// The Most Important Points at a Glance
What You'll Take Away from This Article
- Movement types classify how balance sheet accounts change – e.g. additions, disposals, depreciation or loan repayments.
- They are the basis for fixed asset, provision, equity and loan roll-forwards – and therefore for cash flow analysis.
- Analytic accounts are only a workaround in Odoo – the syscoon app "Movement Types" makes movement types mandatory, filterable and ready for roll-forwards.
Movement types are used in accounting to classify financial transactions and their changes in accounts. They are essential for creating statements such as the fixed asset roll-forward, provisions roll-forward, equity roll-forward, and loan roll-forward, which are of great importance for financial reporting and cash flow analysis.
Movement Types and Affected Accounts
Movement types define how a specific account changes. They are commonly used for balance sheet accounts, particularly for:
- Fixed asset accounting (fixed asset roll-forward)
- Additions (purchase of assets)
- Disposals (sale or scrapping)
- Depreciation (scheduled or unscheduled)
- Reclassifications (within asset classes)
- Provisions (provisions roll-forward)
- Additions (new provisions)
- Releases (utilization or reversal)
- Changes (e.g., adjustments to new estimates)
- Equity (equity roll-forward)
- Contributions & withdrawals (capital injections or returns)
- Profit/loss changes (net income/net loss for the year)
- Distributions (dividend payments)
- Loans (loan roll-forward)
- New borrowings (new loans)
- Repayments
- Interest changes (interest payments or refinancing)
Creating Roll-Forwards and Their Importance for Cash Flow
Roll-forwards are necessary to transparently present the movements of assets and liabilities. Their main purpose is to make the development of balances traceable over time.
Importance for Cash Flow
Fixed asset roll-forward: shows investments and depreciation that affect operating and investing cash flow.
Provisions roll-forward: indicates which provisions are cash-effective and affect operating cash flow.
Equity roll-forward: reflects capital measures and profit appropriations that affect financing and dividend payments.
Loan roll-forward: shows borrowings and repayments that directly affect financing cash flow.
There are two ways to work with movement types in Odoo:
Using Analytic Accounts
By default, you could simply use analytic accounts for this. To do so, you would need to create four analytic plans for the four areas (assets, provisions, equity, loans) and configure them so they only apply to specific accounts.
Disadvantages of This Method
In the accounting entries (journal items), you cannot group by analytic accounts. Grouping is possible in the "Analytic Items", but the table isn't ideal for this accounting purpose. Arbitrary percentage distributions can lead to undesirable results. For accountants, this method is too cumbersome.
Using the syscoon "Movement Types" App
The better solution is to use the syscoon "Movement Types" app. Here you can: create movement type categories. Assign movement types to categories. Assign a movement type category to each relevant account directly in the chart of accounts.
Advantages of This Method
In the journal entries, the "Movement Type" field becomes mandatory for the accounts concerned. You can filter and group journal items by category and movement type. Period roll-forwards can easily be created without opening balances. For a complete roll-forward, simply switch to Odoo Sheets and build exact roll-forwards to your liking using the syscoon Sheet formulas.
Connection to Cash Flow
The syscoon "Movement Types" app is a prerequisite for syscoon's "Indirect Cash Flow" app. This extends Odoo with a correct calculation of indirect cash flow by meaningfully integrating movement types into cash flow analysis. In addition, movement types are fully integrated into the syscoon Asset app.
Conclusion
Movement types are essential for detailed financial reporting and transparency in accounting. The syscoon "Movement Types" app offers a practical solution for managing movement types in Odoo and significantly simplifies the creation of roll-forwards and cash flow analysis. Companies benefit from structured, traceable accounting that enables sound financial planning.
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