How to: Manage where bank accounts appear in the Balance Sheet

Did you know you can control where your bank accounts appear in the Balance Sheet? This is a handy technique to know when fine-tuning your balance sheet presentation.

Forecast Periods

For each Bank Account element, the Balance Sheet Reporting option in the Settings block lets you decide whether it should be reported:

• Assets: always as a Current Asset
• Liabilities: always as a Current Liability
• By Sign: switching between Current Asset and Current Liability depending on the account balance

This setting applies to Forecast periods, ie the months you can see in the Element Editor data entry areas. The default setting is By Sign.

Opening / Actuals Periods

The Opening & Actuals Balance Sheet data entry screen provides two data entry cells for every Bank Account element - one under Current Assets, the other under Current Liabilities. Because you decide where to enter the data, Castaway respects your choice and reports the bank balances under whichever heading you enter them. This happens regardless of the Balance Sheet Reporting setting for that element.

Considerations for Consolidations

When you consolidate forecasts, Castaway adds up all the bank balances shown in the subsidiary forecasts under Current Assets and reports them under Current Assets in the consolidated Balance Sheet. It does the same with balances shown under Current Liabilities. 

So, the Bank Account Reporting settings you use for each bank account in the subsidiary forecasts has an important effect on how the bank accounts are reported at consolidation level.