How do I get all the matching categories on a single line?

You can check this by viewing the position of each Category and account on the Master Chart of Accounts or printing a Master Chart of Accounts report for each entity. You need to be looking at the Master Chart of Accounts because unused Categories won't appear in the regular Chart of Accounts and it won't be clear what position the Catergories are in.

If you run the Chart of Accounts report in Test Mode, you can view the MCA Codes (see below). You can run the same report in Navigator, but you will have to run it separately for each entity and each year. You don't need the Master Chart of Accounts for this report, since the MCA Code will tell you the position on the Chart of Accounts.

To run Chart of Accounts report in Test Mode:

1. Start Advanced Reports.
2. Close the Report Selection screen.
3. Select Help | About Advanced Reports.
4. Type "t" on your keyboard. A message "Set to Test Mode" appears.
5. Select OK twice to return to Advanced Reports.
6. Select New to display the Report Selection screen.
7. Select Report Group X Data Files. Select Chart of Accounts from the Report List.
8. Select Screen to display the report.

Another way to check is to run the problem report in Advanced Reports and select Format | Column | Unhide. A new column appears on the right side. This trick only works with consolidated and consolidating since those are the only reports that combine balances across entities.

The numbers in the new column are MCA Codes which are similar to account numbers. Navigator assigns MCA Codes to each Category and Group. Advanced Reports needs two things to match so it can combine Categories from different entities:

• Identical Category names
• Same MCA Code

One disadvantage of this method (running balance sheet reports with MCA Codes displayed) is that if a Category has no balances in any of the entities, it will not appear on the report, and you won't know if it is set up correctly until it gets a balance. This is a problem when you have a new entity with no balances or transactions. In those cases, print the Master Chart of Accounts for each entity and manually compare the spelling and position of each Category and Group. Alternatively, you could add a $1 starting balance to each account so that all accounts appear on reports. This is easy to do on the Master Chart of Accounts screen.

- David
FNI Support
Case #38-10546