How To Prevent Posting To Prior Fiscal Periods in GP
Fiscal Period Closing
Did you know that Dynamics GP enables you to prevent users from posting to prior fiscal periods by closing fiscal periods? Here’s how to take advantage of the feature.
Go to Microsoft Dynamics GP > Tools > Setup > Company > Fiscal Periods.
Also be sure to close all the periods for a year that has just been closed. Because GP allows you to post back to the last closed year, you’ll want to be sure all the periods and modules are closed for that year.
You can always go back and uncheck a period to temporarily reopen it.
You also have the ability to leave just one particular type of transaction open. Click on the Mass Close button (highlighted above). Select a Series and Origin and reopen a period for just that transaction type.
For GP payroll processors, did you know that you can reprint a W-2 form from a prior year? Just go to the Print W-2 Forms window and select a prior year. Select an employee in the From and To Employee ID fields. Select to print W-2 forms and select a Form Type. Click on Print.
We hope you found this tip on reprinting prior W-2 forms to be helpful. For additional GP support on this or any GP topic, please contact CSSI.
Making Use of GP’s Quick Print
If you’re creating sales orders and printing several documents at once (sales order, picking ticket and/or packing slip), that requires a lot of mouse clicks. Instead, you can use what’s called the SOP Quick Print functionality. This is a built-in macro that you set up to print the various documents you need. In the Sales Transaction Entry window, click on Options > Quick Print Setup. Choose the documents to print, number of Copies of each, print options, and Print Destination. Click on Save when finished.
We hope this GP tip is helpful. If you need additional support, please contact CSSI to discuss.
Controlling the Posting of Future-Dated Transactions in GP
This is a free tool that is part of the Professional Services Tools Library (PSTL) toolkit. It prevents the posting of future-dated transactions in subsidiary modules.
If your Posting Setup is set to post to G/L by batch date, GP would allow a document date to be used even though that fiscal period is not yet set up in GP.
If the Posting date is coming from the batch ID, then GP would accept an incorrectly entered Document date. In the example below, the document date contains a typo. But it posted to AP! And it won’t appear on an aging report as of the current date.
To prevent this, enable Doc Date Verify. Launch PSTL by selecting it from the GP Navigation Pane.
In the Misc. Tools section, click on both the radio button and the check box next to Doc Date Verify. Click on the X in the upper right-hand corner when finished.
This must be enabled on each workstation.
Once this is enabled, any time a future date is entered into a transaction, you’ll get the error message below.
Doc Date Verify works in the following windows:
Payables Transaction Entry
Receivables Transaction Entry
Invoice Entry
Payables Manual Payment Entry
Sales Transaction Entry
Inventory Transaction Entry
Cash Receipts Entry
Purchase Order Entry
Receivings Transaction Entry
Purchasing Invoice Entry
Get Help With GP
We hope that this tip is helpful for you. To get more help with GP, please contact CSSI. We can support your upgrades, enhancements, and team training.
GP Tips For G/L Account Setups
To be sure that your general ledger year-end closing process runs smoothly, you should confirm that any new G/L accounts added during the year were set up properly.
You can use a SmartList to do this. Open SmartList and go to Financial > Accounts. Include the “Posting Type” and “Typical Balance” columns. If either of these fields are incorrect for an account, it will not get closed correctly. For instance, if a balance sheet account is set up as a profit and loss account, the account balance will be zeroed out during year-end closing.
Also add the “Created Date” column. This way you can filter the list to only include new accounts added during the current fiscal year (as shown below in the Search window.)
To fix an account, simply double-click on that account and the Account Maintenance window will open. Make the necessary change, save the account then Refresh the SmartList.
This tool has been around for many, many years. It allows you to easily defer revenues and distribute expenses to future periods in the following modules: General Ledger, Receivables Management, Payables Management, Sales Order Processing, Purchase Order Processing and Invoicing.
To set up Deferrals, go to Financial > Setup > Deferral. Deferral transactions will use the “ALTRN” Audit Trail Code and Source Document.
The Balance Sheet posting method is the simplest method where there will be just two accounts used in the deferral: the deferral account (Deferred Revenue or Expense) and the recognition account (Recognized Revenue or Expense).
The Profit/Loss method requires you to set up five posting accounts for Original Cost, Deferred Cost Account, Deferral Account, Deferral Transfer and Cost Recognition.
Once the setup is complete, you can go to Financial > Setup > Deferral Profiles to set up templates of common deferral transactions. Here you can also click on the User Access button to limit access to a profile to specific users or user classes.
Deferrals are then applied in the Distribution window of a transaction, under the Additional button. Select Deferral to apply a one-time deferral or select Deferral Profile if you’ve set up previously defined profile.
In this sample payables transaction, the Deferred Expenses account is entered as the Debit account in Distributions.
In the Deferral Entry window, you select your Start and End period dates and the Amount to Apportion (which defaults from the Purchase amount). Select a Method: Days in Period, Equal Per Period or Miscellaneous. The Cost Recognition account is the actual expense account.
When you post the transaction, journal entries will be created and posted to the future periods.
Note: You must have the Financial module open in all those future periods in the Fiscal Periods Setup window.
Any user who will be posting revenue and expense deferrals, who is not a PowerUser, must be assigned an “RED” (Revenue and Expense Deferrals) security role.
Contact CSSI for more help
If you have questions or need of GP support with this or any other topic, please contact CSSI for GP assistance.
New User-Defined Field Feature in GP 18.3 Release
This is another feature added in the GP 18.3 release. In the General Ledger Transaction Entry window, there are now two new user-defined fields. When users enter transactions into the General Ledger, they can now add additional information regarding the journal entry.
Labels for the user-defined fields are at the bottom of the General Ledger Setup window. Go to the Financial > Setup > Financial > General Ledger.
The maximum field length for the user-defined labels is 15 characters. The length of the user-defined field values is 30 characters.
Once you’ve defined your fields, you’ll see the new labels in the General Ledger Transaction Entry window.
These user-defined fields are available in the Financial Account Transactions SmartLists and they’ve been added to the following reports:
Using Copy/Paste in the Dynamics GP General Ledger
If you like the Copy/Paste functionality in General Ledger, then you’re going to like having this ability in Payables Transaction Entry. This feature was added in the October 2020 GP 18.3 release.
You use the copy/paste in both the Transaction Entry” window and the Distributions window.
The Excel spreadsheet must have the required fields in this order to copy paste correctly; not all amount fields need to have an amount. You must copy/paste all data fields only; do not include the header fields.
In the Transaction Entry window, select a Vendor ID and put your cursor in the Purchasing field. Then the Paste button will be available.
Distributions will default from the Vendor record unless you paste in distributions. Below is a sample file layout for the distribution:
You’ll need to grant security access to this new feature by adding it to the Security Task shown below.
Did you know that you can open a GP account inquiry window from within the Management Reporter Report Viewer? You just need to drill-down to the account detail in MR and then you’ll see the Dynamics button.
Click on the Dynamics button and this will open the GP Financial Detail Inquiry window for that account number and that period/month.
The Detail Level setting in the MR report definition must include Account detail.
You must be logged into GP; otherwise, you’ll get the message below.
And, you must be using the Management Reporter Report Viewer, not the web viewer, as the default viewer to drill-down into GP. In MR, go to Tools > Options and check the box highlighted below.
That’s it! If you would like additional help with drilling down to general ledger detail in GP, contact us for help.
GP Purchase Order Quantity Tolerances
Receipts against purchase orders don’t always match up perfectly with what you expected to receive. Here’s how to set up Shortage and Overage quantity tolerance percentages in GP to limit the quantity received on a PO receivings transaction.
1. To enter percentages for sales inventory type items, go to Inventory > Cards > Item Purchasing Options.
2. To enter default percentages for non-inventoried items, go to Purchasing > Setup > Purchase Order Processing.
3. When you try to Receive an item, greater than the Overage tolerance, you’ll receive this message.
4. If you receive a quantity less than the Shortage tolerance, the remaining quantity will automatically be cancelled on the PO.
For instance, if you order a quantity of 100, receive 91 and your shortage tolerance is 10% then the remaining 9 will be cancelled.
Need More GP Help?
That’s it! If you need more support for setting up purchase order quantity tolerances in GP, contact the GP team at CSSI. We are happy to offer helpful, friendly GP support for you and your team!
