Walkthrough: Making Cash Flow Forecasts by Using Account Schedules

This walkthrough describes how you can use account schedules to make cash flow forecasts. Account schedules perform calculations that cannot be done directly in the chart of cash flow accounts. In the account schedules, you can set up subtotals for cash flow receipts and disbursements. These subtotals can be included in new totals that can then be used in making cash flow forecasts.

About This Walkthrough

This walkthrough describes the following tasks:

Setting up a new cash flow account schedule name.
Setting up account schedule lines.
Setting up a new column layout.
Assigning a column layout to an account schedule.
Viewing and printing the cash flow forecast.

Prerequisites

To complete this walkthrough, you will need:

Business Central installed.
The cash flow worksheet lines are registered.

Roles

This walkthrough demonstrates tasks that are performed by the following user role:

Controller

Story

Ken is a controller at CRONUS who makes monthly cash flow forecasts. He includes finance, sales, purchase, and fixed assets in the forecast, and then he presents it to CFO Sara for business insight.

Setting Up a New Account Schedule Name

An account schedule consists of a cash flow account schedule name with a series of lines and a column layout.

To set up a new account schedule name

Choose the icon, enter Account Schedules, and then choose the related link.
On the Account Schedule Names page, choose the New to create a new cash flow account schedule name.
In the Name field, enter Forecast.
In the Description field, enter Cash Flow Forecast.
Leave the Default Column Layout and Analysis View Name fields blank.

Setting Up Account Schedule Lines

After an account schedule name is set up, Ken defines each line that appears in the cash flow account schedule. Ken defines lines that can be shown in reports in addition to lines that are only for calculation purposes.

To set up account schedule lines

On the Account Schedule Names page, select the new Forecast account schedule name that you have created, and then choose the Edit Account Schedule action.

On the Account Schedule page, enter each line exactly as shown in the following table.

Note

Using the Insert CF Accounts function, you can quickly mark the cash flow accounts from the chart of cash flow accounts and copy them to account schedule lines.

Row No.	Description	Totaling Type	Totaling	Row Type	Amount Type
C10	Amount	Net Change	Entries	Net Amount	Always
C20	Amount until Date	Balance at Date	Entries	Net Amount	Always
C30	Entire Fiscal Year	Entire Fiscal Year	Entries	Net Amount	Always

Choose the OK button.

Assigning the Column Layout to the Account Schedule Name

Ken is now ready to assign the column layout to the account schedule name.

To assign the column layout to the account schedule name

On the Account Schedule Names page, select Forecast in the Name field.
In the Default Column Layout field, choose the column layout Cash Flow to assign as the default column layout.

To view and print the cash flow forecast

On the Account Schedule Names page, choose the Overview action to view the cash flow forecast.
On the Acc. Schedule Overview page, you can select an amount and then view the cash flow forecast entries that make up the amount. In addition, you can view the formula that is used to calculate the amount. You can also filter the amounts by date and dimension.
Choose the Print action to print the cash flow forecast.