The MicroStrategy Finance reporting enables users to access information about financial activity in Banner with the flexibility to view transaction level detail information or summary information. It enables comparison of activity across time periods and supports monitoring, budgeting, and forecasting activity. Finance report users can:
- Review and validate financial activity
- Monitor and review budgets
- Analyze Budget vs Actual comparisons
- Perform forecasting and other financial analysis
Reporting combines two types of data elements:
- Metrics – capture the amounts associated with the transactional activity
- Attributes – describe the financial dimensions of that activity (e.g., fund, organization, etc.)
Financial Metrics
Financial metrics are organized in two ways: by ledger and by time period.
By Ledger
What is a Ledger
In accounting, a ledger is a book or digital record containing bookkeeping entries. At Mason, financial transactions are stored in Banner within one or more of the following ledgers.
- General Ledger: Contains a summarized record of all financial transactions, including assets, liabilities, control accounts, and fund balance transactions that affect Mason’s balance sheets.
- Operating Ledger: Stores revenue, expenses, and transfer transactions.
- Encumbrance Ledger: Stores details related to encumbrances, which represent reserved funds — money that have been committed but not yet paid).
Together, the Operating and Encumbrance Ledgers (O&E Ledger) are often collectively referred to as the Revenue and Expense Ledger.
Ledger-Specific Metrics
In finance reporting, separate metrics are provided for each ledger, as outlined below:
Revenue and Expense Ledger Metrics (For Operating and Encumbrance transactions)
- Actual:recorded revenue or expense amounts, including:
- Actual Revenue
- Actual Expanse
- Budget: planned budget amounts, including:
- Original Budget
- Revised Budget
- Temporary and Permanent Budget Adjustments
General Ledger Metrics (For Assets and Liabilities transactions)
- Debit: increases assets and decreases liabilities
- Credit: increases liabilities and decreases assets
Financial activity can also be recorded and summarized over time in two ways:
By Time Period
By Fiscal Period
By Fiscal Period: Financial transactions are identified by their assigned transaction date and aggregated into the corresponding:
- Fiscal month
- Fiscal quarter
- Fiscal year
Year-to-Date (YTD): Represents the cumulative total of transactions within a fiscal year through a selected month. For the current month, the cumulative amount is through the prior day.
NOTE: In YTD reports, data is displayed only for months that have recorded activity within the selected fiscal year. For example, if today is 04/09/2026, selecting FY 2026 and Fiscal Month Name = June will return no data, since June has not yet occurred in the fiscal year.
For reports that are not YTD-based, users can typically select months beyond the current month and still retrieve data.
The table below provides sample metrics by ledger and time period.
| Ledger | By Fiscal Period | Year to Date (YTD) Monthly Snapshot |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue & Expense Ledger |
|
|
| General Ledger |
|
|
Financial Attributes
The list below provides examples of commonly used attributes in Finance reporting, organized by category.
- Chart of Accounts (Chart Elements)
- Fund
- Organization (Org)
- Account
- Program
- Activity
- Location
- Time
- Transaction Date (Trxn Date)
- Fiscal Month Name (e.g., July)
- Fiscal Period (e.g., 202501)
- Fiscal Quarter (Fiscal Qtr)
- Fiscal Year
- Transactions (Trxn) Details
- Trxn Document ID
- Trxn Description (Trxn Desc)
- Trxn Data Entry User ID
- Grant
- Grant
- Grant Sponsor
- Grant Principal Investigator