Thursday, August 4, 2011

Recording a Rebate from a Vendor

This has come up a few times in recent days, so I thought I’d post this quick tip about how to record a refund check or rebate received from a vendor.

You get a check in the mail!

Let’s say you buy enough office supplies to get a $100.00 cash reward from Advanced Office Systems.  They send you a $100.00 check. You could create a deposit in the Bank Rec module, but then you wouldn’t have a record of your good fortune with the vendor.

To record this $100.00 check and keep it linked to the vendor, use the Document Type Return in Payables Transaction Entry.

Put the amount of the refund in the Returns field and in the Check field. When you post the transaction, you will have evidence of it in the vendor record and the check will be waiting for you to deposit in the check register.

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The $100.00 check is waiting to be deposited.

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How do you apply it to a credit memo?

A kind user of the Community asked how to handle receiving the cash after they had already entered a credit document in anticipation of a credit or refund. My advice in this situation is to simply void the credit and re-enter it as a refund as described above.

Please let me know if you have more ideas!

Until next post!

Leslie Vail
leslievail@earthlink.net

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