A column set defines the format and content of the columns in an FSG report. In FSG, the commonly assumed attribute for a column definition is a time period (amount type), whereas the attribute for a row definition is an account assignment. Therefore, typical column sets include headings and subheadings, amount types, format masks, currency assignments, and calculation columns for totals.

When you define a column set, you can:

1. Specify account balance types — to include in the column. For example, you can define a column with actual, budget, or encumbrance amounts. Amount types
   determine whether your report includes:
   – Actual, budget, or encumbrance amounts.
   – Period–to–date, quarter–to–date, year–to–date, or project–to–date account balances.
2. Create Headings — for your columns. You can also create relative headings, which change depending on the period of interest specified when you run the report.
3. Define calculations — to perform a variety of complex computations in your report. The calculations can refer to any previous columns in the report, including rows you choose not to display.
4. Specify formatting — using format masks, which determine how numbers in your report are displayed.

You can define a new column set or use FSG’s AutoCopy feature to copy an existing column set, which you can then edit as needed. You can also define column sets graphically, using the Column Set Builder

Column Headings
Headings can include any alphabetic or numeric characters. They may  also include special characters, except for the ampersand symbol (&). FSG also provides a default heading option, which you can use as is or modify to build a custom heading.

Relative Headings
You use FSG’s Relative Headings feature to define dynamic headings whose content changes depending on some value you provide when you request the report.
You define relative headings by combining:
• An ampersand (&) — Identifies the following token and number as a relative heading.
• A token — Representing period of interest (POI), budget (BUDGET), encumbrance (ENCUMBRANCE), or currency
(CURRENCY). The most often used token is POI.
• A number — For POI relative headings, the number is a period offset. For budgets, encumbrances, and currencies, the number is an associated control value.
Note: The number is expressed as a positive or negative value. For negative values, the minus sign (–) is required. For positive values, the plus sign (+) is optional. For example, &POI–10 indicates the tenth period before the period of interest. &POI+6 or &POI6 indicates the sixth period following the period of interest. POI0 is the period of interest.

To define a column set
Navigate to the Column Set window.
1.1 Enter a Name and Description for the column set.

1.2 (Optional) Enter an Override Segment & Choose Define Columns.

2.1 Enter the starting Position for each column. This is the number of characters from the left edge of the page that marks where each column starts. Consider the following factors when determining the starting positions of your columns:
• Total report width —With FSG, you can create reports with unlimited columns. This allows you to download reports of any
width to an Excel spreadsheet using Applications Desktop Integrator (ADI).
• Number of columns in the column set and Width of each column — determined by the format mask and expected size of numbers to be displayed in the column.
• Starting position and width of previous columns.
• Currency profile options — determine whether you are using thousands separators, as well as positive and negative number formats. If these options are enabled, you must provide enough
space in your column width.

2.2 Enter a unique Sequence number for each column. You can use the sequence number to define column calculations.
Note: The sequence number does not control the order of the columns on a report like it does for rows in a row set. Instead, column order is determined by the column starting positions.

2.3 Enter a Format Mask to control the display of values which FSG prints in the column.
A format mask defines how numbers are displayed in your reports. You can specify numbers, decimal places, currency symbols, and other display characters. For example, if you use a format mask of $99,999,999, FSG will display the number 4234941 as $4,234,941.
Note: To use all of the available formatting options, additional set up steps may be required in General Ledger. The most important thing to remember when using format masks is to make sure you include enough space in your column definition to print all the numbers and special characters allowed by the format mask you use.

2.4 Enter factor for the column set that determines how to display numeric values.
For example, if you use the factor Thousands with the format mask 99,999,999.99, the number 23,910 will appear as 23.91 on your report. If you use the factor Percentiles with the format mask 99.99, the number .1258 will appear as 12.58 on your report. To display amounts using no factor, choose Units.

3. Advance Option
3.1 Column Names : When creating a calculation row which uses another row in the calculation, you refer to the row by its assigned Sequence Number. Optionally, you may give the row a Row Name when you define it, then refer to the name when building a calculation. The same rules apply to columns.
If you use the optional row and column names, the names will appear in other FSG windows, making it easier to remember what those rows or columns represent. Also note that if you use row and column names in your calculations, the names must be unique within the row set or column set. If not, your calculations may yield incorrect results.

3.2 Override Segments : You use the override segments feature to produce ”breakdown” reports. For example, let’s say that you’ve defined a report which produces a corporate income statement. Now you want to create a breakdown version of the same report which shows income statement line items for each department, one report column per department. Department is one of your account segments, and can have one of five values (01 = Sales, 02 = Manufacturing, 03 = Finance, 04 = Administration, 05 = Corporate).
The original report definition uses a row set named Income Statement and a column set named Corporate YTD–Actual. To produce the breakdown report, you need to define a new column set with the following properties:
• Uses the Department segment as an ”override segment.”
• Includes one column definition for each department.
• Specifies, for each column definition, the department segment value as its override value. For example, the first column would be defined with an override value of 01, for the Sales department.
• (Optional) Define a column to total all the departments.
The following table shows your column set definition might look like, when you are done:

3.3 When there are conflicting calculations in a report, FSG will use the column calculation instead of the row calculation, unless you tell FSG (in the row definition) to override any conflicting column calculations. There are other situations besides calculations where row and column definitions might conflict, such as format masks, period offsets, and
amount types. FSG follows a set of precedence rules for all such row/column conflicts.

4. Balance Control
4.1 Most columns are defined using an amount type. General Ledger provides numerous amount types, which define a period type and balance type. For example, the amount type QTD–Actual specifies a quarterly period type and actual balances. The amount type YTD–Encumbrance specifies a yearly period type and encumbrance balances.

4.2 Enter the currency of the column set.

4.3 FSG uses the Period Offset to determine which specific periods’ balances to include on a report. Period offsets are specified relative to the period you specify when you request that FSG run a report. For example, if you want a report of monthly cash balances for January, 1996 through December, 1996, the period–of–interest is DEC–1996. If one of your
column definitions has a period offset of –6, FSG will display the cash balances for June, 1996 in that column.

5. Display Options
FSG provides a number of additional display options you can apply to the rows and columns in your reports. These include:
5.1 Display or don’t display a row or column: You can define rows or columns which are not displayed on a report. You might use such rows or columns to perform intermediate calculations which you don’t want on the report itself, but which are needed to build the values you do want.

5.2 Display or don’t display when balance is zero: You can choose to suppress the display of rows and columns whose balance is zero.

5.3 Change sign: General Ledger stores debits as positive numbers and credits as negative numbers. FSG will print such values with their respective signs. You can choose to change the sign, printing debits with negative signs and credits with positive signs. For example, to print revenue (credit) amounts on an income statement so they appear without negative signs, set the Change Sign option for any rows or columns which use revenue accounts in an account assignment range.
Suggestion: If you want FSG to suppress the display of positive signs, set the profile option Currency:Positive Format.
Suggestion: You can also use the Absolute Value function to control the display of negative numbers. S

5.4 Display factors: You can select to display amounts on your report at different precision levels, or factors, such as units, thousands, or millions. FSG will perform the appropriate rounding to arrive at the factor you’ve chosen.

5.5 Level of detail reporting: This feature lets you indicate the level of detail so you can screen out excessively detailed information when you run reports for a high–level audience. Level of detail is indicated for each row and column, as well as for a report. When the report prints, FSG will display only those rows and columns whose level of detail are the same as or less than that of the report.
With this feature, you can use the same row set and column set definitions to define multiple versions of the same report, to serve different levels of your organization.