Account Watch Widget

The Account Watch widget allows viewing of all areas of the company's financial information. It can be configured to display any account within the general ledger, including headers and computed accounts such as gross profit, net profit and operating profit for a specific period. It can also be configured to display information relating to branch (if branches are enabled), sub-branch or GL department.

Periods include days, weeks, months, quarters, years. The widget will display results which can be compared to the same/different account over the same/previous period.

An extremely powerful feature of the Account Watch widget is the MAT function. MAT stands for Moving Average Total. When looking at a year of information, this is also known as Moving Annual Total.

Moving average is a technique to obtain an overall idea of the trends in a dataset. It is an average of any subset of numbers. The moving average is extremely useful for forecasting long-term trends. It can be calculated for any period of time. For example, having sales data for a twenty-year period, it is possible to calculate a five-year moving average, a four-year moving average, a three-year moving average, etc.

Click Configure to open the Account Watch Widget Options screen, where what should be seen can be defined.

Group	Option	Description
Widget Settings	Caption	This is the caption that will be displayed at the top of the widget. Example: Assets vs Liabilities FY (financial year).
Widget Settings	Refresh	The widget's refresh interval in minutes. It is suggested not to set this too low, eg. set to 15 minutes or higher.
Chart Settings	Chart Type	Choose from: Bar Line Area
	Show Labels	Shows description and value above each point of the chart. If not ticked, the label will be displayed as a hint when hovering over a graph point.
	Palette	Select the colour palette that will be used in the graph.
	Point Size	The size of the graph's points. Default = 2. Try 8 or 10 on smaller graphs. 2 points: 10 points:
Period	Days	Default is 365. Use up/down arrows to change number of days.
	Weeks	Default is 1. Use up/down arrows to change number of weeks.
	Months	Default is 3. Use up/down arrows to change months.
	Quarters	Default is 1. Use up/down arrows to change quarters.
	Years	Default is 1. Use up/down arrows to change calendar years.
	Fin Years	Default is 1. Use up/down arrows to change financial years.
	Exclude current period	Tick to exclude the current period from any results for a chosen period, eg. if Months is set to 1 and this box is not ticked, the current month will be shown. If it is ticked, the previous month will be shown.
Account	Account	Display the selected general ledger account as the graph's first series of data.
	Gross Profit	Display gross profit as the graph's first series of data.
	Operating Profit	Display operating profit as the graph's first series of data.
	Net Profit	Display net profit as the graph's first series of data.
	Actual	Tick to display the actual (real) account figures.
	MAT	Tick to display the MAT (using MAT options below) account figures.
Compare	Don't Compare	Display only the graph's first series of data.
	Last Period	Compare to data from last period. Example: If Period = This Month, comparison = Last Month.
	Same Period Last Year	Compare to data from same period last year.
	Account	Compare to data from a different general ledger account.
Compare to Account	Account	Compare against the selected general ledger account, or leave blank to compare against the same account.
	Gross Profit	Compare against gross profit.
	Operating Profit	Compare against operating profit.
	Net Profit	Compare against net profit.
	Actual	Tick to display the actual (real) account figures in the comparison.
	MAT	Tick to display the MAT (using MAT options below) account figures in the comparison.
Other	Display	Group and display data by selection: daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly.
	Accumulative Total	Display data as an accumulative total. Example: when displaying a P&L account, the data will start at zero and will be added together for the period selected.
	MAT Period	The number of periods used in MAT calculations. Example: when displayed by months, 3 would be the total of the current month and the previous two months.
	MAT Avg	Display MAT as an average (rather than a total). Example: 50 + 100 + 60 = 210, then 210÷3 = 70
	Show Balance in Jim2	Displays the balance of the selected account or the gross profit, operating profit or net profit (whichever of these has been selected in account options).
Branches*	Branch (if branches are enabled)	Filter P&L account data by a specific branch.
	Sub-Branch	Filter P&L account data by a specific sub-branch.
	GL Dept	Filter P&L account data by a specific GL Department.

Multiple Account Watch widgets can be added to see the entire financial position of the company, along with trends. It is suggested to configure several dashboard tabs to cover the various financial aspects of the business.

All data displayed in the Account Watch widget comes directly from the Transaction Journal. Any information within the widget can be compared directly to information displayed within the Profit & Loss and Balance Sheets. Any general ledger account, including headers and computed accounts, such as net profit, can be selected and displayed.

Try comparing a Stock GL Group's income account vs its COGS account. Or total income (header account 4-0000) vs expenses (header account 6-0000).

Try viewing the current bank balance or the cash assets (all bank accounts and unbanked funds) over a specific period.

Depending on the type of business, when looking for trends it is normal to look at data over a year. In this case try setting the period to Fin Year = 1 or Days = 365.

The Moving Average Total (MAT) feature is particularly useful here. For example, try displaying a profit account and tick both Actual and MAT. In the Other section of Options, set Display to Monthly, the MAT period to 3 and tick MAT Avg.

The widget will now show a year's worth of data, displayed monthly, along with a three month MAT.

MAT is an extremely powerful method that looks for trends by smoothing out the highs and lows, and displaying a rolling average. This makes it easier to compare performance, especially to previous periods.

Try changing chart types to match the type of data being displayed. Some data looks better when displayed as an area chart rather than a bar chart, or vice versa.

Use palettes to make widgets more distinctive, eg. Office for Profit & Loss, or Nature for Balance Sheet.