Accounting policies and disclosures work similarly in Active Ledger. They can be customised on three levels:
- Master Notes (managed by Active Ledger)
- Firm Notes (managed by your firm)
- File Notes (managed by users for each client file)
This article will cover customising client-specific policies and disclosures. By default, they will be prepopulated by Active Ledger master notes and any of the firm's changes or updates to those notes. The article covers the following topics:
- Adding a new policy or disclosure
- Policy and disclosure variants
- Editing policies, disclosures and their variants
- Using policies and disclosures in reports
To access policies and disclosures for a specific client file, select Accounting Policies or Disclosure Templates from the File Settings menu from any screen, as shown below:
Adding a new policy or disclosure
Adding a new accounting policy
Accounting policies are separated into general and numbered policies. To add a new policy for this client click on + New Policy.
The following table details the new policy fields:
| Field | Description | Validation |
|---|---|---|
| Name | The name of the policy which will appear in the financial report. | Required |
| Location (dropdown menu) | Sets which section the note appears within the notes. | Required Two options: - General - Numbered Notes |
| Description | This is an internal description that provides users with the gist of the note. | |
| Show by Default (dropdown menu) | Sets the default display of the note. | Three options: - If Related Account Type Appears - Always - Never |
| Default When any of the following Account Types appear | Sets the account type that the above field looks for to display the note. More than one account type can be selected. | Appears when "If Related Account Type Appears" is selected above. |
After the basics of the policy have been completed select Save. This will bring up the variants section (see below).
Adding a new disclosure
To add a new disclosure for this client click on + New Disclosure Template.
The following table details the new disclosure fields:
| Field | Description | Validation |
|---|---|---|
| Name | The name of the disclosure which will appear in the financial report. | Required |
| Description | This is an internal description that provides users with the gist of the note. | |
| Show by Default (dropdown menu) | Sets the default display of the note. | Four options: - If Linked Account Appears - If Related Account Type Appears - Always - Never |
| Default When any of the following Account Types appear | Sets the account type which the above field looks for to display the note. More than one account type can be selected. | Appears when "If Related Account Type Appears" is selected above. |
After the basics of the disclosure have been completed select Save. This will bring up the variants section.
Policy and disclosure variants
Policy and disclosure variants represent the content of the policy or disclosure. Variants enable you to modify the note based on factors such as:
- The financial reporting framework
- The financial period to which the disclosure will relate
- Whether the disclosure could differ based on client context and/or management discretion
You can add multiple variants for different reporting suites and/or entity types. After clicking on Add Disclosure Template Variant or Add Policy Variant the following fields will be available:
| Field | Description | Validation |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Name of variant. Normally this would be a defining attribute. | Required |
| Description | This is an internal description that provides users with the gist of the note. | |
| Application Date | The date from which the note will apply. | Date picker |
| Earliest Application Date | May optionally apply to reporting periods beginning on or after this date. | Date picker |
| Expiry Date | The note will not apply to reporting periods after this date. | Date picker |
| Requires Customisation? (checkbox) | Only available for disclosures. If checked the disclosure is unable to be automated and must be edited by the user. | |
| Reporting Suites (dropdown menu) | Selects which reporting suite the variant will belong to. More than one suite can be selected. | Three master options: - Simple - GPFR Simplified Disclosures - 2022 - SPFR - 2021 |
| Entity Types (dropdown menu) | Selects which entity type to display the variant for. More than one can be selected. | Default - applies to all entities |
| Link to Accounts | Only available for disclosures. Can automatically add the disclosure when the relevant account appears in the financial report. For more information see below. | |
| Content Fields | Allows entity-specific details to be added to a firm-wide note. For more information see the knowledge article: Content Fields. | |
| Content | This is the content of the note that will be displayed in the report. For more information on how to build content within disclosures, see the knowledge article: Report Content Editor. |
Adding a linked account to a disclosure
For Active Ledger to automatically add the disclosure when a relevant account appears in the financial report, you need to select these accounts when creating the disclosure. To do this, click on the + Add Linked Account button. This will open up a dialogue screen with the following fields:
| Field | Description | Validation |
| Account (dropdown menu) | Required | |
| Link Option | Determines how the note will be displayed in the report. | Required Two options: Link Only - choose to show or hide detail (see below) Append Details - displays the header total in the body of the report and the financial detail and 'Content' in the note |
| Force Link Option (checkbox) | If checked this prevents the user from being able to change the link option. | |
| Account Display Option | Only available if 'Link Only' is chosen as the link option Two options: Show - displays the financial information in the body of the report and the 'Content' of the disclosure in the note Hide - displays the header total in the body of the report and the 'Content' of the disclosure in the note. | |
| Placeholder Identifier |
After completing all the required fields select Save. This will save the disclosure variant into the system. It is possible to add many variants to each policy and disclosure. However, we recommend adding as few as possible.
Editing policies, disclosures, and their variants
Editing a custom policy or disclosure template
To edit an existing policy or disclosure click on it and make any required changes. The same fields are available for edit as those available when adding a new policy or disclosure. Once all the required changes have been made click on Save.
Editing a master policy or disclosure template
A master template is unable to be edited outright. However, you can perform a customisation process on it. This creates a new variant of the whole policy or disclosure. The benefit of this process is that if the Standards update and Active Ledgerupdates the default policy or disclosure you can revert or merge any changes to the customisations that have been made.
To customise a master template, click on the policy or disclosure and then on the Customise button at either the top or bottom of the screen. This will enable you to edit and allows you to add, edit or remove variants.
Editing a policy or disclosure variant
To customise an existing master or firm variant, first select the relevant policy or disclosure and click on Customise. Then select the Customise button at either the top or the bottom of the screen IN the variant you wish to edit.
After saving the new customised variant, you will be able to track changes to the content component by comparing to the master version as shown below:
To delete the customised version and revert to the original master select Delete Customised Version. To maintain the current customised version select Save.
It is possible to distinguish between edited/created and master policies and disclosures in the list. Edited and created policies and disclosures have a menu icon to the left while masters have an 'archive' icon to the right.
Using policies and disclosures in reports
Viewing policies and disclosures in a report
To view the policies and disclosures that will appear in the report, first ensure that the correct reporting suite is chosen for the report. To do this, create a new report (or use an existing template) in the Reports tab and then navigate to the 'Notes to the Financial Statements' page in the pages section of the report. Click on the blue Customise button to the right. Select the relevant suite from the dropdown menu.
This will make available all disclosures saved to that reporting suite. It will also automatically link any disclosures that have been set to appear when the relevant account/account types are present (as shown by the wand icon in the image below).
To access the accounting policies you will need to untick the Automatically Select Accounting Policies checkbox.
Editing policies and disclosures in a report
Policies and disclosures can also be edited on a per report basis. Before generating a report, navigate to the 'Notes to the Financial Statements' page and click on the blue Customise button to the right.
From here you have the ability to choose whether the policy or disclosure display is set to Auto, Yes or No. If multiple variants exist for the note you can select the relevant one using the dropdown menu. Clicking on the Customise checkbox of the relevant policy or disclosure will bring up an Edit Content button (see image above). This will enable you to make any required changes. You will be able to track the changes to the template by comparing to the original version as shown below:
Note: Content can be edited in the same way as all other reports. For more information see the knowledge article: Report Content Editor.
Content fields in reports
If a content field was created it will appear underneath the relevant policy or disclosure. A red exclamation mark will be present if the content field has been set to mandatorily interact with the field (see below) and will disappear once you have filled in the content. The field may or may not already be ticked depending on the setup.
Note: If you fail to interact with a mandatory field a warning will appear in the generated report.
Clicking on the checkbox will enable you to enter any relevant information for the policy or disclosure. The placeholder text should guide the input required.
For more information of creating and using content fields see the knowledge article: Content Fields.
Linking disclosures in a report
To link a disclosure that has not been automatically added, click on the Click to Link button next to the relevant account header on the relevant page (e.g. Balance Sheet). This will bring up a dialogue screen where you can select the disclosure. Doing so will then allow you to choose the Link Option. If Append Detail is chosen you can also add a Placeholder Identifier if required. Select Save to link the disclosure.
Note: If the link option was set to 'Force Link Option' when the disclosure was created (see the 'Adding a linked account' section above), changing the link option here will not override the one set at creation.
Disclosures that have been linked manually will not display the wand icon. The difference is shown below:
