7. The Problem With Zeroes

All-zero Data Will Be Discarded

At the time of this writing (Fall 2014) CFO Scoreboard only accepts ranges of data that are filled. What does this mean exactly? Two things:

• If an accounting row has nothing but zeroes in it, it will be considered empty and will not be imported.
• If an account column has nothing but zeroes in it*, it will be considered empty and will not be imported.

*This applies only in the case of the P&L, but not the Balance Sheet.

This can occasionally have unexpected consequences.

Demonstration

Take a look at these files below, and see if you can find the problem:

• Demo PL #7
• Demo BS #7

The error we saw is:     The Income Statement does not contain the same months as the Balance Sheet

Solution

Based on the information given above, you may have quickly noticed that the first two columns of the Income Statement are entirely empty. CFO Scoreboard interprets these columns as empty and therefore does not import them. Thus the imported range of months for the Income Statement begins in March 2011, while the Balance Sheet begins in January 2011. That's the cause of the error.

This is, of course, easy to resolve:

1. Just remove Jan 2011 and Feb 2011 from both documents, thereby creating a date range that 100% matches between the two. This should resolve the error, and allow successful upload.
2. Meanwhile, you may want to double-check with the client that these first two months should actually be empty. This is somewhat rare in the real world, and usually suggests that they simply haven't completed or exported the data for those two months.