Financial Reporting: Compare, Export, Lock

Compare branches, regenerate after a back-dated entry, export and lock the month

Steps 7 to 10 of the Financial Reporting Guide: the comparisons and the lock. You compare two branches on the live Profit Loss Report, re-close and regenerate when a back-dated entry lands, export the three statements for the external accountant, and lock March. It follows Steps 2 to 6, where the month was closed and the statements read. The running example is GadgetSphere’s quarter ending 31 March 2026, reported one company at a time (GS, GSO, GSD); Meet GadgetSphere sets it out.

Step 7: run the ad-hoc Profit and Loss Report comparing branch GS-KV-01 against GS-KV-05.
Step 8: regenerate any snapshot if a back-dated entry lands.
Step 9: export the three statements to Excel for the external accountant.
Step 10: lock March 2026 so nothing slips back in.

Step 7: Run the ad-hoc Profit and Loss Report comparing branch GS-KV-01 against GS-KV-05

Main menu > Financial Reports > Profit Loss Report

Open the ad-hoc Profit and Loss Report (the menu label reads “Profit Loss Report”) — a separate screen from the Financial Report snapshot you have been working in. It reads posted journals directly, no month-end needed. Set Group By to Branch, then in the Branch picker tick GS-KV-01 and GS-KV-05. Set Date From to 1 January 2026, Date To to 31 March 2026, and leave Cost Type on MA (moving average) — that matches the cost basis your company uses for closing stock, so the cost-of-sales row here is the one to reconcile against.

Click Search. The grid shows one amount column per branch, with the calculated rows Net Sales, Total Cost of Goods Sold, Gross Profit, Gross Margin, Profit Before Taxes, Net Profit and Profit Margin. Cost of sales on this screen is computed live from each sales line’s stored cost at the chosen basis — this is the report that answers “how is KV-01 doing versus KV-05” honestly even before anything has journalled cost of sales. Click the cost-of-sales amount to see the Gross Profit listing by document behind it. Nothing is saved; if you want a permanent record, export the grid.

Watch out: if the report refuses the search outright as not authorised, look at your Financial Report CREATE grant, not READ. If that grant carries any branch or company targets, the server refuses every search, because the screen never sends it a company to check. The fix is the opposite of what you would guess: ask your administrator to grant CREATE without targets. The Branch picker showing fewer branches is a different check, on your READ grant, and it only shortens the list.

Step 8: Regenerate any snapshot if a back-dated entry lands

Main menu > Financial Reports > Financial Report > open the affected row > REGENERATE button (top right)

Snapshots are frozen at the moment you created them. If any back-dated journal posts into Q1 2026 after Step 3 (a common scenario: your accountant spots a misclassified RM 38,000 rental accrual a week later and corrects it), the original snapshot will still show the old numbers.

First re-process the month the correction landed in: open the March 2026 Month End Processing record, go to the Processor tab, and click PROCESS. That deletes March’s closing-day and opening-day journals and summary rows and rebuilds them from the journals as they now stand. Months chain: each month’s close starts from the opening journal the month before wrote on the 1st. So if the correction had landed in February, re-processing February alone would leave March stale. PROCESS February, then March, in that order, and repeat the Step 2 check for each. Then open the affected snapshot (say GS-Books Q1 2026), click REGENERATE in the top right, and confirm. BigLedger throws away every line in that snapshot and re-reads the summaries — the header (Set of Books, period) is preserved, so all your links and exports still point to the same record.

Watch out: Regenerate without re-processing changes nothing, because the snapshot reads the same stale summary rows again. The order is always PROCESS the month and every later month you have already closed, earliest first, then REGENERATE the snapshot.

Step 9: Export the three statements to Excel for the external accountant

Main menu > Financial Reports > Financial Report > open each row > REPORT button > Excel export

On the GS-Books Q1 2026 snapshot, switch to the Trial Balance tab and click the REPORT button at the top right — this opens the printable version of the tab you are on. Export it from the grid’s export menu as an Excel file.

Repeat for Profit And Loss and Balance Sheet. Do the same three exports for GSO-Books Q1 2026 and GSD-Books Q1 2026. You now have nine files — name them with the convention you use with your external accountant (for example GS-TB-Q1-2026.xlsx, GS-PL-Q1-2026.xlsx, GS-BS-Q1-2026.xlsx) and email them. Use the same approach for the GS-KV-01-versus-GS-KV-05 comparison from Step 7 if your manager wants it attached. If they want the three companies side by side, tick the three snapshots on the listing and click Reports — the comparison view puts them next to each other on Trial Balance, Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet tabs.

Watch out: there is no group consolidation here — one snapshot per Set of Books, and the comparison view is side-by-side, not a total. If your accountant wants a group figure, they add the three in the spreadsheet.

Step 10: Lock March 2026 so nothing slips back in

Main menu > Master Data > Chart of Account > Fiscal Year > March 2026 > set status to Lock GL

Once the external accountant has confirmed they have the files, set the March 2026 fiscal period status to Lock General Ledger (Lock GL). This stops anyone in the team from posting a fresh journal back into March — a common cause of “why does my Q1 number keep changing” panic. Do this for each of the three companies (GS, GSO, GSD).

Lock GL stops manual journals only — automatic journals from documents still post, and a purchase invoice can still be dated into March. Lock TXN is the opposite: it stops operational documents being finalised with a date in the month (stock transfers excepted) but lets a manual journal through. Lock All stops both, and is the one to use once the quarter is truly closed. If you discover a genuine adjustment is needed after locking, switch the period back to Open, post the correction, PROCESS the month again, Regenerate the snapshot (Step 8), and re-lock. Doing it this way means every adjustment is deliberate and traceable — not an accidental Friday-afternoon typo.

Watch out: there is no approval on reopening a period, and no separate permission inside the Chart of Account applet for it — anyone who can open that applet can set March back to Open. Keep the applet installed for the few people who close the books, and nobody else.

When you are done, run the whole quarter-end’s success check.

What success looks like for this part

The Profit Loss Report returned both branches, any snapshot a back-dated entry touched was re-processed and then regenerated, the three statements for each company are exported, and March carries the lock you chose.

Common mistakes in this part

Symptom	Cause	Fix
A back-dated correction your accountant posted yesterday is not showing in the snapshot you generated last week.	Snapshots are frozen photographs — they do not refresh by themselves, and neither do the month-end summary rows they read.	Open the Month End Processing record for the month the correction is dated in, Processor tab, PROCESS (that re-runs cost of goods sold, retained earnings and the close together), then PROCESS every later month you have already closed, in order. Then open the snapshot and click Regenerate. Regenerate on its own re-reads the same stale summaries.
Profit Loss Report refuses every search as not authorised.	Your Financial Report CREATE grant carries branch or company targets. The server then requires a permitted company in the request, and the screen never sends one.	Ask your administrator to grant CREATE without targets. Adding more targets does not help.
A branch you expected is missing from the Profit Loss Report’s Branch picker.	The picker lists the branches your Financial Report READ grant allows.	Ask your administrator to add that branch to your READ grant.