Financial Custom Object

Include financial data (budget and actual) alongside your other dashboard elements.

I wanted to show my board our financial progress on a dashboard along with donation year on year reports. All I really wanted was to add one more line to the donation year on year report that showed the current year’s goals month by month. But I never figured out how to do that. Here is the compromise solution I settled on. I added one object called “Financial Data”. It was 5 relevant fields: Income Budget, Income Actual, Expense Budget, Expense Actual. When we agree on budget, I create the records, one for each month. When the period closes, I update the actuals. Now I have a simple way to report on cash flows and income from within Salesforce. And I can easily reconcile accounting income with development income. I created an unmanaged package with the object and reports for your sandbox.

This report example shows closed donation cumulative totals, compared year on year. I love this type of graph (and it doesn’t require any customization) because the past years are your standard for judgement and it’s so easy to interpret. I was never able to find a way to add a “Goal” line to this in Salesforce. Note that to make this graph you must add a formula field copy of the close date so that you can add the close date to the report twice and group it differently (month in year, and year). In such a graph, you want to see the current year up on top, breaking records for past years. I provide these for individual, church, and non-church organizations for my board so we can really see what’s going on. These Last 12 Month example graphs use the Financial Object. There are four numbers from accounting per month to put graphs like these on your financial dashboard along with various development information. Income Actual vs Budget last 12 months. This shows a 12 month cumulative comparison of budget vs actual. Next graph is same for expenses. Third one is for cash flow (actual income vs actual expense. Easy way to see how you’re driving income vs goal, controlling expenses vs plan, and if you’re operating within your means. All alongside your great Salesforce opportunity graphs.

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