In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values e.g. segment 2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000. This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values.

Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax. This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula e.g. (segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000). With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify.

In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function, you must tell GL Wand which segments you are combining. You do this by entering a special value into the segment e.g. if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the following in the parameter for segment 2 “Use_Seg3”. This tells GL Wand that that it must find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter. In the segment 3 parameter you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3, separated by the special delimiter character e.g. “100.1000”. This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000. An example could look like this:

=Get_Balance("Jan-02","PTD","USD","E","A","", "01","Use_Seg3","100.1000,200.2000","0000","000")

It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows:

=Get_Balance("Jan-02","PTD","USD","E","A","", "01","Use_Seg5","Use_Seg5","Use_Seg5","100.1000.0000.000")

You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination using the special “Use_SegX” syntax. Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a “.” character.

When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges, lists, wild cards, parents and exclude criteria. For example this criteria will fetch all the values where segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000. And in addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3 starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is 3320.

=Get_Balance("Jan-02","PTD","USD","E","A","","01","Use_Seg3","100.1000-200.2000,250.33%,~250.3320","0000","000")

You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together. For example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together.

=Get_Balance("Jan-02","PTD","USD","E","A","", "Use_Seg3","Use_Seg4","01.1000,02.1150","100.0000,200.1050","000")

These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports.