A spreadsheet or PDF, once downloaded, is on its own. It can be renamed, moved, emailed, saved into a different folder, or sit in a Downloads folder for months next to a dozen similarly-named files from other businesses. Nothing about a plain export stops any of that from happening — and nothing about a plain export helps anyone, months later, work out exactly what they're looking at.
This is not a hypothetical problem. A business owner running more than one company, or an accountant working across several client businesses, will eventually have two files that look almost identical — same shape, same layout, different numbers — and need to know, quickly and with certainty, which business each one belongs to and whether they were produced at the same moment or months apart.
The four questions every export should answer on its own
Which business? Not just by name — a business ID that can't be confused even if two businesses happen to share a similar name.
When was this produced? The exact moment the file was generated, not just the date it happens to have been saved with on your computer.
When was the underlying data last changed? A separate question from when the file was exported — you can export the same, unchanged data twice a week apart.
Which version of the calculation rules produced it? The platform's own calculation logic can be corrected or improved over time. Two exports produced by different versions of that logic are not necessarily comparable, even if every other input looks identical.
BusinessSolvency produces three kinds of export, and each now carries this identification slightly differently, suited to that file's own format:
| Export type | Where the identification lives |
|---|---|
| PDF (Solvency Report, Breakeven Analysis) | Printed directly on the report header — business name, ABN, tax rate, and a "Prepared [date]" line. |
| Excel (.xlsx) | Printed on every sheet: business name, business ID, "Exported [date, time] · Data last updated [timestamp] · Engine v[version]". |
| CSV (.csv) | A CSV has no header or footer area separate from its data rows — so the identification travels with every single row instead, as four extra columns: _export_business_id, _export_business_name, _exported_at, _calc_engine_version. |
The CSV approach is deliberately different from the other two, and worth explaining. A header or footer line in a spreadsheet is easy to lose — the moment someone copies a handful of rows into a different sheet, filters the data down, or opens the file in a tool that starts reading from row one, that identifying line is gone and the remaining data is anonymous again. Putting the identification on every row means it survives exactly that kind of handling: however the data gets cut up or moved around afterwards, each row still carries its own answer to all four questions above.
What this means if you re-import your own export
BusinessSolvency's importer is a flexible, mapping-review tool — it doesn't expect an exact fixed set of columns, because it's built to handle files from Xero, MYOB, and QuickBooks too, none of which share BusinessSolvency's own column names. These four identification columns simply appear as a few extra, unmapped columns during the review step, exactly like any column the importer doesn't recognise. They won't cause an import to fail, and there's nothing you need to do differently.
This is a genuinely easy thing to assume incorrectly, so it's worth stating plainly: BusinessSolvency's CSV exports and its Excel/PDF exports do not contain the same kind of information.
The Excel and PDF exports are calculated reports — every figure on them (Net Income, DSCR, Cash Flow, the Solvency Score) has been produced by running your typed inputs through the platform's calculation engine. What you see is an output.
The CSV export, by contrast, is a raw data dump — it contains exactly what was typed into Data Entry or Forecast, nothing more. There is no DSCR column, no Net Income column, no calculated figure of any kind in a CSV export. If you need calculated figures in spreadsheet form, use the Excel export, not CSV.
BusinessSolvency's calculations aren't fixed forever. Every so often, a genuine improvement is made to how a figure is calculated — a formula corrected, a methodology decision changed (for example, whether a specific type of reserve funding should count as cash available to service debt, or cash already set aside). When that happens, the same input data can produce a different, more accurate answer than it would have a month earlier.
That's exactly what the engine version number is for. It's a short, dated label — for example, 2026-09-10 — that changes only when a methodology change like this happens. It doesn't change for routine bug fixes that don't affect any figure, or for cosmetic changes to how a report looks.
- Comparing two exports of the same business, taken months apart? Check the engine version on each first. Same version means any difference in the numbers is a genuine change in the business's own data. Different versions mean part of the difference might be the calculation method itself changing — worth understanding before treating it as a data problem.
- Working with your accountant on a reconciliation? Quote the engine version alongside any figure you're discussing. It removes an entire category of "why doesn't my number match yours" confusion before it starts.
- Something looks different from a report you remember? The engine version is the fastest way to tell whether the underlying calculation rules changed, before spending time checking your own data entry for a mistake that isn't there.
When two exports need to be compared — your own two exports taken at different times, or your figures against your accountant's copy of the same data — this is the order worth checking things in:
- Business ID matches. Confirm both files genuinely belong to the same business before anything else — especially if you run more than one company.
- Engine version matches. If they don't, that alone can explain a discrepancy — see Section 6B.4.
- "Data last updated" timestamp (Excel only). If this differs between two exports, someone edited the underlying figures between the two exports being taken — the numbers are supposed to differ.
- Report period matches. Confirm both files cover the same financial years before comparing any individual figure.
- Only then, compare the actual figures — with confidence that any remaining difference is a genuine change in the business, not an artefact of comparing two files that were never quite the same kind of thing to begin with.
Why this matters beyond convenience
For a platform whose entire purpose is giving business owners and their accountants a document they can rely on for genuine solvency monitoring, a file that can't prove where it came from or when is a real weakness, not a minor inconvenience. This matters more for a sole trader or partnership than for an incorporated company, not less: with no separate legal entity standing between the business and its owner, a secured mortgage, a supplier debt, or any other obligation left unpaid because the cash position is genuinely in deficit becomes the owner's own direct, personal, unlimited liability the moment it can't be met — not a company's, and not something a corporate structure absorbs on their behalf. A documented, dateable record of genuinely monitoring that cash position isn't optional diligence at that point; it's the owner's own evidence of having taken the risk seriously before it became unmanageable. Every export answering its own identity questions is what turns a spreadsheet into a record that can actually carry that weight.