EBM reporting (detailed)

Modified on Thu, 14 Dec, 2023 at 11:48 AM

1. General

EBM stands for "Electronic Business Management".

The purpose of EBM reporting is the reporting of key figures from your company. This can be everything from chart of accounts and info about items in stock, to detailed info about time spent in the workshop on a specific type of vehicle. This is exported to a file which can be loaded into other systems for further processing.

2. Create a report setup

Navigate to "Import/export" from the main menu, and select the "EBM reporting" tab. To create a new report setup, go to the "EBM Report setup" tab and add a new by clicking the add button (+).

Image 2.1

Column	Description
Description	The name or description of the report setup.
Delimiter	The delimiter used in the generated file.
Filename	The filename of the file (including file-extension).
No incoming balances	Used not to include incoming balances in the auto-generated chart of accounts when using "Year-to-Date".
Sort by report group	With this enabled the sort order in the report will be by report group first, then by code. The same sort order is used in the codes grid (UI).

Table 2.1

Here is the report setup of the example we will be following in this article, named "Manual detailed".

Image 2.2

Click the expand arrow at the far left side of the grid to display a grid for specification of report columns which determines the layout of our exported file.

Image 2.3

Column

Description

Column order

Which order the column will occur in the printed file.

Column type

What type of information to print in this column, possible types:

Report code	The code as added in the "EBM Code setup" tab.
Report code description	The code description as added in the "EBM Code setup" tab.
Value YTD	The value generated by the code setup (more on that later) as YTD (Year-to-date) value.
GL period	The period the report has been requested for.
Fixed value	A fixed value that can be specified in the "Fixed value" column to the right.
Value period	The value generated by the code setup (more on that later), for the period the report was requested for.

Fixed value

Used as value if column type is "Fixed value".

Table 2.2

As seen in the picture above I've specified 3 columns, so here's an example of what our file might look like in the end if I have a report code "CODE1" with description "Report code 1" and a generated amount/quantity of 250:

CODE1;Report code 1;250

3. Create codes

In most cases codes will be specified by the party requesting the information (such as a vehicle importer) with a specification of what kind of value each code should report.

Adding of codes is done from the "EBM Code setup" tab. Add a new code by clicking the add button (+).

Image 3.1

Column

Description

Report group

Determines the kind of information the code will report, by controlling the available code types and filter types.

Report group	Source of value	Available code types	Available filter types
Finance	General ledger, typically used for reporting a trial balance (list of accounts with balance).	Amount	Dimension, GL account
Sales	General ledger, typically used to report vehicle sales numbers with separate codes for make/model (Dimension) and used/new (Entity state).	Amount, Quantity	Dimension, GL account, Entity state, Order type
		Entity purchase price, Entity cost	Dimension, GL account, Entity state
Stock	Entities in stock, typically used to list numbers of vehicles in stock, with separate codes for how long they have been in stock for (Age), make/model (Dimension), used/new (Entity state), or other.	Amount, Quantity	Dimension, Age, Customer, Entity state
Parts	Invoices, typically used to report part sales/cost, with separate codes for internal/external sale (Accounting rule), item category (Item group), or other.	Amount, Cost, Quantity	Accounting rule, Item group, Posting type, Order type, Supplier, Item group EBM code
Service	Invoices, typically used to report workshop related sales, cost, or time tracking. Often separated by internal/external (Accounting rule).	Amount, Cost, Quantity	Dimension, Accounting rule, Item group, Posting type
		Quantity	Dimension, Accounting rule, Item group, Posting type, Order type
		Hours	Resource group
		Productive hours	Resource group, Accounting rule, Dimension, Posting type
		Fixed value	Fixed value

Table 3.1.1

Code

A (preferably) unique identifier for this particular code. Codes that have the same identifier and are not an autogen. code will have it's values aggregated into one (one row in the file).

Description

A short description of what the code will report.

Autogen. type

For specifying automatic generation of values, more on that here (TODO: Create separate article).

Code type

The kind of value the code will report. Availability depends on Report group as shown in Table 3.1.1.

Quantity	E.g. quantity in stock, number of invoices, quantity of items sold.
Amount	E.g. account balance, total sales.
Cost	E.g. total cost on sales, total cost of entities in stock.
Hours	E.g. hours clocked in workshop.
Productive hours	E.g. hours clocked in workshop that are invoiced.
Fixed	E.g. hourly labor rate.

Table 3.1.2

Reverse sign

Used to reverse the sign of the values generated for the code.

Node in Makes and models hieararchy

Used only for Autogen. type "Makes and models". More on that here (TODO: Create separate article or use the same on as for Autogen.type).

Detail levels

Used only for Autogen. type "Makes and models". More on that here (TODO: Create separate article or use the same on as for Autogen.type).

Split by model type

Used only for Autogen. type "Makes and models". More on that here (TODO: Create separate article or use the same on as for Autogen.type).

Filters

An accumulated string of the filters specified for this code, as can be set up in the filters grid for each code.

Table 3.1

4. Adding filters to codes

Click the expand arrow at the far left side of the code grid to display a grid for specification of filters. The layout (what columns are displayed) of this grid will depend on the selected Report group shown in Table 3.1.1.

Image 4.1

The filters determine what your generated value will be, but it's not always easy to know which combinations of Report group, Code type, and Filter types to use. Read more about all the possible combinations and what they result in here.

Some notes about filters:

Filter type	Note
GL account	If you find yourself creating a lot of codes with this filter alone, consider looking into autogenerated codes (TODO: Article...)
Dimension	In the context of being linked to entities we typically use dimensions for make and model to be able to group codes according to this. For report groups that don't necessarily access the general ledger when generating values, and we are interested in connection to entities (vehicles), we are looking for the dimension of the model of the entity. This can be set up in "Makes and models".
Item group	This has the additional property "Only primary groups" which allows you to only include items which have the specified item groups as primary group.
Resource group	Often used to distinguish the resources working in the workshop and/or bodyshop.
Customer	Primarily internal customers.
Entity state	Typically used to allow separate codes for new and used entities (vehicles).
Age	Is always specified in days.
Accounting rule	Typically used to allow separate codes for internal and external sale.
Posting rule	Typically used to allow separate codes for warranty.
Order type	Typically used to allow separate codes for workshop, entity sale, and part sales.
Fixed	Beneficial for values that are needed in the receiving system, such as a fixed workshop labor rate.
Supplier	Typically used to only get information about parts from a specific supplier.
Item group EBM code	Is specified on the Item group, and can be used for advanced filtering of item groups on Parts code.