Business Analytics Summary — Complete User Guide — Two Accounts Web

A complete guide to the Business Analytics Summary dashboard — what it is, what it shows, how to personalise it, how to read the full Transactions journal, how to configure the many settings, and how its figures relate to the rest of your accounts

Table of Contents

1. What Is the Business Analytics Summary?
2. Where to Find It
3. What It Shows
   • 3.1 Transactions
   • 3.2 Chart Overview
   • 3.3 Balances
4. Reading the Bank Balances
5. Personalising with Edit (Summary Form)
   • 5.1 Show Balances for Specified Period
   • 5.2 Show Balances on Cash Basis
   • 5.3 Show Account Codes
   • 5.4 Exclude Zero Balances
   • 5.5 Groups to Collapse
   • 5.6 Saving Your Changes
6. Configuration
   • 6.1 General Settings
   • 6.2 Chart of Accounts
   • 6.3 Number and Date Formatting
7. Period Quick-Filters
8. Cash Basis vs Accrual Basis
9. Transactions
   • 9.1 What It Lists
   • 9.2 Columns and How to Read Them
   • 9.3 Opening and Editing Rows

1. What Is the Business Analytics Summary?

The Business Analytics Summary is the main dashboard of the application. It gives a single, at-a-glance view of the financial standing of your company, presented as a set of summary figures, balances, charts, and recent transactions.

Everything shown on the dashboard is derived from your recorded accounting transactions, so it always reflects the state of your books.

2. Where to Find It

The Business Summary dashboard is the first tab you see when you open a business. You can return to it at any time from the main menu. It is labelled Business Summary & Business Analytics Summary.

3. What It Shows

3.1 Transactions

The dashboard lists the transactions that affect your cash position and trading within the selected period. In particular it brings together:

• Receipts (money received — cash sales and customer payments)
• Payments (money paid out — supplier payments and expenses)
• Sales invoices issued
• Purchase invoices received

Each entry shows the document, the counterparty, and the amount, and you can open it to view or edit the full record.

3.2 Chart Overview

Two summary charts give a quick visual representation of the period:

• Assets, Liabilities and Equity — how the balance sheet pie is composed.
• Receipts and Payments — the flow of money in and out during the period.

These charts update automatically to the period you have selected.

3.3 Balances

Depending on your configuration, the dashboard shows balance summaries for key accounts, such as bank and cash accounts. For cash-focused businesses this includes the bank balance details described in section 4.

4. Reading the Bank Balances

For each bank or cash account shown you may see several balance figures:

Use the actual balance for decisions — it is the most realistic figure. The cleared balance is useful for bank reconciliation checks.

5. Personalising with Edit Info (Business Summary Form)

Use the Edit Info button on the dashboard to open the Business Summary form, where the presentation of the page is customised. Each option below controls how the dashboard is displayed. Changes are saved for your business and apply every time the dashboard is opened.

5.1 Show Balances for Specified Period

When enabled, the dashboard shows figures only for the period you have specified (a start date and an end date — today or a chosen custom date). When you have entered a fixed period and there are transactions dated after it, the dashboard includes a notification to make clear that the newer activity is not part of the figures being shown. This avoids confusion when newly entered transactions do not move the displayed totals.

This option is most commonly used once a business has been running for some time and its transactions cover several financial periods. In that situation you would set the period to a single financial year on the Business Summary screen.

5.2 Show Balances on Cash Basis

Tick this option if you prefer to omit unpaid invoices from the total amounts. The dashboard automatically adjusts its figures so that invoices that have not yet been settled are excluded.

Consider the following before enabling it:

• If you do not use sales or purchase invoices at all, this option has no visible effect on the dashboard.
• If you do use invoices, the dashboard will adjust its figures as if the unpaid invoices were not part of your financial position.

5.3 Show Account Codes

Check Show Account Codes to display each account's code next to its name. Account codes are assigned to individual accounts under the Chart of Accounts. If you do not use account codes, enabling this option has no effect.

5.4 Exclude Zero Balances

Select Exclude Zero Balances to conceal accounts that have a zero balance. This is helpful when you have many accounts with no activity: hiding them makes the dashboard more streamlined and easier to navigate.

5.5 Groups to Collapse

Enable Groups to Collapse and then choose the account groups you want to treat as ordinary accounts, so that their detailed sub-accounts are not expanded. This is useful when you have numerous accounts, even after using Exclude Zero Balances — it further reduces clutter by showing selected groups as a single combined figure.

Groups themselves are created under the Chart of Accounts.

5.6 Saving Your Changes

After making your changes, click the Update button at the bottom to save them. You are returned to the Summary screen with your changes applied. Nothing about your accounting records changes — only the way the dashboard presents them.

6. Configuration

6.1 General Settings

Beyond the options described above, the dashboard reads a small set of general settings, including whether it shows the specified period, account codes, and the balances on a cash basis. Together these determine the contents and layout of the page from the moment it opens.

6.2 Chart of Accounts

The layout of groups, accounts, and totals on the dashboard follows the structure defined in the Chart of Accounts. Organising your accounts there is what makes the summary page meaningful and consistent with your financial statements. It is also where account codes and collapsed groups are maintained.

6.3 Number and Date Formatting

Amounts and dates are displayed using the number and date formats configured for your region (thousands separators, decimal symbol, number of decimal places, and date layout). This keeps the page consistent with your local presentation conventions.

7. Period Quick-Filters

From the page you can quickly change the reporting period with one click. The available ranges are:

The filters are independent of the fixed-period setting and are ideal for quick checks without changing your saved configuration.

8. Cash Basis vs Accrual Basis

The dashboard can be displayed on either basis:

• Accrual basis — revenue is counted when an invoice is issued and expenses when an invoice is received. This is the standard for most internal reporting.
• Cash basis — revenue is counted when cash is received and expenses when cash is paid. This is often used for tax reporting or small-business management.

The dashboard derives its figures from costed accounting data, so the choice of basis changes the timing of what appears on the page while the records themselves remain unchanged. See section 5.2 for the naming used in the Summary form.

9. Transactions

The Transactions page is the full journal of the business. Where the Business Summary dashboard shows a focused list of documents, this page shows every ledger movement — both user-entered documents and the entries the system itself creates to keep the accounts correct.

9.1 What It Lists

The journal contains every transaction recorded in the business, sorted with the most recent first, including:

• Sales and purchase invoices, receipts, payments, credit and debit notes.
• Expense claims, journal entries, and opening-balance entries.
• Inventory movements: cost of goods sold, inventory write-offs, production (work in progress and finished goods), returns, and impairment.
• Foreign-exchange revaluation entries made when balances are restated.

9.2 Columns and How to Read Them

Each row shows the date, the transaction (document or system posting), a description, and — where relevant — the customer, supplier, employee, item, and account etc. It also shows the quantity, unit price, and, on separate sides, the debit and credit amount of that movement.

• A positive amount appears in the Debit column.
• A negative amount appears in the Credit column.
• Debit, credit, tax, and amount columns total up so the whole journal stays in balance.

Rows that carry only a quantity (for example, the quantity-only marker of an inventory write-off) show no money value — the money side of that movement appears on the adjacent system-created row.

9.3 Opening and Editing Rows

Each row can be opened to View or Edit its source. Opening balances open their original balance-entry, inventory-item, or fixed-asset form; everything else opens the original document. This makes the journal a reliable starting point for auditing any figure.

End of guide. Two Accounts Web.