For experienced Lucanet users, moving from the Financial Client to the Web Client can take some getting used to. Features that you have been finding almost automatically for years may be located elsewhere in the Web Client or work slightly differently.
Analyzing figures is a good example. How do you change the number format? Where do you configure amounts to be displayed in thousands? How do you hide dimension elements without values? And how do you switch between periods or reporting entities in the columns?
In this first article in our series about working with the Lucanet Web Client, we cover several practical settings that can help you make your reports clearer and easier to analyze.
The first setting determines how numbers are displayed.
In the bottom-left corner of the Web Client, click your user name and then open Formatting preferences.
Here, you can define your personal preferences for displaying numbers. For example, you can configure how periods and commas are used for thousands and decimal separators.
The default setting uses the US number format. Many European Lucanet users will therefore want to change this setting.
Depending on the selected format, the same amount can be displayed as 1.250,50 or 1,250.50. The underlying value in Lucanet does not change; only the way the number is presented is adjusted.
Arithma tip: the setting in the Web Client is often also applied when you open Lucanet through the Software Manager. It is therefore useful to configure this preference directly in the Web Client.
In addition to your personal number format, worksheets under Reporting and Analysis have their own display settings. These settings determine how figures and dimensions are presented within a report, including whether values are shown in thousands, the number of decimals and the suppression of zero values.
In the Web Client, you can find the option for changing these settings here:
Within these settings, you can configure, among other things:
For example, an amount of €12.450.000 can be displayed as €12.450 when the report is set to show values in thousands.
For a management report, you may also choose to display no decimals, while a more detailed analysis may require one or two decimal places.
Hiding dimension elements with zero values can also be very useful. A report may, for example, contain many reporting entities, cost centers or other dimension elements for which no values exist in the selected period.
By hiding these elements, the report remains compact and you can identify the relevant parts of the analysis more quickly.
These settings do not change the underlying data in Lucanet. They only determine how the figures are presented in the report.
As in the Financial Client, the period is displayed in the columns by default in the Web Client.
The location of the function used to place reporting entities, partners or valuation dimensions in the columns has changed, however.
In the Web Client, this option can be found under Change Display.
This allows you to modify the structure of your analysis and, for example, move another dimension to the columns.
There is an important point to consider for users moving from the Financial Client to the Web Client.
Not every configured view is automatically available in the Web Client. When configuring a view, it therefore needs to be explicitly enabled for use in the Web Client.
If a familiar view does not appear in the Web Client, this does not necessarily mean that the functionality is missing. First check the configuration to determine whether the relevant view has been made available for use in the Web Client.
It is a relatively small setting, but an important one to consider when an organization is preparing the transition from the Financial Client to the Web Client.
Some views cannot yet be activated in the Web Client. This applies, for example, to views that contain an exchange-rate column.
For users who have worked with the Financial Client for many years, the Web Client initially requires some adjustment. Many features are familiar, but their location or operation may be different.
At Arithma, we actively test the Web Client from the perspective of users who work with Consolidation & Financial Planning on a daily basis.
Our advice is to start using the Web Client alongside the Financial Client now. For example, open a report you know well and try to perform the same analysis entirely in the browser.
Experiment with the number format, display settings and different report views. This will not only help you learn where familiar functionality is located, but also show you how to analyze reports efficiently in the Web Client.
This article is the first part of our series on working with the Lucanet Web Client.
In the next articles, we will cover topics including:
Do you have questions while working with the Web Client? Feel free to contact Arithma.
We are actively testing the new environment and help organizations prepare for the transition from the Financial Client to the Web Client.