Use this screen to create the report table necessary to generate financial statements that compare current financial data with prior period, prior year, and budget information.

This information is gathered and stored in a common report table that this process generates. The Compare General Ledger Actual to Budget Activity screen also uses the information that this process generates.

The process only updates the table for the fiscal year and periods selected. For example, assume the table contains comparative data from January 1, 2009 through March 31, 2012. If you run the process for January 1 through March 31, 2012, only the information for that range of periods is updated. Information for earlier periods is not updated.

The process updates the report table with budget information from the budget revisions you select, but it only does so for the periods you specify. If you run the process one range of periods for one budget revision and later run it for another range of periods for a different budget revision, a report that spans those two period ranges could contain inconsistent budget information. For example, if you run the process using budget revision 1 for periods 1 and 2 and run it again using budget revision 2 for period 3, an income statement generated for periods 1-3 will contain budget information from both budget revisions, which could result in inaccurate budget amounts and comparative information.

If you want to generate financial statements containing comparative information, run this process before you generate those reports to ensure that they contain current comparative information. If you want to generate financial statements that do not contain comparative information, you do not need to run this process because Costpoint does not use this table for those reports.