How to Manage MDA Statements in Gravity

1. Your MD&A (or MDA) statement is an important vector for readers to understand how your organization works and its financial position. Your MD&A has already been created for as part of implementation. In this guide, you will learn how to manage your MD&A statement to automate it and help visualize your financial data for your constituents. In a Gravity ACFR, you will have a spreadsheet called "MDA Narrative". This spreadsheet is where all financial data pertinent to your MD&A is imported into the report to be automated. All columns are Narrative amount and calculation; all rows are line items in the MD&A statement. In this guide, we will teach you how to make your MD&A statement as automated as possible. Here is an image of what the "MDA Narrative" spreadsheet looks like:

2. To automate your MD&A section, we are going to use variables. To begin creating a variable, click on any number from a yellow column.

3. Click "Extensions".

4. Click "Gravity Sheets Add-On".

5. Click "Variables".

6. Click "Copy/Create".

7. Name this variable and it a description that relates to the row and column you have selected.

8. Then click "OK".

9. Go to your MD&A report, where you want this automated number to be displayed.

10. Select where you want the number to be read.

11. Click "Extensions".

12. Click "Gravity Editor Add-On".

13. Click "Variables".

14. Click "Paste".

15. Now you have pasted your variable into the MD&A narrative. You can repeat this process to automate all numbers in your MD&A Statement. 
    
    Note: If you have formatted your cells to show dollar amounts, you may have see two dollar signs in your report. If this is the case, only erase the dollar sign that has no yellow highlighting. Failure to do so will result in the variable breaking, and you have to delete the variable and then pasting it again.

16. To add a chart to your MD&A Statement, open up the MD&A spreadsheet.

17. Click and drag to select the data you wish to represent in the chart.

18. Once you have selected your data, click "Data".

19. Click "Named ranges".

20. Name your range and click "Done".

21. Click on the overflow menu (the three dots) to the right of any object.

22. Click "Add Sibling".

23. Click "Chart".

24. In the pop-up menu, name your chart.

25. Select the spreadsheet document you which to draw data from.

26. Select your named range.

27. Then click "Create". You can then utilize the chart settings to format your chart as you wish.