Amending a Financial Report in SAS Solution for IFRS 17
Introduction
The SAS Solution for IFRS 17 leverages the robust capabilities of SAS Visual Analytics to deliver impactful financial and management reporting. SAS Visual Analytics simplifies the creation and dissemination of reports and dashboards that track business, managerial, and financial performance. This article demonstrates how to create a custom financial report within the Detailed Postings report, leveraging two essential output tables from the SAS IFRS 17 solution’s calculation and accounting processes: IFRS17_SL_JOURNAL_FLAT and IFRS17_SL_BALANCE_FLAT. These tables provide the foundational data necessary for generating comprehensive financial insights and supporting IFRS 17 compliance. While this article is particularly relevant during the solution development and implementation phase, it also worth noticing that reports in a production environment can be easily modified using similar steps. This flexibility ensures that the reporting process remains adaptable and responsive to evolving business needs, even after deployment.
It assumes a foundational understanding of the SAS Solution for IFRS 17 on SAS Risk Stratum and SAS Visual Analytics. Users should be familiar with the basic steps involved in adding pages, importing data, and assigning data or object roles within SAS Visual Analytics.
|
You can obtain more information on SAS Risk Stratum and SAS Solution for IFRS 17 and SAS Visual Analytics through the following training programs.
Business Overview of SAS® Solution for IFRS 17
SAS® Visual Analytics 1 for SAS®9: Basics
|
Detailed Postings Report
This is one of the important reporting outputs that is used for analysing postings in the solution. The report consists of two key pages: Detailed Journal Entries and Balance Verification. The Detailed Journal Entries page allows you to view debit and credit entries for a specified period, covering all relevant accounting events. It also provides essential insurance contract group details, along with the ability to filter and subset accounting entries based on specific insurance contract groups.
The Balance Verification page presents a summary of balances, showing the amounts entered in both credit and debit entries, based on the selected filtering criteria. This page ensures that users can verify balances efficiently and accurately.
This report can be filtered by:
- Entity
- Reporting Date
- Scenario ID
- Insurance Contract Group ID
- Insurance Contract Subgroup ID
- Reporting Entity Filters: Ledger Basis Code / Reporting Entity Level 1/ Reporting Entity Level 2/ Reporting Entity Level 3
Illustration of Detailed Posting Report
Select any image to see a larger version.
Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.
The steps in this article can also be used for adding or amending reports in the Financial Dashboard which has the following reports.
- Balance Sheet
- Statement of Comprehensive Income
- Movement Analysis by Component (Gross)
- Movement Analysis by Component (Ceded)
- Production – All Movements
- Differences between CSM calculations and SLAM Posting
- Comparison of Journal and GL Postings
We shall amend the detailed postings report as an illustration in the article.
High Level Steps
The users who customize SAS Visual Analytics reports must have the necessary Edit access rights and roles for both metadata access as well as for SAS Risk and Governance Framework. A user with read-only rights can add only comments to various objects in the reports but cannot customize the reports themselves. The following figure describes the high level steps involved in amending the report.
High Level Illustration of Steps
Add a New Page
You must add a new page to the detailed postings report. Any report in SAS Visual Analytics can have multiple pages. Multiple pages can be used to present different views of the data. Each page can have one or more data sources. You can have one or more objects on a page.
The report can be found on
- SAS Solution for IFRS 17: Dashboard > “Detailed Postings” Tab or
- SAS Visual Analytics: “IFRS17 - Detailed Postings”
You must access the report through SAS Visual Analytics from the predefined server location. Here is an example of such a location.
Illustration of SAS IFRS 17 Visual Analytics Report Location
There is no limit to the number of pages in a report. You must access the report on the server and select Edit report in the Menu and click the New Page (+) icon. Note that you can rename the newly created page to Journal vs Balance by double-clicking the name.
Illustration of "Edit Report"
Illustration of "New Page"
Add Data Sources
You must add the data sources to your report. The required tables are loaded beforehand are readily available for adding to an existing or new report. You must click Data object in the left pane and then click Actions and select Add Data Source and select IFRS17_SL_BALANCE_FLAT table. Note that the table IFRS17_SL_JOURNAL_FLAT is already there.
Illustration of Adding a Data Source
Both tables are essential in the IFRS 17 reporting process, with the journal table is focused on debit and credit entries finally feeding into the general ledger and the balance output table supporting high-level financial reporting and disclosures for a given accounting period. Note that the underlying data for these two tables is gathered in a different manner from the source results and that the IFRS17_SL_BALANCE_FLAT table is not a simple subset of the IFRS17_SL_JOURNAL_FLAT table.
Add Cross Tabs
You must add two cross tab objects from the left panel. You can select the cross tab object from the Objects menu and assign IFRS17_SL_JOURNAL_FLAT to the left tab and IFRS17_SL_BALANCE_FLAT to the right tab. Using the property panel on the right you must assign the following roles.
For Columns, select all the variables associated with GL Account Level (Level1 to Level 6)
For Rows, select GL Account Description
For Measures, select Balance Amount (RC)
Illustration of Role Assignment
Map Variables
A side-by-side report is ready based on the two tables. For this report to work with the global filters at the top of the report, you must map the variables between the two tables. Variables can be mapped only when the columns from the two corresponding tables have identical data points. Multiple variables can be used to map data between the tables, with the more variables used in the mapping process, the better. You must click Data object in the left pane and then click Actions and select Map Data Sources. In the Map Data Sources window.
Illustration of Mapping Data Sources
Illustration of Mapping Variables
Apply Filters
After mapping you can try any filter like a Date based filter and check the filtered values in both the tables. You can also add appropriate titles to your cross tabs using the property panel on right. Select Options > Objects > Title > Custom Title > Enter Title
Illustration of Filters and Titles.
Save and Test
You must save the report and check the Dashboard Workspace. The report should now be available in the workspace.
Conclusion
The article outlines a series of steps for modifying existing SAS Visual Analytics reports for the SAS Solution for IFRS 17, enabling you to experiment with and test new reports tailored to your specific needs, ultimately enhancing their overall impact. These steps are not only valuable during the development and implementation phases of the SAS Solution for IFRS 17 but can also be seamlessly applied to reports already in a production environment. This flexibility ensures continuous improvement and adaptation of reports to meet evolving business requirements. For more details refer to the documentation of the solution available at Documentation for SAS Solution for IFRS 17
Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here.
