The Snapshots application aims to seamlessly bridge the interface between Trading Programs and your in-house accounting solution.
Finance snapshots facilitate the export of data to feed your ledgers and records. Each ‘snapshot’ taken is an auditable record of the finance package and can be configured to best suit your needs.
Snapshots is one of our optional applications. If you think your channel will benefit from it, please speak to our Customer Success team or raise a ticket here. When configured, you can access the Snapshots app under ‘Finance’ in the navigation bar. For guidance on the use of the application, please read on.
Any configured snapshots created by an Enable Administrator will be shown on the snapshots tab when you first access the ‘Finance Snapshots’ area. There are two principal components to choose when requesting a new configured snapshot to be created: the snapshot type and the column configuration. First, the snapshot type determines how the year to date value is calculated, examples of this value include earnings or receipts. Second, the column configuration for the CSV download format will be unique to each configured snapshot. Configuring snapshots of the same type but with individual CSV formats may allow for more seamless integration with different areas of your business.
You can have many different types of snapshots configured by our Enable Administrators; these include:
The Rebate Accrual Earnings snapshot uses earnings from program lines that store their earnings against transaction lines. In this snapshot, program lines using non-apportioned fixed lump sum mechanisms will not be included. The year to date value reported will be the sum of the relevant accrual earnings which are defined by the columns configured for the snapshot download.
The Allocated Payments snapshot uses receipts that have been allocated within the Finance module to calculate a year to date value. This snapshot does not include adjustments made elsewhere when managing cash collection, and does not include allocations made outside of the snapshot's start and end dates.
The Outstanding Rebate Accrual Earnings snapshot calculates the year to date values the same as the ‘Rebate Accrual Earnings’ snapshot. However, this snapshot type adjusts earnings for any amounts paid and any ‘adjustments’ made to relevant payment lines.
The Authorized Balances snapshot calculates year to date values from the authorized balance from qualifying payment lines. The authorization of balance against a payment line is an optional extra within the Cash collection area. To learn more or about these additional features, please contact your Customer Success Manager.
The Authorized Balances Snapshot will now include an 'authorized' column for balances that have been approved in the payment authorization workflow.
Since you may wish to make payments immediately upon approval instead of waiting until the end of a financial period, we have created a channel-level setting to allow for a Daily Authorization Extract of authorized payment lines.
The CSV download comes with several fixed columns:
{ Year }
{ Period }
{ Currency }
{ Optional Columns }
{ YTD }
{ Previous Period YTD }
{ Current Period Value }
CSV downloads can include any number of the following optional columns in any order:
{ Trading partner reference }
{ Trading partner name }
{ Trading partner attribute* }
{ Program line type }
{ Program line ID }
{ Program line reference }
{ Received from** }
{ Payment line ID** }
{ Dimension reference*** }
{ Dimension name*** }
*Depend on channel configuration.
**Dependent on snapshot type.
***This attribute will appear for each dimension within your channel.
It is important to note that if a configured snapshot includes multiple large dimensions, could affect a channel’s performance. Some optional columns may need to have another optional column; for example, the program line reference requires the program line ID.
A video to show you how to set up financial years.
Snapshots are created for consumption by your accounting package. The ‘Financial Year’ and reporting frequency of the snapshots needs to match your internal processes. The ‘Financial Year’ configuration is accessible by all users who can access the ‘Financial Year’ tab.
The financial years configured within the snapshot application should reflect your accounting year. By default, the system will suggest single years from January to December with 12 ‘Financial Periods’ representing each month.
‘Financial Periods’ are a way of breaking down the ‘Financial Year’ into shorter periods for reporting purposes. After creating a ‘Financial Year’, users can add or remove periods or completely change the ‘Financial Year’ period. This flexibility allows for quarterly reporting, or any other frequency you believe is useful. The only restriction is that the financial year, and its ‘Financial Periods’ must be continuous.
A video to show you how to take Snapshots.
A snapshot is an extract of data from within your Trading Programs application, that is timestamped and associated with a financial period. It will be persisted within Trading Programs and is a record of data relevant to your accounts at a particular date. Once downloaded, these reports can be used externally and are no longer subject to Trading Programs’ updates.
Once you have selected a snapshot from the home page, you will be able to navigate ‘Financial Years’ and request a snapshot for a particular ‘Financial Period’. Snapshots are generated either via the ‘Request snapshot’ or ‘Schedule snapshot’ buttons; these actions are limited to the next unlocked period if a locked period exists.
‘Request snapshot’ will immediately begin the process of creating a snapshot. The ‘Schedule snapshot’ feature facilitates the future generation of snapshots. It is essential to consider that any scheduled snapshots in future periods will require preceding periods to be locked before the system attempts to run the ‘Scheduled snapshot’. Please bear in mind data uploaded for future periods will not be considered when running a previous period’s snapshots. For further information on scheduling Snapshots, please watch the video below.
A video to show you how to schedule Snapshots.
An example whereby you may wish to generate a previous period's snapshot would be as follows. It is June, but you’d like to generate a snapshot for April. In this scenario, the snapshot would only consider April’s earnings despite the fact it is being generated in June. Earnings uploaded after April but are relevant to April would also be included. This situation could be the case if you uploaded April’s transactions in May.
Please note that any existing snapshot will never have its values updated. If a snapshot becomes obsolete, then a new snapshot will need to be generated for the relevant period. Once you are happy with a period’s snapshot, you can lock it, and then you will be able to take snapshots for the next period.
Locking a period is always a manual process and represents that you are happy with the existing data. This step is required because snapshots of each period depend on values generated in the previous period when calculating ‘year to date’ figures. A user may not produce a snapshot for the next financial period until the prior period’s snapshot is locked. Therefore, users must lock financial periods sequentially.
Generated snapshots are downloadable in a CSV format by clicking on them, and you can navigate to different periods using the timeline on the left-hand side of the page.
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