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Understanding Reports and Dashboards
Understanding Reports and Dashboards

Reports and Dashboards let you create Visualizations and Report on your financials.

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Written by Support
Updated over 11 months ago

Visualizations are a key way to track company performance, report on strategic goals, and measure success.

With Reports you can:

  • Create an Executive Summary

  • Track and share Department specific financials

  • View a real-time spend analysis

  • Track a live report of Budget vs Actuals

  • Report top-line numbers with external investors or your board with a written storyline

  • Create a monthly Reporting package with notes

  • Embed financials or external files from Google Sheets or Slides

Adding a Chart

In a Dashboard, you have edit access to:

  • Click the + Add button in the top right of a Dashboard page

  • Give your new Chart a name

  • Select the Chart type such as Callout, Line, Table, Note, and others.

  • Select the Chart size

  • Add one or more line items from your repository of metrics to plot

Specify the Time Range for your Visualizations

Sometimes you may want to limit your visualization's time range, such as solely viewing the current fiscal year or the last quarter.

In the top-right of the Dashboard, click on the time-range drop-down and set the date range to view.

Adding a Top-level Summary for your Dashboard

At the top of every Dashboard, you have the chance to add a descriptive summary or note.

You may use this space as you wish, many financial teams find it useful to utilize this space to:

  • explain how to use the dashboard or report

  • callout high-level tasks or checklists for monthly reporting

  • explain the high-level story of how the visualizations should be interpreted

Adding Embedded Context and Notes to Charts

A special type of "Chart" is the Freeform Note. This is similar to the Dashboard level note, except it provides a space to embed context alongside your charts.

In the example below we can explain the sudden spike in Income for a month and the latter drop.

Modifying your Chart Views

Charts are highly configurable. From a chart click on "..." and select Modify View.

From here you'll be presented with various options to change the type of chart, size, as well as what data to display.

Chart View Options

Time Series

This affects the time-range axis for your data, you can view metrics grouped

  • Monthly

  • Quarterly

  • Yearly

Use current actuals value if available

If checked, this will plot all available actuals numbers including actuals for the current month which may not be finalized yet.

Include historical forecasts

If checked, this will plot historical forecast numbers for months that have already been rolled over and closed within Basis.

Line item Period Value

In Basis, we call a "Period" either a month, a quarter, or a year. When plotting Quarterly and Yearly Periods you can set how your monthly data is aggregated and displayed.

For example, in the Chart below we show Quarterly values for Total Income and Total Expenses. If instead, we wished to see what the Average Income and Expenses were per Quarter, we can set the Period Value to show the Average of Period.

Options include:

  • Sum of Period: The sum of all months in the Period

  • Start of Period: Displays the first month in the Period

  • End of Period: Displays the last month in the Period

  • Average of Period: Displays the average value for the Period

  • Period to Date: Displays the sum of the period to date (depending on your Fiscal Year configuration)

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