Add report flexibility with Contra Asset Accounts

The Contra Assets Accounts feature gives you added reporting clarity and flexibility for:

• Receivable accounts that receive credit amounts
• Payable accounts that receive debit amounts

The feature overcomes the limitation of standard Business Central reports, which requires that both credit and debit balances of an account are shown in the related account category. Instead the Contra Assets Account feature allows you to show, for example:

• Credit balance amounts on a customer G/L account in the liabilities category
• Debit balance amounts on a vendor G/L account in the assets category
• Bank accounts which end this reporting period in negative balance

This eliminates the need to create manual postings at the end and beginning of reporting periods, to show balance amounts that can be both liabilities and assets.

Extra fields in Row Definition

You use the Contra Asset Accounts feature by configuring the extra fields in the Row Definition page of each financial report.

The Balance Position field includes four options.

• Assets Each shows only the debit balance of a G/L account.
• Liabilities Each shows only the credit balance of a G/L account.
• Assets Group shows only the debit balance of a group of G/L accounts
• Liabilities Group shows only the credit balance of a group of G/L accounts

The checkbox for the column Separate Assets and Liabilities, when enabled, will display separate balances for debit amounts in the asset category and credit amounts in the liabilities category.

If the checkbox is not enabled, report cells show as empty for credit balances in the assets category, and debit balances in the liabilities category.

The report here shows the effect of the Row Definition set up above. Note that the Standard category is a simple balance sheet report, and the Assets and Liabilities categories show the same set of accounts, but use the Contra Asset Accounts feature to differently display debits and credits.

Video

Follow along with a tour of the Contra Asset Accounts feature in Continia finance.

More resources

Contra asset accounts (Continia Docs article)