If you log into your Syft account on Excel, you'll see that the top ribbon has become easier to navigate and more comprehensive. And we've added some epic functionality in terms of operational reports for you to enjoy - in Excel.
From a clearer navigation to your receivables and payables to the addition of tons of powerful, customizable graphs, your Excel just levelled up! Let's dive into the details.
What's New 🧐
Note 📝: Depending on whether you use a Windows or Mac computer, the headings on Excel might look slightly different.
We've reshuffled some features in the Syft ribbon in Excel and added others! Here's a quick breakdown of what's changed:
Receivables and Payables are now housed under Aging; and
We've added almost every graph from Syft's Visualize section to Excel - think KPIs & Accounts, Profitability, Cash, and more!
Note 📝: In Excel, you can only see totals for your graphs, not individual account amounts.
Let's look at some of the individual sections that are now included in the Excel add-in.
KPIs & Accounts
One of the most exciting additions is the ability to generate gorgeous graphs in Excel for your financial statements, KPI Scorecards, and Transactions. To do this, click on the KPIs & Accounts selector in the menu at the top of your screen. Within this drop-down menu, you’ll see the following financial statements:
Profit & Loss: view totals across your P&L accounts, e.g. Total Income, Total Cost of Goods Sold, and Gross Profit
Balance Sheet: view totals across your Balance Sheet accounts, e.g. Total Bank Accounts, Total Current Assets, and Net Current Assets
You can then change the graph type, choosing between:
Line graph;
Grouped bar graph;
Stacked bar graph;
Normalized horizontal stacked bar graph;
Treemap graph; and
Donut graph
Plus, you can create graphs based on your KPI Scorecards or Transactions, choosing between the following graph types:
Line graph; and
Grouped bar graph.
This is great in helping you get a visual understanding of the numbers that comprise your most vital accounting statements, helping you to see what lies beneath the numbers in your accounts.
Note 📝: For transactions, you can select the transaction type, while for KPI Scorecards, you can select any scorecard you’ve created in Syft.
Profitability 📊
You can now visualize the following data in beautiful, color-coded graphs in Excel:
Income vs Expenses;
Sales;
Cost of Sales;
Other Income; and
Expenses
This gives you a really clear indication of how well your business is performing, helping you to identify key trends across your income, expenses, sales, and more.
Note 📝: If you would like to gain a divisional view of your profitability, log into Syft Analytics and filter for divisions.
Cash 💸
As the saying goes: cash is king. To help you ensure you're managing your organization's cash effectively, we've added several cash graphs to your Excel account. You can now visualize the following:
Flow: a comprehensive view of your cash in and cash out (excluding transfers) with the option to switch to a single view of:
Cash in
Cash out
Net cash flow
Direct: a clear view of your direct cash flow statement with the ability to switch between different graph types and select individual line items
Indirect: a graphic representation of your indirect cash flow statement, with the ability to switch between different graph types and select individual line items
Cash Balance: two graphs depicting your total cash balance and the accounts and totals of which your cash balance is comprised
Note 📝: While you can look at all the same graphs on Excel as you can within Syft's Cash section, you can't choose specific bank accounts on Excel. You will need to visit Syft if you would like to narrow in on a specific bank account.
Analyze & Utilities 👀
Tired of having to navigate to Syft to see customer or supplier details? Well, you'll be glad to hear that you can now find these all within Excel! You can now pull through your entire contact list to Excel - including customers and suppliers. So, you can analyze customer and supplier data within Excel with ease. Simply navigate to the following sections:
Analyze: to access invoices
Utilities: to access your full contact list
Note 📝: The period that you import invoices for will depend on the date you have selected in the global date selector and is limited to daily, weekly, or monthly ranges within Syft. However, you can manually change the date you would like to see on Excel.
With the power of Syft in Excel, you can easily analyze operational details and plan to improve your operations going forward.
How to make the most of these new features
To take advantage of the latest features added to Spreadsheet Link, we recommend that you try out all the available graphs and visualize them in many different formats. After all, while some data looks best in a line graph, other data may make more sense in a bar chart.
To select different graph types, click on the drop-down selector below "Graph type" and choose the graph type that suits you best.
We also recommend that you try these new features for different entities so that all your branches - or all your clients' entities - get the most out of these new options. To change entities, navigate to the Entity drop-down and choose the entity you would like to visualize and analyze in Excel.
Pro Tip 💡: To get a clear view of the totals, we recommend enlarging the graph on Excel.
Closing thoughts 💭
We love these new features because there's no exporting needed - everything is already there for you in Excel. And, much as we love cloud accounting software, we know that Excel isn't going anywhere any time soon. Rather than try to replace one of our most beloved softwares, we're giving you the ability to combine the power of Excel with the customizability and visual appeal of Syft's graphs.
With our latest updates to Spreadsheet Link, you can easily create a beautiful, color-coded graph with colors that match your brand. You can then begin to unpack the details from across Visualize and Analyze within Excel, taking you from data to decisions in no time.