Tutorials


21st Century Accounting Tutorials - General Ledger

Changing Captions on Financial Reports

You cannot change the account categories (like Cash Equivalent, Income, Operating Expense, and so on) in the Chart of Accounts because those categories are essential as categorizations for accounting purposes. You can, however, change the category names ("Captions")on financial reports at any time, as well as add and remove Captions.

The Captions on the financial reports are specified in the financial report template that the report is based on, and they are easily modifiable. For example, to change the Captions on your Trial Balance reports, follow these steps:

  1. Run the General Ledger/Configure/Financial Report Templates command.

  2. Double-click the Trial Balance folder in the left pane.

  3. Highlight the Default Trial Balance template in the left pane. Right-click the mouse or press the Windows Menu key (right of the Windows Icon key to the right of the Spacebar) for the options menu and select Copy.

  4. In the Report template name field, type whatever name you wish over "Copy of Default Trial Balance."

  5. Tab down into the workspace.

  6. Highlight the Caption you want to change. You can open Captions by clicking the "+" to the left of the Caption to see subCaptions or click the Show All button to see all Captions, subCaptions, and included accounts. Once you've highlighted the Caption you want to change, right-click it to see the available options. Choose "Modify F2" to change the highlighted Caption. (Or choose "Insert F9" to insert a new Caption under the highlighted one.)

  7. In the Caption Properties window, you can change the wording of the Caption and of its subtotal label. You can change several print formatting attributes as well. Change the properties you want changed.

  8. Click OK in the Caption Properties window.

  9. Repeat for each Caption that you want to change (or insert).

  10. After changing all the Captions you want changed, click the OK button in the Financial Report Templates window.

  11. After changing all the templates you want changed, click the Save Changes button.

Trial Balance reports based on the changed templates will now show the new Captions you entered in the templates.

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