Introducing Negative Number Formats

Modified on Fri, 24 Oct at 11:50 AM

Negative number formats in Omniscope give you control over how negative values appear - both inside your workflow and in your reports.

Like other formatting options (such as decimal places, prefixes and suffixes), this setting doesn't change how values are stored or calculated, it simply affects how they are displayed.

Summary of Negative Number Formats

Omniscope now supports three formats for displaying negative numbers:

Format	Example	Description
Minus sign (default)	-123	Traditional numeric style
Parentheses (Accounting)	(123)	Common in financial and accounting reports
Debit/Credit (Ledger)	DR 123/CR 123	Used in ledger style reports

These formats can be combined with existing number formatting options, for example if you set a prefix to £, you will see:

Format	Example Output
Minus sign	£-123
Parentheses	£(123)
Debit/Credit	DR £123

Inside a Workflow

In a workflow, you can customise the field formatting using a Field Organiser block.

Open the Field Organiser, identify the field and click the three-dot button. Here you will find the Negative number format dropdown, alongside the other formatting options:

For example, if you change the format to Accounting and switch to the Data tab, the table will show negative values in parentheses instead of a minus sign:

These formatting settings will flow through your workflow, and will be applied to all downstream blocks and reports unless explicitly overridden.

Inside a report

Negative number formats can also be configured in a report.

In the Data tab, navigate to a field and click the three-dots button to open the Field settings popup:

You can also set the format inside any measure, giving you precise control over how values are presented in any view:

The selected format applies whenever a value for that field or measure is displayed - for example a cell value in a Pivot view or a Tooltip in a Waterfall view:

Limitations

Currently, negative number formatting is not applied when exporting data, or when abbreviating a value.

Summary

Negative number formats bring more flexibility to how your data is presented - whether you prefer traditional minus signs, accounting-style parentheses, or professional DR/CR ledger notation.

This small but powerful enhancement helps make reports clearer, workflows more readable, and your data presentation more aligned with your audience.