PDF & Excel Export
Statements get shared — with the board, the bank, the auditor, the spreadsheet. Once a report has run and returned data, three export buttons appear beside Run Report: Export PDF, Export CSV, Export Excel. Same engine, same numbers, three audiences. (No report on screen, no buttons — and switching Report Type clears the result, so export before you switch.)
Access you'll need. Any REDA Financials permission set can open the Financial Center tab, run a statement and export it; what an export contains is limited to the records your role can read.
Choosing the format
| Format | Character | Reach for it when… |
|---|---|---|
| Presentation-grade: your entity's letterhead (logo, name, address), one clean page-section per period and entity, a "Confidential" footer and a generated-by stamp. Opens in a new tab, ready to save or print. | Board packs, banks, auditors — anywhere the document represents the company | |
| Excel | A styled workbook: branded headers, red negatives, frozen panes, real number formatting. The trial balance keeps all four balance columns. | Colleagues who'll read and lightly work the numbers |
| CSV | Plain rows with a metadata header (report, entities, dates, currency, framework, timestamp). Trial balance flattens to net movement per entity. | Feeding tools — consolidation models, BI, scripts |
The PDF, up close
Export PDF opens the document in a new browser tab (no download toast — the tab is the result), ready to save or print. The layout is portrait, with one clean page-section per period and entity combination — a two-period, two-entity income statement arrives as four tidy statement pages rather than one impossible grid. The header carries the entity's letterhead — logo, company name, address, from entity branding — and the footer carries "Confidential" and a "Generated by …" stamp naming the user and date: who produced it, and when, on the document itself.
The CSV, up close
The CSV downloads as Trial_Balance.csv, Income_Statement.csv, and so on, and is built for machines with a courtesy to humans — its first row records the full scope before any numbers appear:
- Metadata row — report type, the entities, the date ranges, the currency, the framework ("Taxonomy" when none was selected), and a generated timestamp. Your scope, in writing.
- A blank row, then headers — "Account Code", "Account Name", one amount column per period and entity, "Total" and "Variance" columns when the run had them.
- Group and account rows, indented to show the hierarchy, closing with the Grand Total row.
The Excel, up close
Export Excel downloads a styled workbook (Trial_Balance.xls etc.): navy header rows, negatives in red, frozen header panes so the columns stay put while you scroll, and real number formatting. The trial balance keeps its full four-column layout per entity — Opening Balance, Period Debit, Period Credit, Closing Balance — and grand-total and variance rows come along wherever the screen had them. CSV and Excel confirm with a success toast; the PDF simply opens.
Worth knowing
- Exports honor the exact filter state — entities, periods, labels, dimensions, currency mode, framework. Configure once; every format tells the same story.
- Filenames follow the report (Trial_Balance.xls, Income_Statement.csv) — label your date ranges and the column headers explain themselves.
- The PDF's letterhead comes from entity branding — the same identity block your invoices carry.
- Account statements are separate: a customer or vendor statement of account exports from the Account Ledger screen, not from here.
Common mistakes to avoid
| Mistake | Why it hurts | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Sending the CSV to the board | It's the machine format — unstyled, and the trial balance flattened to net movement per entity | PDF for representing the company, Excel for working colleagues, CSV for tools |
| Re-running months later and expecting last quarter's file | Statements compute live; late entries in open periods legitimately shift a re-run | Export and file at each close — the PDF's generated-on stamp is your evidence of what was reported when |
| Switching Report Type before exporting | Switching clears the on-screen result, and the export buttons with it | Export first; the buttons only exist while a report with data is on screen |
| Exporting comparison runs with unlabeled ranges | Columns of bare dates make the recipient guess which period is which | Label the date ranges ("Q1", "Q2") — labels become the column headers in every format |
| Editing the exported numbers "just to tidy" | The file stops matching the ledger, and the discrepancy surfaces at the worst moment — in front of an auditor | Fix presentation in the source: a reporting framework gives you the layout so the export needs no hand-editing |
Where to go next
- Report Filters & Dimensions — the configuration the exports capture.
- Executive / AR / AP Dashboards — always-on views vs point-in-time exports.
- Entity-Specific Branding — the letterhead on the PDF.
Frequently asked questions
The workbook uses a broadly compatible spreadsheet format that some Excel versions greet with a compatibility prompt; the content opens fine. Save-as .xlsx afterwards if your tooling prefers it.
CSV is the machine format — TB flattens to one net-movement amount per entity for easy ingestion. Humans get the four-column layout in Excel and PDF.
Exports are on-demand from the Financial Center. For a scheduled push, build the equivalent Salesforce report (packaged report types) and use report subscriptions — different tool, same ledger.
They exist only while a report with data is on screen. If you switched the Report Type (which clears the result), changed filters, or the run returned "No data found for the selected parameters", there's nothing to export yet — run again first.
Yes — exports capture the run's full state: entities, ledgers, periods and labels, framework, dimension filters, currency mode, zero-balance pruning, and the Total and Variance columns where the run had them. What you configured is what every format tells.
Yes — the PDF renders into a new browser tab for immediate review, and you save or print from there. CSV and Excel download directly and confirm with a toast.
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