Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Notable settings on the Account Maintenance Window

There are several settings on the Account Maintenance window that are underutilized. These settings have existed for over ten years, but still I see the default settings used in all but a meager number of installations. The following settings will be explored:

· Account Aliasing
· Allow Account Entry
· Account Category
· Posting Type
· Typical Balance
· Level of Posting from Series
· Include in Look up
· Effectively Inactivating an Account

Account Aliasing

Creating an account Alias allows you to speed data entry by creating a Nickname for an account. Instead of having to remember or search for a specific account number. To create an alias, simply add the nickname to the alias field just under the Description field.

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To use the Alias during account entry, select the expansion arrow next to the Account Look up Button or use CTRL Q on the keyboard to open the Account Entry window. Enter the Alias in the Account entry window, and the corresponding account will automatically come into the transaction.

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Allow Account Entry Check box

Using this check box can help keep your control accounts in balance with the general ledger. The default setting is checked thereby allowing this account to be selected if it has not defaulted in to a transaction. Therefore, you could make a journal entry directly to the cash account which most likely will create a problem during bank reconciliation. For all of your control accounts – those accounts updated by a subsidiary module – the Allow Account Entry check box should be cleared.

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Once the check box is cleared, an attempt to use it will result in a warning dialog and the entry will not be allowed.

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Account Category

This is a required field on the window and is used exclusively by the Advanced Financial Analysis module.

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The category assigned to an account determines where the account will appear on the financial statements printed from the Financial Area Page.

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The accounting system would run perfectly even if every account were assigned to the Cash category. Neither FRx nor Management Reporter relies on this setting to determine classification on the financials. Account Category reports CAN be used in financial reporting, and, you can create as many categories as you would like. In addition to creating new categories you can modify the descriptions of the default categories.

Add categories or modify category descriptions on the Account Category Setup window.

Financial > Setup > Category

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Posting Type

The posting type determines which accounts are rolled into Retained Earnings during the financial year end close. This setting affects nothing else. As part of your year end close checklist be sure to check each account’s posting type. If you have a beginning balance in an income or expense account after year end close, then the posting type is incorrect. KB article 864913 provides detailed instructions on how to recover from this type of problem.

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Typical Balance

This setting determines whether the account appears as a positive or negative number on the financial statements. The title is a bit misleading because even though the ‘typical’ balance of the accumulated depreciation account is a credit, the correct setting for purposes of the Account Maintenance window is Debit. Since accumulated depreciation functions as a reduction to an asset account, marking debit causes it to appear negative on the balance sheet. These settings were designed for the Advanced Financial Analysis module, and also control in which column (debit or credit) the cursor defaults during transaction entry.

In short, the following are the correct selections for this section regardless of the typical balance from an accounting point of view:

Account Type Typical Balance
Asset Debit
Liability Credit
Equity Credit
Income Credit\
Expense Debit
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Level of Posting from Series

This setting works in concert with the ‘Create a Journal Entry Per’ option in the Posting Setup window. With ‘Batch’ selected and the ‘Use Account Settings’ check box marked, the system looks to the Account Maintenance window in order to know how to create the journal entry coming up from the subsidiary module.

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Using the Payables Transaction Entry window as an example, the settings illustrated above would result in a single summarized entry to the Accounts Payable (000-2100-00) account per batch. Whether entries to the other accounts are made in detail or in summary would likewise be controlled by the settings on those individual accounts.

For example, suppose only the Accounts Payable account was set to ‘Summary’ and our batch contained three vouchers. Each voucher contained a debit to the Prepaid Insurance account and a credit to Accounts Payable.

The resulting entry posted to the GL for this batch would be as follows:

Dr. Prepaid Insurance 56.98
Dr. Prepaid Insurance 27.50
Dr. Prepaid Insurance 15.00
Cr. Accounts Payable 99.48

Include in Look up

If all of your accounts are listed whenever you click on the account look up button, then you haven’t made use of this powerful setting. The default setting marks all of the items (Sales, Inventory Control, Purchasing, and Payroll) and is rarely changed. To illustrate this setting, I’ve taken away the ‘Sales’ setting from all of the accounts except for the accounts I want to appear when I first hit the account look up button. Likewise, I’ve only included ‘Sales’ in the ‘Include in Lookup’ selection for my Sales accounts.

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Now that my sales related accounts are marked to be included in the sales look up, my account look up window starts with Accounts Receivable instead of Cash.

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The other accounts are readily available by clicking on the View menu and selecting All Accounts.

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Inactivate that Account for good!



· Inactive – dah, enough said
· Allow Account Entry – uncheck this box
· Include in Look up – unmark all items

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Until next post!
  • Leslie Vail

Monday, May 9, 2011

Mekorma MICR error message (GP10)

I had a client get the following error when trying to create Payroll checks with the Mekorma MICR module:

Could not load external Get GUID@mdexlib.dll. Mekorma MICR needs to be re-installed on the workstation giving the error. Be sure to install using the MICR *.exe logged in as 'Administrator'

Mekorma did indeed need to be reinstalled. Reinstallation had been required before but I never understood what happened to the mdelib.dll file. Well now we know. The client’s malware detector isolated that file as a threat.

So, if this happens to you, be sure to identify the Mekorma .dlls as ‘friendly’ files.

Until next post!

Leslie

Friday, April 29, 2011

Dexterity I class scheduled for May 16th - 20th, 2011 will be running as scheduled

There are 3 seats left and still time to sign up!

Come join us in Orlando for Dexterity Basics training.

The Dex I class is being held at the facility of Integrated Business Group (IBG). IBG is a Certified Partner for Learning Resources and have the best classrooms I have ever seen. Comfortable chairs and lots of room to spread out!

For more information and to register call Roxanna Alvarez @ 407-677-0370 or e-mail her directly ralvarez@ibgnet.com.
Date and Location:
  • When: May 16th – May 20
  • Where: Orlando Florida
This class is very hands-on and starts at the beginning; no previous Dexterity experience is necessary.

A synopsis of the class is below this post.

I hope to see you there!

Until Next Post!
Leslie Vail

Dexterity I – Product Fundamentals
Synopsis:

Dexterity Product Fundamentals will teach you about the development environment used to build the Microsoft Dynamics GP family of products. This course will provide you with the foundation you need to build integrated, database-independent applications. In addition, you will learn how to provide powerful application functionality for Microsoft Dynamics GP.

By actively participating in these classes, you should learn:
Basic programming techniques used by Microsoft Dynamics GP to develop their core modules.
  • How to modify existing Dynamics GP forms and reports in order to make customizations for customers.
  • How to develop add-on applications that will interact with the Dynamics GP products to meet specific requests by customers.
  • How to package and ship your dictionary allowing Microsoft Dynamics GP to make updates to Dynamics GP without affecting the developer's dictionary.
  • How to register your product with Microsoft Dynamics GP using a unique Product ID to ensure no duplication of add-on applications with the same name.
  • How to develop add-on applications that will "look and feel" like Dynamics GP and provide seamless interface between the applications to ensure a professional finished product.
  • How to use object triggers, which are scripts in your applications that are invoked by events in Dynamics GP, allowing several developers to deliver enhancements to the same Dynamics GP form.
Who should attend?

Customers or Partners who will be customizing or building add-on or standalone applications to integrate with the Microsoft Dynamics GP products.

General Prerequisites:
Prior to attending the course, it is highly recommended that students prepare for the course by going through the Dexterity Quick Start reference manual and working through the lessons in that manual. The Quick Start manual is located on the second CD of Dynamics GP and can be found under the Help-Online Manuals option from within Dexterity. Also, necessary is knowledge of basic programming concepts.
Price: $2,995 for 5 day course
Accepted Payment Methods: Check, Visa, MasterCard, American Express

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Granting Security to Basic Information and Navigation Windows

When security is converted, the DEFAULTUSER task is not included in the Role created for an existing user. Because this task is not included, some of the windows for general navigation new to GP 10 were not available to converted users. This post explains how to add the DEFAULTUSER role to a CNV Role.

On the Navigation Pane, select the Administration Series button to launch the Administration Area Page.

On the Administration Area Page, navigate to the Setup Content Pane and then the System menu. Select Security Roles from the System menu and the Security Role Setup window will open.

Select from Icon
Select from Button

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On the Security Role Setup window select each user’s Role ID, scroll down to the DEFAULTUSER Security Task ID and select it. This will grant access to a variety of navigation and lookup windows. Save this record and move on to the next applicable User Role ID. For versions prior to GP2010 there is no utility to copy security between users.

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Until next post!
Leslie

Monday, April 25, 2011

GP 2010 R2 – Ready to Download!

It’s HERE!

The covers have been pulled off of the newest version of Dynamics GP. Some fabulous new features have been added that really make it worth your time to install. Links to all of the download are at the bottom of this post.

Take a look at some of the R2 updates to Foundation alone:

Business Analyzer -  this is the absolute COOLEST!

You can use Business Analyzer to help you make business decisions by viewing
Microsoft Dynamics GP reports from your desktop. The following illustration
shows Business Analyzer from your desktop.

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Home Page - Viewing multiple metrics
Multiple metrics can be displayed in your home page. You also can create your own
metrics to display in your home page.

Sending reports in e-mail messages
You can send most reports in an e-mail message if you’re using a MAPI compliant email
service. All reports sent in an e-mail will be sent in HTML format, which
doesn’t require any other setup procedures. The recipient of the report must be
using Internet Explorer 7 or higher to view the e-mailed report, but no additional
setup is required.

To send a report in an e-mail, you first must set up a report option. Then, you can set
up e-mail options for each report option. Those settings, which include recipients
for the e-mail and settings for embedding or attaching the report are saved with the
report option and you’ll be able to send updated reports to the same recipients.

Sending customized messages
You can create predefined messages to send to your customers and vendors. These
messages can be assigned to the documents that you want to send in e-mail so all
customers or vendors receive the same message for selected documents. For
example, you can send a promotional message to your customers when sending
sales quotes in e-mail. You also can assign a specific message to an individual
customer or vendor. For example, you can send a holiday greeting message to a
customer. When you create a message, you can enter an e-mail address so your
customer or vendor can reply to your e-mail.

You can customize your messages by adding fields that are associated with a
document type. For example, a message can be personalized to address each
customer or vendor by name. You could add the due date for a sales invoice in a
message or the PO number for a purchase order. You also can copy the message
information from an existing message ID to a new message ID.

Viewing Reporting Services metrics
You can use Microsoft® SQL Server® Reporting Services 2008 or Reporting Services
2008 R2 to display graphical representations of Microsoft Dynamics GP data in the
metrics area of your home page. Reporting Services metrics appear in the SQL
Reporting Services Report list.

Viewing additional information
If you want to analyze data in a Reporting Services 2008 or Reporting Services R2
metric displayed in your home page, you can click a data point in the metric to open
a detailed report for additional information. If you want to view additional data in
the detailed report, you can click certain data fields to open the maintenance or
inquiry window related to that data field.

Modifying a metric – At Last!
If you are using Report Builder 3.0 or Report Builder 2.0, you can open the Microsoft
SQL Server Report Builder window from the Metrics Detail window to modify SQL
Server Reporting Services metrics and KPIs (key performance indicators). SQL
Server Reporting Services R2 also must be installed and set up to use with Microsoft
Dynamics GP.

Opening a metric in Report Viewer
If you are using Reporting Services 2008 or Reporting Services 2008 R2 to display
metrics, you can click the View icon to display a metric in Report Viewer.

Installation and deployment features
Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) for Receivables Management is installed along with
Microsoft Dynamics GP instead of as a separately selectable Microsoft Dynamics GP
feature.

Human Resources and Payroll Suite
This is now installed as a separately selectable Microsoft Dynamics GP feature instead as an additional component.

When deploying Reporting Services reports using the Microsoft SQL Server
Reporting Services Wizard, you can deploy reports to either Native mode (SQL Server Reporting Services) or SharePoint® mode.

You can deploy Reporting Services reports and Excel reports using Microsoft
Dynamics GP Utilities. After creating the system database or company database,
you can select which reports to deploy and the location to deploy the reports to.
Instead of selecting the series that you want to deploy reports for, reports for the
components that you have installed are deployed. If you are upgrading a company,
the deployed reports are automatically upgraded. In previous releases of Microsoft
Dynamics GP, you had to use a separate wizard to deploy SRS reports and a
separate wizard to deploy Microsoft Excel reports to Microsoft SharePoint.
If you aren't ready to deploy reports using Microsoft Dynamics GP Utilities, you can
deploy reports using the Report Tools Setup window in Microsoft Dynamics GP.
You can use the Report Tools Setup window to redeploy reports or deploy reports to
a different location.

List Performance Enhancements YAY! WOO HOO!
List views provide a view of your data that you can customize in a variety of ways.
In Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2, improvements were made to the speed at which
the information is displayed, enabling you to spend your time using the list rather
than waiting for it to display.

Report deployment
You can deploy SQL Services Reporting Services reports and Microsoft Excel report
using the Report Tools Setup window in Microsoft Dynamics GP. You also can use
the window to redeploy reports or deploy reports to a different location.

SmartList Builder Publish multiple Excel reports at once
You can use the new Bulk Deploy Excel Reports window and select multiple Excel
reports to publish at once, rather than publishing them individually.

SmartList Builder Set the default column order in SmartList Builder
You can define default column order using SmartList Builder so that the SmartList
is displayed with the columns in the order you want when it is first opened. A new
window, Default Column Order is added to SmartList Builder for determining the
column order.

SmartList Builder Drill Down to Extender and SmartLists
You can use the Drill Down Builder to create drill downs from Microsoft Dynamics
GP, SmartLists and Extender. A Dynamics GP Form drill down opens a Microsoft
Dynamics GP form and sets values on the form. A SmartList drill down opens a
SmartList and sets search parameters. An Extender drill down opens an Extender
Form or Detail Form and sets the values of the ID fields.

SmartList Builder Multicompany Excel Reports in a Single Excel Worksheet
You can add data from multiple companies into a single Excel Worksheet. In
addition, you can add the Company ID and/or Name to each line so that you can
see which company the data came from.

SmartList Builder Update Multiple field settings at one time
You have the ability to modify field options for multiple fields with the same field
type at once instead of one at a time. For example, you can select display options
such as currency symbols and percentage signs and mark several fields to display
the option for using the Set Field Options window.

Add Microsoft Dynamics GP forms to Extender menus
You can add Microsoft Dynamics GP forms to Extender menus using the Add
Dynamics GP Forms window allowing additional flexibility to the menus you
create.

Unified Communications and Office Communicator 2007 functionality was added. This functionality is also available using the Linked Lookup fields on Extender windows and forms, detailed forms, and extra windows.

Copy lists in Extender
You can copy list field items from one form or window to another one. The Copy
List Items window shows all the lists defined in Extender, so you can choose which
list to copy from; then, select all or individual list items to copy. In addition, you can
append the list you copy to the existing list items.

Matched Table Enhancements
In the Matched Tables window, you have new Table Description fields to help
identify the tables, and the ability to include fields that don't appear in both
matched tables.

GET YOUR COPY NOW!

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PartnerSource
Product Release Downloads for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Word Template Generator for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2
Service Pack, Hotfix, and Compliance Update Patch Releases for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Software Development Kit (SDK) for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Software Development Kit (SDK) for Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Software Development Kit (SDK) for Web Services for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Software Development Kit (SDK) for Workflow for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Service Packs and Hotfixes for eConnect for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Service Packs and Hotfixes for Web Services for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Service Packs and Hotfixes for Integration Manager for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Service Packs and Hotfixes for Workflow for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Service Packs and Hotfixes for Personal Data Keeper for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010

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CustomerSource
Product Release Downloads for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Service Pack, Hotfix, and Compliance Update Patch Releases for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Software Development Kit (SDK) for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Software Development Kit (SDK) for Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Software Development Kit (SDK) for Web Services for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Software Development Kit (SDK) for Workflow for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Service Packs and Hotfixes for eConnect for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Service Packs and Hotfixes for Web Services for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Service Packs and Hotfixes for Integration Manager for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Service Packs and Hotfixes for Workflow for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Service Packs and Hotfixes for Personal Data Keeper for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010

Until next post!

Leslie Vail