Financial information is most useful when it is easy to understand and is structured in a way that aids decision making. Syft's "Visualize" tab does just that.

For many people, a long list of numbers isn’t nearly as easy to understand as a clear graph or table with different colors differentiating important details. "Visualize" automatically transforms your financial data into customizable graphs and tables that can be analyzed in Syft or added to report packs or live views at the touch of a button!

To add any "Visualize" page to a report template or entity specific report, click on the "+" icon at the top right of your screen.

To export and download any "Visualize" page, click on the "Download" button at the top right of your screen and choose to export either to PDF, Word, Excel or add it to a Report from here. Click on "Options" to add the page to a report template and more, shown in the image below.

AI-generated graph insights are found underneath each graph which gives you a summary and explanation of what the key figures are in the graph for the period selected. Graph insights can be toggled on or off under "Options" in some graphs within "Visualize".

In graph insights, the total of the selected account or category for the period, the average of that account or category for the period, the best-performing period in the data you're showing, and the worst-performing period will be noted.

If you would like to use the different scenario adjustments, you can go to the top of the screen and select custom date ranges within the global date selector.

Visualize your organization's customer, product, and financial health data in one place. Dashboards are fully interactive displays that show all the financial metrics you care about in a single view. You can create your own dashboard by building one from scratch.

Navigate to "Visualize" > "Dashboard" to land on your dashboard page. To add a new dashboard, click on the "+" icon, and to switch between different dashboards, click on the dashboard top tabs. You can change the period you want to view your dashboard at the top of the page.

To add a new card, click "Add card." You can then choose the following:

Then, click "Create."

Within each individual card, you will find a cog icon where you can configure:

You can also unlock AI insights using the AI button at the bottom of each card.

You can choose the number of periods you would like to show on your dashboard and the number of columns of cards to show by using the drop-down menus above the dashboard.

You can drag and drop cards to position them as you like. You can also loop animations so that your graphs continuously animate in by clicking on the looping toggle.

This is a great tool for viewing your Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet, KPIs, and Transactions and what makes them up to get a deeper understanding of trends and what is causing them. You can then use this understanding to make better business decisions going forward.

Navigate to "KPIs & Accounts" within "Visualize" to analyze your Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, KPIs and Profitability in graphical format. You have the ability to view any account or total in these graphs with insights provided below the graph.

Click on the "Profit & Loss" sub-tab to visualize your Profit & Loss account in whatever graph makes the most sense to you. Switch between the "Profit & Loss" and "Balance Sheet" top tabs to view each statement's visuals. There are many different ways to customize graphs in this section, including:

The different graph types available are as follows:

As is the case in dashboards, you can customize the colors for each account or line within a graph by clicking the color drop-down. Toggling "Update to all graphs" will ensure that your color selection is consistent across all graphs.

The default view is Net Profit or Loss Before Tax. However, you can change that to any category in the profit and loss statements and, within a category, to any accounts within that category.

The default period is the previous 12 months of data. However, you can change that to 12 quarters or 12 years by clicking the global date selector at the top of the screen. You can also change the number of months selected by clicking the period drop-down above any graph.

The "KPI Scorecards" top tab within the "KPIs & Accounts" sub-tab, as shown in the image below, gives you a visualization of each of Syft’s key performance indicators or ratios for your business as well as custom KPIs that you've created you've created in KPI Scorecards in Analyze.

The standard view is the net margin. However, you can switch between any KPIs created in the KPI dashboard or any of Syft's standard KPIs.

The graph will show the trailing 12 months by default. However, you can switch this to either quarters or years. You can also switch between a line graph, grouped bar graph or bar graph to view KPI data.

You can view a KPI from any of your KPI Scorecards and zero in on specific KPIs within those scorecards. You can also choose the number of periods to show.

You can show data from:

You can also compare your KPIs against a budget or forecast by clicking "Compare," as shown in the image below. Additionally, you can choose the type of line pattern to assign to each variable within the color drop-down.

The "Transactions" top tab within the "KPIs & Accounts" tab shows the total transactions processed in the entity over the prior 12 periods by default (which can be customized). To view transaction volume data, you can switch between a line graph, grouped bar graph, or bar graph.

This graph defaults to showing the total transactions for the prior 12 months; however, it can be customized by period and type of transaction.

Total transactions are the sum of all other types of transactions. Using the selector drop-down menu allows you to focus on a specific transaction. This graph's advantage is that it allows you to track trends and seasonality in the number of transactions processed in the entity.

Accounts and KPI graphs also have the option to "Chart in Excel." This allows full customization of a chart within Excel and visibility of the data it is plotting. Click on "Download" at the top right of any graph and then click "Chart in Excel."

After this, an Excel workbook will automatically download to your device. As you open the workbook, you will see the Accounts or KPIs graph and the data that fuels this graph plotted in a blank sheet, as shown in the image below.

Get an overview of your income vs. expenses, sales, and profitability to identify trends and issues and better understand your business’s performance.

Navigate to "Visualize" > "Profitability" (as seen in the image below) to view your income vs. expenses, top sales accounts, cost of sales, other income accounts, top expenses accounts, and break-even graph. Let’s take a look at these reports in more detail.

In the "Income vs Expenses" top tab, you can visualize income vs expenses as represented in a graph for any period you choose.

As the Basics section mentions, all "Profitability" graphs can be customized by period, category, or account. The "Income vs Expenses" graph can also be filtered by division, and you can choose to display one of the following variables:

In the "Sales" top tab you can visualize sales in a graphical format for any period and get graph insights generated. The "Sales" graph shows, by default, the top 10 revenue or sales accounts for the period. What goes into your sales account is everything classified as revenue in your chart of accounts setup.

You can choose the view of this graph from the following:

Navigate to the " Cost of Sales " top tab to view the top cost of sales accounts in graphical format for any period and get graph insights. The graph views are the same as the "Sales" graph views mentioned above.

Visualize top other income accounts in a graphical format for any period and get graph insights by navigating to the "Other Income" top tab. The "Other Income" graph shows, by default, the top 10 relevant accounts for the period. The graph views available are the same as for the "Sales" graph views mentioned above.

Managing costs is critical to running a successful business. Syft's "Expenses" top tab allows you to see your largest expense areas. Click any value on the graph to drill down and isolate the cause of the expense so that you can understand and manage these expenses better going forward.

Visualize expenses in a graphical format for any period and get graph insights by navigating to the "Expenses" top tab. The "Expenses" graph shows, by default, the top 10 expense accounts for the period. The default view is "vs. Prior"; however, you can easily switch between the views mentioned for the "Sales" top tab.

"Break-Even" is the point at which each additional unit of revenue results in an operating profit. It is calculated as fixed cost divided by contribution margin, calculated by taking revenue minus variable costs divided by revenue. To navigate to "Break-Even," navigate to Visualize > Profitability. Here, you will see Break-Even as one of the top tabs.

If you click any of the points to the right of the break-even point, then the following metrics and figures will be displayed in the graph legend:

The Cash tool is handy for getting a visual sense of your cash flow and balance. Sometimes, when you see your cash in a graph, you pick up on trends you might otherwise miss.

This is a powerful cash management tool that enables you to see what is happening to your cash and the key reasons for the inflows and outflows so that you can drive the inflows and reduce the outflows in the future.

Under Cash in Visualize, you will find two sections: cash flow and cash balance. Cash flow is further divided into direct and indirect flows. Let’s look at these in more detail.

To get a visual sense of your organization's cash, navigate to "Visualize" > "Cash." Here, you can choose between the following graphs:

The cash flow graph shows the cash in and cash out in a business. Everything classified as cash and cash equivalents in your chart of accounts will pull through here.

You can choose the number of periods to show for each graph by clicking on figure 1 in the image below.

You can also choose which specific information to focus on. For instance, in the Flow graph, you can choose between:

You can also zero in on specific bank accounts if you would like to focus your attention on one or two in particular.

In your cash flow direct graph you can view your cash flow statement. It turns your cash flow statement using the direct method into a waterfall, line or bar graph. To change the graph format, click on the icon above the graph.

If you decide to change to a line or bar graph, you can:

The cash flow indirect graph visualizes your cash flow statement indirect over a default of 12 months. You can use this graph to view your indirect cash flow statement using a waterfall graph or view elements of the statement with a bar or line graph.

Navigate to "Cash" > "Cash Balance" to view your cash balance in a graphical format for any period. You can limit the accounts to the specific ones you want to focus on. The default view is for a 12-month period, but you can change this as well.

Within Cash Balance, you can select a specific bank account to focus on (as shown in Figure 1 below) and choose whether to show or hide individual balances (as shown in Figure 2 below).

Within the "Customers" tab you can visualize your top customers by sales, accounts receivable and debtors, debtors days outstanding, new customers, active customers and retention.

To analyze certain sales metrics, navigate to the "Metrics" top tab within "Sales," as shown in the image below.

Within the bar graph option, you can select one customer at a time to ensure a focused periodic view to identify trends with certain customers. You can multi-select customers to analyze and compare customer sales within the line graph option. The maximum number of customers you can select is 15 customers to ensure the graph is concise.

Analyze customer sales metrics within the "Metrics" top tab by selecting one of the following metrics in the drop-down:

View top customers by sales in a graphical format for any period by navigating to the "Customer Sales" top tab.

Alongside this graph you'll see the proportion of total sales that a certain customer makes up. You can also choose the number of customer sales to view. For example, if you want to focus on your top 20 customers rather than just the top 10, you can do so.

Activity is divided into three top tabs: "Active Customers", "Customer Retention" and "New Customers". Navigate to the "Activity" tab within "Customers", as shown in the image below.

The Active Customers graph shows unique customers invoiced during the period. This value will equal the count of "Number of Sales" within the Customer Sales table.

Navigate to the "Accounts Receivable" top tab within "Receivables" to visualize accounts receivable in a tabular format, as shown in the image below. You can drill down to see specific customers' outstanding invoices, as this report uses transaction-level data. Syft also takes into consideration multiple currencies and converts these for you.

You may wonder why Syft's aged receivables (AR) and aged payables (AP) reports differ to Xero's. Syft uses its own methodology to create these reports since:

In this section, we explain our methodology for calculating AR and AP reports, outline aging options available to you, and highlight a few common differences between Xero's old reports, Xero's new reports, and Syft.

Generally speaking, Syft's methodology for creating an AR or AP report follows three steps:

Steps 1 and 2 are simple, and if it weren't for Step 3, all reports would align. The challenge with Step 3 is that it includes payments that can't be associated with journals, such as overpayments, pre-payments, partial payments, payments without assignment to contacts, and all of the aforementioned, with or without returns. This results in differences between Xero's old reports, Xero's new reports, and/or Syft.

For Step 3, Syft attempts to allocate unassigned payments using the date of the transaction. If we can't do this, Syft allocates the payment to the oldest time bucket. However, since there are several types of transactions in Step 3, this approach won't always align with how Xero approaches it.

The standard aged method is a calendar-based approach to receivables and payables. The aged buckets are Current month, last month, 2 months prior, 3 months prior, and 4 months or above.

Below are a few differences you may notice between Xero's old reports, Xero's new reports, and/or Syft, along with steps to align them.

If you change a contact name in Xero, it won't update in Syft. Xero doesn't allow us to fetch changes to contacts; it only allows us to fetch the entire list of contacts. Since we're updating transactions daily, re-fetching the entire contact list would slow down refreshes. However, Syft automatically fetches new contacts. If you'd like to fetch changes to historical contacts, contact a Customer Success Manager and we'll re-fetch all the data for your entity. This will take a few minutes and resolve the issue. We will make a change to avoid this in the future.

This occurs when you backdate payments and invoices in Xero. As a rule of thumb, posting an invoice in Xero several years ago may lead to reconciliation issues. Reach out to a Customer Success Manager and we'll re-fetch all the data for your entity. This will take a few minutes and will resolve the issue.

Since Xero doesn't share their AR and AP methodology, we don't know how they allocate overpayments, pre-payments, partial payments, payments without assignment to contacts, and all of the aforementioned, with or without returns. A further complexity is the date to use, either the invoice date, the payment date, or the expected date. This results in differences between Xero's old reports, Xero's new reports, and/or Syft. Because of this, certain transactions aren't in the same time bucket, and, unfortunately, there is no way to align them.

Compare the total amounts due by your top debtors in a graphical format by navigating to the "Customer Debtors" top tab within "Receivables." You can change the number of debtors you want to focus on by clicking the drop-down arrow next to “Top 15”.

Visualize debtor day's outstanding for the current month, the prior three months, and anything older by navigating to the "Debtors Day's Outstanding" top tab, as seen in the image below. This graph lets you quickly see the health of your debtor's balance and consider any need for expected credit losses or write-offs or more targeted action to try and recover these debts.

Within "Suppliers," you will see a visual representation of your top suppliers by purchases, accounts payable, creditors, and days outstanding.

Visualize supplier purchases in a graphical format for any period by navigating to "Suppliers" > "Purchases." Choose whether to view a comparison between the current and prior periods or the current and prior last year's periods.

The "Accounts Payables," "Creditors," and "Days Outstanding" top tabs within "Suppliers" > "Payables" work the same way as the "Receivables" top tabs within "Customers." The FX Exposures option is an additional functionality present in both the receivables and payables features.

The FX Exposures function allows you to analyze your accounts payables and accounts receivables exposure by currency to discern your risk in comparison to certain exchange rates. This will enable you to record any additional expenses or gains from currency movements for these accounts. Drill-down functionality also enables you to trace which invoices are contributing to the totals shown.

Get a visual representation of the products you have sold with Syft's Products tool. navigate to the "Metrics" top tab within "Products" > "Sales", as shown in the image below.

Here, you will be able to select a metric that you would like to measure across products that you can multi-select from the drop-down for any period. To measure a metric with a more detailed view for a single product, click on the bar graph option. The metrics available are listed below:

Although you may have sold more of a certain product than others, it may not have been the most profitable. Checking the item’s GP contribution can be helpful in such cases.

Visualize top items by sales in a graphical format for any period.

You can amend the periods to view or the number of items to show, as well as date range options. You can also switch views between:

The Inventory Management table gives you a high-level overview of all your physical items in your business, including the quantity on hand as of the reporting date, the average sales in the last three months of that item, and the most sales in the last three months of that item. Using the quantity of sales, the average number of sales, and the maximum sales in the month, Syft calculates when you are likely to run out of that item.

With Syft, you can make projections for upcoming churn in your business. Navigate to "Visualize" > "Subscriptions," where you will find three subscription tools as sub-tabs which are:

For example, in the "Upcoming Churn" top tab within the "Retention" sub-tab, you will find a graph that displays forecasted churn based on the current data Syft has for when churned customers will roll off the book.

Syft subscriptions terminology: