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Reportingintermediate

Financial Statement Generator (FSG) in EBS

Explain how FSG allows finance users to build custom financial statements in EBS without technical development

FSG builds financial statements in EBS General Ledger through configuration. No SQL, no report development.

FSG is like a custom spreadsheet template a finance team builds once (defining which rows, which columns, which comparisons) that can then be automatically regenerated for each department (Content Set) every month with fresh numbers, without anyone needing to rebuild the spreadsheet structure each time.

Key Concepts

1
Four building blocks.
    Row Set      which rows, and how each is calculated
    Column Set   the periods and comparisons across the top
    Content Set  which entities to run it for
    Row Order    optional sorting and formatting
2
A row set is the report's left-hand side.
    row 10   Revenue          accounts 4000-4999
    row 20   Cost of Sales    accounts 5000-5499
    row 30   Gross Margin     row 10 - row 20      <- a calculation
    row 40   Operating Costs  accounts 6000-6999
    row 50   Operating Profit row 30 - row 40
3
Rows are account ranges or arithmetic on other rows, which is how subtotals and margins are expressed without any code.
4
A column set is the top.
    col 1  Actual, current period
    col 2  Budget, current period
    col 3  Variance          col 1 - col 2
    col 4  Actual, year to date
5
Content sets are the part people miss, and they are what makes FSG scale.
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A content set says "run this for each cost centre". One submission produces one report per cost centre, each containing only that cost centre's figures.
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    without a content set:  40 submissions, one per manager
    with a content set:     1 submission, 40 output reports
8
That is how individual manager reports are distributed from a single definition — and it is the subtlety interviewers ask about.
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Where FSG is still right. Standard financial statements, defined and maintained by finance rather than IT, with the flexibility to add a row without raising a change request.
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Where it is not. Formatting is rigid compared with a Word template, and complex conditional logic is awkward to express through row calculations. A statutory form with an exact prescribed layout is a BI Publisher job.
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The comparison to make.
    FSG            financial statements, configured by finance,
                   limited formatting, content sets for distribution
    BI Publisher   any document, precise layout, a template somebody
                   builds, bursting for distribution
12
Both handle "one report per entity, delivered separately" — FSG through content sets, BI Publisher through bursting. Knowing that the capability exists in both, under different names, is worth saying.
13
What the interviewer is probing.1. "What is FSG?" Probing: the purpose. Stalls: "A report tool." Moves up: the GL reporting tool building statements from row sets, column sets, content sets and display sets against account balances.
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2. "What is a row set versus a column set?" Probing: the structure. Stalls: "Nothing." Moves up: the row set defines the lines and their account ranges; the column set defines periods, currencies and calculations across them.
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3. "What is a content set for?" Probing: the capability. Stalls: "Content." Moves up: producing one report per value of a segment, such as a profit and loss per cost centre from one definition.
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4. "What replaces FSG going forward?" Probing: currency. Stalls: "Nothing." Moves up: Financial Reporting and Smart View in Fusion — FSG is EBS-specific and not carried forward.
Use cases:fsgfinancial-statement-generatorgl-reportingrow-setscolumn-sets