This new feature, added in GP 2018 R2, allows you to assign a shared Calendar Year maximum amount for groups of benefits and/or groups of deductions.   This is especially helpful if you have employees who contribute to two different 401K plans.

Go Microsoft Dynamics GP > Tools > Setup > Payroll > Ded/Ben Shared Limit to set up the shared limit amount.  Create a Group Code and enter a Description.  Select the Type (Deduction or Benefit) and enter the Calendar Year Max amount.

When a deduction/benefit Group Code is created, the shared yearly maximum will be applied to all employees who are assigned to those deductions.  All deductions/benefits in the Selected column will be applied to the shared calendar year maximum set up in the Ded/Ben Shared Limit Setup window.

If an employee is assigned to only one or some of the deduction codes under the Selected column, they will still be subject to the shared calendar year maximum assigned in the Ded/Ben Shared Limit Setup window.

Need help with this GP tip? Contact us at CSSI.

Big news in November of 2021: Microsoft has announced the release of the 2021 year-end update for Dynamics GP.

What’s In the 2021 GP Update

This Microsoft Dynamics GP update is ALL inclusive of prior patches and includes the following changes.

1. Payables NEC, 1099-MISC, 1099-DIV form changes
2. Payables 1096 form changes
3. Fixed Assets – luxury auto depreciation changes
4. Payroll 1099-R form changes

The update has no changes to W-2 Forms or electronic filing.

Learn more about the 2021 GP update in this Microsoft Dynamics GP post: https://community.dynamics.com/gp/b/dynamicsgp/posts/microsoft-dynamics-gp-u-s-year-end-update-2021-released

Should You Update Dynamics GP?

If you plan on printing 1099 forms from within GP, then you will need this update. You will not be able to get by with the modifying the form in Report Writer. You’ll need the updated program code and the form change to print from within Microsoft Dynamics GP.

After the 2021 update is installed, if you have security access to a modified version of any of these 1099 Payables forms, make sure to print the original form versus a prior-year’s modified form, or you will not see the new changes in this update.

Getting Help With the 2021 GP Update

The 2021 GP update can be installed at any time. If you’d like Microsoft partner and GP expert CSSI Technologies to install the update for you, please contact us so that we can get you scheduled. CSSI also provides Dynamics GP support. Year-end is a very busy time and our calendar fills up fast!

Have you ever had to see if a user has access to a particular company in GP? If you have a lot of company databases you used to have to scroll through the entire list of companies to check the user’s access. You can now sort and search by company name or company ID making the task a lot faster. This feature was added in Microsoft Dynamics GP October 2019.

To use this tool, navigate to Microsoft Dynamics GP > Tools > Setup > System > User Access. Select the user you want to check and then select the drop down by Company Name and select by Company ID or by Company Name.

The example shows by Company Name. Enter the Company Name in the Find by Company Name box and only that company will be displayed. You can then click whether or not the user has access to the company.

Do you have credit limits set up for your customers in GP? If so, you can easily see if a customer is over their credit limit by enabling the display icon. This feature was added in GP 2015 R2.
To set up this feature go to Microsoft Dynamics GP > Tools > Setup > Sales > Receivables and go to the Options section and select the checkboxes for Display Over Credit Icon and Warn if Customer Over Credit.

You can also require a password to allow the credit limit to be overridden. The setup for that is at Microsoft Dynamics GP > Tools > Setup > Sales > Receivables.

The Over Credit Limit icon is displayed on the various customer related GP windows whenever a customer is over their credit limit.

By the way, there’s a built-in SmartList that lists all customers over their credit limit.

Register now for a great CSSI webinar on Nov. 11….

There is a tremendous amount of vital operational data locked away in your GP databases that traditional reporting does not and cannot analyze. Harnessing this underutilized and constantly growing data is absolutely critical to your decision-making process and means the difference between success and failure for your organization.

Webinar Registration: Learn About Power BI Report Pack For GP

Join us for a webinar on Nov 11, 2021 at 11:00 AM EST. Attendance is limited so register now to assure your seat at the Power BI table. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

What is Power BI Report Back For Dynamics GP

The Power BI – Report Pack for Dynamics GP is an affordable Data Analytics and AI reporting product containing 100+ pre-built dashboard reports. These pre-built Dashboard Reports surface all of your GP data spanning GL, AR, AP, Sales, and Revenue Analysis, Inventory, and Purchasing. The Report Pack will give you a real 360-degree view of your entire operation using data analytics and AI enabling your decision makers to make quicker and more data-driven decisions for your organization. There is no other pre-built Power BI solution on the market and CSSI Technologies has this solution.

Do you need to disallow the deletion of a financial batch or journal entry?

When reconciling G/L accounts at the end of the month, have you ever had a transaction in a subsidiary module that didn’t post to the general ledger?  It’s possible that the journal entry from that transaction accidentally got deleted from the financial module.

One way to prevent this in the future is to not allow financial batches and/or journal entries to be manually deleted.

Go to Financial > Setup > Financial > General Ledger.  In the Allow, section check the box beside “Deletion of Saved Transactions”.    You can always come back to this window and temporarily uncheck the box if you find you really do need to delete a transaction.

We hope you found this tip useful. Contact CSSI for personalized GP support and training.

Do you need to reopen a closed purchase order in Dynamics GP?

A closed PO can be re-opened as long as it hasn’t yet been moved to History.  You won’t be able to change the quantity on the existing line items but you can add new line items.

Go to Purchasing > Transactions > Edit Purchase Orders.  Enter or select the PO Number then change the Purchase Order Status to “Change Order”.  Click on Process. 

This PO will then be available again in the Purchase Order Entry window.

We hope you found this tip useful. Contact CSSI for personalized GP support and training.

What is GP’s SmartList Designer?

SmartList Designer is a free, built-in Microsoft GP tool that allows users to create customized lists of data known as SmartLists . You can build custom reports which pull data from multiple tables in GP, or even third-party software products. SmartList Designer is a powerful tool which can help you get the most out of GP.

Listen to our Microsoft GP SmartList Designer Webinar

CSSI is pleased to make available to you a pre-recorded webinar in which we discuss SmartList Designer. We cover such topics:

• Use the SmartList builder to extract your GP data and view however you need it
• Create your own SmartLists from scratch
• Create new SmartLists based on existing lists

Get Help With GP

If you’d like help with getting the report benefits of GPs SmartList Designer, other reporting tools such as SSRS or Crystal Reports, or any other GP feature, please be aware that CSSI offers GP training , GP upgrade support , and consulting and customization for GP. To get help, please contact CSSI.

Automatically open windows when you log into GP

Do you have a particular window (or windows) that you always open as soon as you log into GP?  You can add windows to the Home Page Startup folder and then those windows will automatically open as soon as you log in.  You can also automatically open a SmartList, a web page, an external program or file or run a macro.

On the Home Page, right-click on Startup.  Select Add then select what you’d like to add.

In this example we’ll add the Sales Transaction Entry window by clicking on Add Window.  Scroll down through the list of available windows.  Expand Microsoft Dynamics GP then the module (Sales, in the case).  Find the window name and select it.  Click on Add then Done.

To test it, exit out of GP then log back in.  Voila!  Your window (or whatever you added) should pop right up.

We hope you found this tip useful. Contact CSSI for personalized GP support and training.

Gather the data you need on one screen with all-in-one views

Here’s how to use GP’s Purchasing, Sales and Inventory All-In-One Views to view all documents related to a particular vendor, customer or inventory item.  (Available in the Inquiry section of each page.)

Creating all-in-one views:

The screenshot below shows the Sales All-In-One Views.  Here you can see Quotes, Orders, Invoices, Cash Receipts and Credits/Returns for one customer. 

• Use the “Order by” up and down arrows to change the sort order in each section. 
• Add or remove a filter in each section by clicking on the filter icons. 
• Click on the Options button to choose which types of documents you want to display.

• Click on down arrow in a box to see more details about that document

• Click on a checkox to see all the related documents for that one transaction.  In the example below, Quote QTE01025 was checked and we can then see the quote was transferred to Order ORDST2256, which was transferred to Invoice STDINV2311.  You can also see the Return and the Payment that were applied to that invoice.

How cool is that???

We hope you found this tip useful. Contact CSSI for personalized GP support and training.