ExcelFSM

ExcelFSM transforms Microsoft Excel into a universal fully integrated financial reports generator by implementing the Financial Statement Module (US Patent 7139729), and  the Reading, Organizing and Manipulating Accounting Data (US Patent 7885868).

The Financial Statement Module describes a unique and universal method to build financial statements with a computer employing optimal data structures and algorithms, allowing the module to read, organize and manipulate the accounting data of any accounting software.

The Financial Statement Module inventor earned a professional degree in computer programming, and a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, with a concentration in Accounting.  He went on to work as an external auditor, generating financial statements from the accounting data of many clients.  This accounting data arrived in different forms and was produced by different products.  Typically he would start with the trial balance (resulting from the bookkeeping process), make adjustments to account balances in accordance with the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), group accounts into financial statement items, present those items by category; and finally, generate reports, financial statements and the auditor's report, first by hand, then with a word processor.

While the industry is replete with products and tools for bookkeeping, there were no universal tools offering the flexibility and capacities of a word processor while integrating accounting data, to facilitate the work done by accounting persons such as accountants, financial officers, and auditors.

With his unique background combining professional accounting and computer programming, the inventor envisioned a universal tool that would allow an accounting person to extract data from any bookkeeping software package, and easily derive any financial statement.  We have yet to find any reference that even comes close to the features of his invention.

We now know how, in a simple way, the Financial Statement Module, with its organization of the accounting data in the computer memory and its algorithms, manipulate the data structures to group the accounts' balances into financial items and to group financial statement items' balances into totals, and to build financial statements.

By using this invention, we can now build financial statements from the trial balance accounting data of any accounting system, without any framework to respect.  The method makes the distinction between two types of balances appearing on a financial statement, allowing the user to group accounts into financial statements items and to group financial statements items into totals, using simple point and click on the screen.  Thanks to the optimal data structures and algorithms of this unique and universal method, we can now build any type of financial statements with a computer.

It should now be understood how a computer allows reading, organizing and manipulation of even two or more trial balances produced by any accounting software.  And, it should be understood how the system allows the building of Combined and Consolidated financial statements, using simple point and click on the screen, thanks to this unique and flexible and universal method to build financial statements.

Thanks to the Financial Statement Module, the Excel spreadsheet has now become

•a universal financial reports generator (for any accounting software)   and

•a Trial balance program