Operating Profit: is the bottom line Profit before Tax, reported in your Profit & Loss account. Alternative name: Net Profit.
The following figures come from the Balance Sheet:
- Accounts Receivable: the money that is owing to you by your clients.
- Opening Inventory and Work in Progress (WIP): the value of your Inventory at the start of the period.
- Closing Inventory: is the value of the Inventory and WIP at the end of the period.
- Total Current Assets: the money you have available to pay your debts in the short term.
- Non Current Assets: that can be turned to Cash in the longer term.
- Accounts Payable: is the money that you owe to others.
- Current Liabilities: the total amount you owe in the short term.
- Total Non Current Liabilities.
- Current Borrowings and Non Current Borrowings.
Reward is a figure that you should calculate. This is the “Reward” that you get from operating a business if you are the owner.
To calculate this:
- Include your actual Salary plus your actual Benefits. For example, training, entertainment, retirement payments like Superannuation (in Australia).
- Also include any “perks” that you are paying yourself. For example, gym memberships, video streaming etc.
- Add in the Total Operating Profit.
Combined, these represent financial benefits that you are getting from the business. In most cases, you want to maximise your Reward. You certainly want to see any trends over time.
That is the end of the data entry. Ensure that you hit submit to store the information.
You will immediately see this data appear on the DashBoard. Note that you may need to refresh your screen to get an update.
Mission Accomplished
Once this data has been added, you will have put in the data necessary to “light up” the DashBoard with the graphs.
If there are gaps in the graphs displayed, it will indicate that you have not entered data for that period, or certain key data is missing. Go back and look at the “reports”, where the data is missing. You can enter, click and edit any particular line to enter the relevant data.
Interpreting The Results
An explanation on interpreting the results in your DashBoard is available in separate documents.
Go to the article: Key Business Indicators: Interpreting TrendBoard.
This appears in the Diagnostic System. You should have an automatic subscription to the Diagnostic System. If you are locked out, please email us and we will give you access.
The TrendBoard data is collected in 4 modules on the 12Faces DashBoard display.
Place your mouse over any point on the graphs to see the actual numbers behind that point.
Some graphs have a U or D in brackets, after the name of that graphs lines or columns.
These denote Up or Down and indicate the desired way in which your data should be heading for that particular item.
Example under Efficiency:
Overheads/Revenue% (D 6) – indicates that the graph data should be heading down. This indicates that there are less Overhead Expenses in proportion to the Revenue% increase.
The number within the bracket refers to the reference link for further explanation of that item.
Go to the article: Critical Financials for Business Explained
Overheads/Revenue% (D 6) – No.6, within the article above, is the Profit Funnel Group. Read this for an explanation of the Ratio and articles that relate to its management.
DashBoard: Trends
The Trends DashBoard shows a number of graphs that demonstrate the trends of the data, that you submitted, over time.
The first group relates to the Annual, Quarterly and Monthly Profitability of your business.
The second group relates to the Efficiency of various elements of your business.
Each of these is an important financial element of your business divided by the total Revenue.
This indicates how your Production Costs, Overhead Costs, Labour or Rewards are changing in relation to Revenue.
- If your Revenue goes up, you would expect such things as Overheads to increase also.
- This set of graphs indicates whether they are increasing at the same rate, or, at a higher rate.
- If they are increasing at a higher rate, that indicates that you are becoming less efficient.
Note: There is a scroll element in the written area above the graphs.
Safety
The likelihood of your business failing is measured in the Safety group of graphs.
The Current Ratio = Current Assets divided by Current Liabilities.
This ratio measures the ability for your business to pay its debts when they fall due.
The Quick Ratio = (Current Assets – Current Inventory) / Current Liabilities.
This ratio subtracts Inventory from the calculation. It may take you a while to dispose of Inventory. This is an even tougher test than the Current Ratio.
There is no hard and fast rule about what constitutes safe figures for the Current and Quick Ratios. It is commonly assumed that a figure of at least 1.5 times is a minimum threshold. This means that you have 1.5 times more Current Assets than you have Current Liabilities. Therefore, you can afford to pay your bills as they fall due.
Monthly Accounts Payable (AP) and Accounts Receivable (AR)
This graph follows your monthly Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable and indicates whether they are improving or weakening.
For this graph to be useful, make a habit of putting your Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable into your accounting system as soon as they are received or sent.
Days Working Capital
Days Working Capital indicates how many days you can operate the business if your source of Revenue declines dramatically. A classic example of this would be how long you could survive if you were operating when COVID first broke out in 2020.
There is no fixed figure for what is ideal. However, if it is low you need to be much more careful about decisions you make. You have less time to recover from a miscalculation.
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