Hello,

I've just purchased Adagio FX and am having a bear of a time figuring out how to use it properly. Any help would be much appreciated.

1) What is the significance of the date entered when creating data files?

2) How to understand the data file? I have many different QBs files (1 per client). Should I create a separate subdirectory for each client file and create a separate set of data files in each directory?

3) If my fiscal year start on 1/1/00 should I enter 1/1/08 because we are now in '08? Is this the reference point for all retreived data and does that mean I have to create a new data set each year?

4) Can I only ever see current year and prior year in Adagio FX (i.e. if I want to see three yearly totals on the same report, I can't do this because all the data items in the data field selector dialogue only reference current year and prior year?

5) When I retrieve my data Adagio seems to reset all the account numbers. I thought it would use the account numbers that I assign. What's going on here?

6) Retrieving my data is straight forward. But, I don't find anywhere in the manuals that talks about how to properly update the data. What is the typical scenario? Retrieve data at the end of each period and overwrite the old data? Doing a retrieve can take quite a bit of time. So, I was hoping there was a way to simply do an update that would grab new data.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks very much.

Richard

Hello Richard,

OK - hopefully this helps

1) There's no specific significance on this date (other than it sets up a default fiscal calendar). This calendar is overwritten when you select data to retrieve (based on the year you select).

2) Adagio FX databases are made up of a collection of files (unlike QB which stores all its data in a single file). Generally, I would recommend creating an FX subdirectory under the directory that stores your clients QB database.

3) When you want to retrieve data, specify the fiscal year you want to retrieve (the year in which it starts). Adagio FX will retrieve that fiscal year, and one year prior.

4) At the moment, Adagio FX only stores two years of data directly. We expect this restriction to be lifted some time during this year. A simply workaround, if you are not using classes in your database, is to create a "department" for each year and retrieve the data multiple times from the same QB dataset appending (this is an option on the retrieve dialog) each year into a different "department". You can then easily compare each "department" (which is actually a year) on the same statement.

5)If you have specified account numbers with your g/l accounts in QuickBooks, then tick the option "User defined accounts" on the retrieve dialog. FX will then use your account numbers on each retrieve and warn you if it encounters an account missing a number.

6)When you retrieve data for a second time, Adagio FX does overwrite the old data (but not the financial statements you've defined). If you used the trick of importing the multiple years into different "departments", then you'd select an option on the retrieve dialog to delete the current year's "department" before doing the retrieve.

We do understand that the performance of the retrieve leaves something to be desired. Unfortunately, we are constrained by the performance of the Quickbooks SDK, and we have confirmed with them that there is little we can do further to improve the retrieve performance. We do know that Intuit is aware of the issue.

Thanks for giving Adagio FX a try, and feel free to keep posting questions on this forum. There's a learning curve at the beginning, but it's worth it at the end!

Andrew,

Thanks very much for your reply. I'll keep working at it.

Richard

Andrew,

My client's numbering system is as follows:

2022 Food Sales
2022.1 Meat
2022.2 Fish

The retrieve only pulls "Food Sales" associated with 2022. The other two accounts are skipped completely and the resulting report shows a value of zero for the total Food Sales. Does Adagio FX not support this numbering convention?

Thanks much.

Richard

Andrew,

I can't seem to figure out how to add a new data column to an existing report and the manual does not seem to address this. Seems like there ought to be a simple way to drag and drop new data info?

Thanks again.

Richard

Hello Richard,

OK - regarding the account numbers - Adagio FX right justifies and blank fills account numbers, so 2022.1 will sort after all the four digit account nubers. Unless your clients actually posts amounts into account 2022 - perhaps it would make the chart easier to read if you gave it the number "2022.0"?

I'm concerned that the retrieve doesn't seem to have picked up any amounts. On the main screen for Adagio FX (not the financial reporter spreadsheet), from the Reports Menu, choose "Trial Balance" and make sure that the Trial Balance "does". If it doesn't, (and the retrieve has not complained about any account collisions or missing account numbers), then I wonder if you' be willing to provide us with a copy of the data so that we can investigate the retrieve failure. You can upload it to http://www.softrak.com/dbr and drop me an e-mail. We'll look at it on Monday.

Next - about the adding additional columns:

I'm assuming that you are in the financial reporter, with a one or two column financial statement open and you'd like to add another column that contains numbers from the g/l. Here are the steps:

• Make sure the financial statement is "collapsed".
• Select a column containing some figures from the g/l (Selected Period or YTD say).
• Right mouse click and choose "Duplicate column" from the pop-up menu
• If the financial statement has a row with a ".ColSpec" command in column "A", then just change the specification code above the new column to the value you need (say "Q" for Quarter to Date). You can see all the available codes in the View | Account Data or by opening the "AF!SuperSpec.xxx" financial statement shipped with Adagio FX
• If the financial statement does NOT have a ".ColSpec" command, then click on a cell containing one of the general ledger figures to see the "=ADGET()" formula that is being used. It will have something like "gldata.Y" as the first text string (Y means YTD). Determine the code you want to use (say "BY" for Budget YTD) and use the Find & Replace command to change all occurances of ".Y" to ".BY" in the column you have created.
• The new numbers should appear.

Keep on going - you're getting the hang of it!

Andrew,

Thanks very much for the above help. Haven't had time to work it all out yet but am definitely making progress.

Thanks much.

Richard

Andrew,

A bunch of questions:

1) My boss would like to see derived figures for things like "this perior minus last period" or % of income for example. It seems to me that the data codes available to be used in the colspec row only provide period balances and period totals (i.e. amounts that would corresponde directly to P&L and balance sheet "standard" numbers. Does Adagio help with the creation of this type of data or do I need to create it manually just as I would in excel?

2) I'm still having a bit of difficulty understanding the "date point of reference" model of Adagio. I'm used to QBs where I simply specify a date range and it retrieves the data for that range. So, right now I'm creating '07 Q4 statments for clients that of course want to see headings such as "Q4 2007". Because I created my Adagio data set in '08 and specified my fiscal year as 1/1/08, it seems to always want to create '08 headings. So, do I have to manually override this? And how to think about the period selector? I see it changes the heading date but am not clear on how it affects data? Is it simply that all data codes containing "ago" in the name are relative to the period selected in the current year?

3) Any idea on why my data isn't expanding? I am choosing "expand" when I move the group into the spreadsheet by I seem to only be able to get the collapsed version.

4) re: my last email, my retrieve is working fine. The problem had to do with those xxxx.x account numbers.

5) Can you give me a few points of comparison as to what advantages Adagio FX provides over the QBs '07 report designer. My boss is starting to feel that Adagio is not worth the money and that we should just use the QBs facility instead. I don't have the time to learn enough about both products to determine the answer. I'm basically going on the recommendation of the Sleeter group which gives Adagio very high marks. Anyway, I'd love to be able to explain to him with a few simple examples why the effort with Adagio is worth it.

Thanks very much.

Richard

Hi Richard:

I'm not a QuickBooks user but I can answer the Adagio-related questions.

1) Yes, you must enter Excel-like formulas to calculate derived fields. If you edit the statement in collapsed mode, this is very quick.

2) Do you only have 2007 data in FX right now? Then go to the Company Profile button and edit the dates on the 2 tabs "Current Fiscal year" and "Prior Fiscal Year" to indicate 2007 and 2006 respectively.

The Period Selector will change both the data and the titles. If you choose Period 1, all figures in your statement should be as of the 1st Period.

3) You are dragging an Account group onto the spreadsheet grid and selecting "Expand"? That should be sufficient. Does the resulting statement should have ".Smartsheet" in cell A1. In column A you should see ".Range" in a number of cells. In the rows with ".Range" you should see a range of Accounts in column B. For instance, you should see something that looks like "1000:2999" in cell B. Then if you click on the "Expand" icon on the button bar, the rows with .Range should expand.

It may be a good investment to get a local Adagio consultant to advise you. Or you could attend an Adagio webinar. The cost is only $75. See the https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/630799103 link.

For examples of what the Financial Reporter can do, look at the following link: http://www.greatstatements.com/examples.htm. You can click on the images to drill-down for more detailed examples.

Andrew,

I'll check out the webinars.

I figured out the expand problem. I had failed to specify "show detail" in my range definitions.

Thanks again.

Richard