Change it Up! How To Add New Detail/Header Level To Existing Visual Chart Organizer Chart Template

Ever wonder how to better organize your reports in The Financial Edge and place similar accounts together in an easy-to-read way? Did you know that the visual format of your financial statements is controlled by a chart template created in the Visual Chart Organizer (VCO)? If not, don’t worry! This blog entry will introduce you to VCO headers and detail lines and explain how they can be used to enhance your reporting.

The VCO chart template is an account organization tool which allows you to group similar accounts together under a user-defined category, or header.

What is the header level? The header level is our category level. It serves to group similar, specific accounts together in a report. For example, a header level could be called Payroll Expenses and below that header we would include our Federal Withholding account and our Payable Medicare Tax account. It displays in bold font on our VCO.

What is the detail level? The detail level indicates which accounts will be included under the header. We can set criteria for the accounts included (i.e. account code range 1200-1299 or department equals administration).

Why would we ever need to change a chart template in the VCO, you ask?

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• If you have added a new account to your chart of accounts, we need to ensure that the account is captured in the chart template detail and will be included in your report data.
  
• If you need to reorganize the way your accounts display on a report, we can make edits to the header or detail levels to place accounts where they need to be.
  

For example, let’s say that your organization has a number of different departments that incur expenses. If your organization creates a new department, we may need to create new accounts and add those accounts to our VCO. We will find where the other departments are listed under expenses and we will create a new header called New Department. Below that, we will create a new detail level and define the accounts that fall within that department. It might look something like this (header levels are bold).

1. Expenses

     2. Department Expenses

          3. Department 1

4. Department 1 detail

          3. New Department

4. New Department detail

For step-by-step instructions and a video that will help you add header or detail levels to existing VCOs, see How to add accounts to a Visual Chart Organizer (VCO) (BB64859).

If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below and we will respond!