DESIGNING FINANCIAL REPORTS
The layout of the financial report on the printed page is critical to easy reading and acceptability. Well laid out reports have a "block" appearance that becomes particularly helpful in allowing the reader to assimilate information from the printed page. Easy-to-read reports repeat full heading information on each page, including the report options selected, time, date, and report title.
Columnar Design. Good column orientation makes the report more agreeable with the user and makes good use of the limited columnar space available. For example, a report's column headings should line up with the columnar detail, giving the report a neat, straight appearance. As a rule, numeric data are right justified, as are the corresponding column headings; descriptive, alphanumeric data and their column headings are left justified.
The custom report's column arrangement should be designed with the reader in mind. With large reports, the columns are usually arranged according to some informal rules:
• The data used to sort the report appears on the report's leftmost columns.
• The most important other information appears on the rightmost column.
• Supporting information appears in the middle, arranged in a logical sequence from left to right, such as by increasing level of detail.
This orientation allows a reader to efficiently search for something within the report's sorted sequence, quickly pick out important information by scanning through the entire report, and study the detail that is also available.
When space is tight, several considerations can help make room for more information on a report:
• Do not use dollar signs for amount fields. Readers typically already know which data elements are dollar amounts and which are not.
• Try to avoid using parentheses for negative amounts; instead use a minus sign.
• Round to whole dollars, or even thousands, where possible.
• Truncate lengthy descriptions, such as account descriptions or journal descriptions.
If these pointers do not provide enough room to fit the necessary information onto the report format, consider dividing the report into two different reports or leaving the least essential information off.
When designing budget versus actual performance reports, always try to report unfavorable variances in parentheses, or as negative numbers. Thus, for example, a revenue variance below budget and an expense variance above budget will both be reported as negative numbers. This practice aids the reader in noting "exception" information as he scans the variance column of a comparative report. This also avoids the reader's determining whether the variance is unfavorable or favorable, based on the type of financial information (e.g., revenue versus expense) presented on a particular line of the report.
Row or Line Design. Designers also tend to adhere to a couple of rules when designing the rows on the report. The format of the general ledger distribution in Figure 2-8 provides an example of one rule: custom financial reports should avoid repeating summary information and list this only once for each individual line of detail that accompanies it. As an example, notice how the general ledger journal lists the batch number and description only once for each journal entry to the account.
The effective placement of blank lines can greatly enhance the appearance of custom reports. Appearing after subtotals and control breaks, blank lines serve to highlight important information and segment the report. Double spacing each line is generally useful only if the person using the report needs space for writing. Otherwise double spacing tends to be distracting.
NEXT MONTH'S TOPIC: COMBINED AND CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL REPORTING