FAQs

What is OpenReporting.com?

OpenReporting.com is a web based reporting and analytics tool that helps organizations bring transparency to their financial information and share it to very large audience.

Who can benefit from OpenReporting.com tools?

Governments, Universities, Schools, Charities, Non-profits or any organization whose funding comes from general public in the form of taxes, fees, donations, investments, etc. who wants to bring transparency into their financial information and thus improve trust and confidence in their organization.

Private organizations can also use OpenReporting.com as a feature rich financial information exploration and analysis tool, with an internal closed group of users. Investors can see how their investments are being utilized by their investees.

We already have our financial statements online. Why do we need another tool?

Great! Disclosure, is the first step in transparency. But if you have published your financial information spanning hundreds of pages in a non-structured form (example: a PDF or word document) or even in semi structured form (example: excel sheets), the end users who contributed to your organization will always find it difficult to analyze and understand this information. This brings us to the second step in transparency, Clarity.

OpenReporting.com converts financial information to an easy to use web based summary report which the users can drill down to the very lowest detail, exploring and analyzing the information presented, with a user friendly web interface taking advantage of advanced charts and data visualizations. This will give an end user, greater understanding of what is going on, and thus will help improve confidence and trust in your organization.

Moreover OpenReporting.com is web based and is fine tuned for distribution to masses. So you do not have to worry about the technicalities of scaling up your IT infrastructure to meet an information disclosure requirements (ex: Freedom of information requests).

How do I get started?

After registering at the site, you can give the Organization details and you will get a unique URL (which you can use to link or embed the reports in your organization website). Next stage is to get your Ledger data in to an excel template which can be downloaded from our site, upload the ledger, review the information in draft mode and when you are satisfied, publish the results to Public or your closed group (in case of private organizations). End users can see your financial information at the URL provided earlier.

You can do all this yourself with our user friendly web based tools

OR

just ask us to do it for you. You can start by requesting a demo for your organization’s data.

What all data is needed for setting up the report at OpenReporting.com?

Chart of Accounts, Budget (optional) and Ledger are the three datasets required. Budget data will complete the report data requirement but reports can render with just Ledger and Chart of Accounts data as well. If you have historical Budget data for past years, you can see actual vs budget comparisons for those years, in the report.

You can get an export of these from your accounting systems. You may already have this information ready for your auditors. If you find it difficult to format them for OpenReporting templates, just send it over and we will do it for you.

How detailed is the information in reports?

This depends on how detailed is the information you have in hand. OpenReporting.com reports can show information, from the highest summary point of view, down to a single transaction, recorded in your ledger, drilling down through dimensions of category and time.

Do I have to publish all data to public?

OpenReporting.com recommends publishing content to public as we are trying to promote transparency. However you do not have to do this if you are not ready to publish or in case you are using the tool for a private organization. You can set an Organization itself as Public or Private and then set each upload of ledger information in Draft or Published mode. Private organization information is shared only with in closed groups and Public organization information is shared only when the upload is moved from Draft to Published.

How do I link or embed the report in our organization site?

You get a subdomain and a URL at the time you register your organization which can be used to link to the report from your organization web site. Apart from that an embed script will be provided to embed the report with in web pages of any site.

You can also point one of your subdomains (example: transparency.yourorg.com) to our IP address and make it look like the report is served from your own domain. This will ensure a consistent experience for the end user as he is served from the same domain…

What all browsers, devices can show this report?

Our web reports work on all modern web browsers like Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer (8 or above). It can be accessed from various mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. The responsive web page design makes sure that the report looks good on all browsers and all devices.

What if I have more questions?

Please let us know at the Contact page…