Finance Module Best Practices Dynamics GP Speaker Name: McDowell, VanJura, Eichner GPUG
Mike McDowell Experience COO, Mekorma Software CFO for 15 years 12 years working with Dynamics GP Believes in: Working Smarter not harder. Doing more with less. Increasing accuracy without sacrificing time.
Joyce VanJura Experience Over 10 years experience with GP & 20 years in IT Has worked as a consultant, end user and partner 50 GP licenses Financial, AR, AP, Service Call, Inventory, Fixed Assets Believes in: In Business For Yourself but not By Yourself Ray Kroc, McDonald s Corporation
David Eichner Experience CEO, ICAN Software Corporation 16 years experience working with Dynamics GP CPA Programmer Nuclear Engineer/Submarine Officer Technology Geek Believes in: Technology Should Make Life Easier
Finance Module Best Practices Session Objectives Dynamics GP Interactive! Share experiences with Microsoft Dynamics GP Financial Series Discuss do s, don ts and best approaches Answer YOUR questions on how to use Dynamics GP more effectively
Best Practices: All Users Use Macros To Automate Tasks Long-running reports can be run via macro scheduled to run at night Maintenance Tasks can be run overnight this way as well Integrations
Best Practices: All Users Use SmartList Reminders To Identify Exceptions Create Smartlist looking for exceptions save with a reminder to make show on home page when records exist Create your own Smartlist with the new Smartlist Designer built into GP 2013
Best Practices: All Users Use Business Alerts Create Business Alerts looking for exceptions and have email notifications sent out
Best Practices: All Users Use Macros To Automate Tasks Long-running reports can be run via macro scheduled to run at night Maintenance Tasks can be run overnight this way as well Integrations
Best Practices: All Users Speed Entry with Negative Numbers within Financial Transaction Entry Speed Entry with Date Shortcuts + or - will advance or go back one day. Enter day Date field will default to Month and Year Enter Month and Day - Date will default to year.
Best Practices: All Users Protect against Fraud by Implementing Safe Pay with your Banks Positive Pay System Utilize the Professional Tools Library Correct 1099 amounts using 1099 Modifier Correct Vendor and/or Customer name using name modifier Combine and/or change financial GL accounts using account Modifier/Combiner Unapply a Receivable Management Transaction
Best Practices: All Users Use SQL Report Builder Free download from www.microsoft.com/downloads Easily create ad hoc reports Easily create executive dashboards and KPI Easily create data driven maps Free training at www.icansoftware.com
Best Practices: All Users Use Business Analyzer View ad hoc reports View executive dashboards and KPI View data driven maps
Best Practices: All Users Transition To GP 2013 Perpetual Licensing Unlimited Employees for Payroll and Human Resources EFT Payables and EFT Receivables Electronic Bank Reconciliation SafePay Cash Flow Management Fixed Assets Account Level and Field Level Security National Accounts Deferred Revenue and Expense
Best Practices: Controller Create a SmartList to identify GL accounts with the wrong posting type and make a Reminder with it Use a budget with a generic name like OPERATING for the current year budget so that you don t have to change your FRx reports that reference the budget each year
Best Practices: Controller Posting Prior Year Adjustments Don t hold off closing your GL until those auditor entries are available. Microsoft Dynamics GP allows journal entries to be entered against the most recent historical year. Each posting to the historical year will automatically generate closing entries and roll adjustments into the 2013 starting balances. Make sure to configure to normally disallow prior period postings except when you need to do so.
Best Practices: Controller Use a budget to store historical years financial summaries for years prior to acquisition of acquired entities. Utilize new ability to lookup historical journal entries by year with GP2013.
Best Practices: Controller Recording an Unused Check 1. Enter a Check transaction. 2. Change the Check Number to reflect the check you're recording. 3. Enter whatever description you want in the 'Paid To' and 'Description' fields. 4. Leave the Amount $0.00. Ignore the distributions. They're not required. 5. Post the transaction.
Best Practices: Controller Reconcile a cash account with no transactions for the period Enter $.01 dummy Increase Adjustment Enter $.01 dummy Decrease Adjustment Debit and credit the cash account for both transactions. Run your reconcile for the period and clear the two dummy transactions. Your reconcile reports will then print.
Best Practices: Controller Setup functional currency as Z-US$ even if not using MultiCurrency If using multiple currencies, consider using automatic download of currency rates (Olympic Systems provides a product for this)
Best Practices: Controller Back Out and Correct Posted GL Transactions With Ease Use The Letter Writing Wizard
Best Practices: AP EFT Payables Less printing of checks Send a file to the bank to transfer funds to your vendors Avoid having to void and rekey credit memos by using new feature to Unapply Credit Docs when voiding a check Use new ability to reprint Check Remittance in GP 2013
Best Practices: AP Vendor ID Conventions Do not include special characters from Vendor name such as ampersands (&), at signs (@) or apostrophes ( ). Skip words like and. Ignoring spaces and punctuation marks. The main idea is to be consistent and make the list easier to use.
Best Practices: AP Clean up vendor list Create a SmartList with Vendor ID, Vendor Name, Tax ID Number (TIN), Account Number with Vendor and Created Date. Filter on Created Date to look at vendors added since the last verification. Run SmartList in different sort orders to find duplicate names or Tax ID Numbers. Create a SmartList that includes Last Purchase Date or Last Check Date to determine if they should be inactivated. Lookup lists can now be set to exclude inactive vendors, making for easier lookups. Take advantage of the www.irs.gov website to verify TINs for newly added vendors. Create a SmartList that contains Address Information (Address1, Address2, City, State, and Zip). Look for duplicates and verify that they are legitimate vendors. This is a simple way to catch fraudulent vendors.
Best Practices: AP Scheduled Payments Split payables transaction into multiple payments Works great for things like loans or leases The entire transaction can be entered into payables and then paid in installments while accounting for interest. To set this up, click Purchasing in the Navigation List on the left and pick Scheduled Payments. Use the lookup button to select an existing payables transaction to schedule. Most of the rest of the screen is straightforward with the schedule date, total to pay over time, simple or compound interest, an interest rate and invoice dates.
Best Practices: AP Reconcile to GL for AP Module Use the tool provided Tools-Routines-Financial-Reconcile to GL Use Financial Trial Balance and balance to AP HATB for daily balancing. Lock down Subsidiary Ledger Accounts
Best Practices: AP Edit Open Payables Transactions Discount Date Due Date P.O. Number Description GP 2013 Adds Remit to Address ID
Best Practices: Purchasing Copy a Purchase Order Click the Actions button and pick Create and Copy New PO Enter the source PO You can then can set the Vendor, Currency, Customer, Dates, Sites and Cost options. You can also copy all P.O. lines, include canceled lines/quantities, copy freight, misc, or shipping amounts Display the new PO when done
Best Practices: Purchasing Purchase Order Receipt Tolerance Professional Services Toolset option (FREE) Provides ability to set a tolerance for excess receipts against your purchase orders You can choose a zero tolerance or some reasonable low tolerance which prevents receiving in excess of the tolerance you set
Best Practices: Purchasing Moving Closed Purchase Orders to History Over time, the number of closed POs in the open tables accumulates, slowing down search and lookup functions Institute a process to move closed POs to history on a periodic basis. Moving POs to history monthly or quarterly might be appropriate, depending on your PO volume purchase Order Receipt Tolerance Professional Services Toolset option (FREE) Provides ability to set a tolerance for excess receipts against your purchase orders You can choose a zero tolerance or some reasonable low tolerance which prevents receiving in excess of the tolerance you set
Best Practices: Receivables Run the Paid Transactions Removal routine on regular basis and use a cutoff date that lags by a few months.
Best Practices: Receivables EFT Receivables for better cash flow Generate invoices in AR with a related EFT receipt Post batch Generate file for the bank to draw from the customer bank accounts
Best Practices: Receivables Speed Up the Receivables Aging Process Select the No Report option Allows aging code to run without having to compile all that data into a report
Best Practices: Database Admin Backups Setup nightly full backups Setup transaction log backups on hourly basis
Best Practices: Database Admin Professional Services Tools Combine and/or Modify: Accounts Customer ID Vendor ID Item Number Employee ID (Modify Only) Fixed Asset ID (Modify Only) Salesperson ID (Modify Only) Territory ID Checkbook ID (Modify Only) Inventory Site ID
Best Practices: Database Admin Professional Services Tools Library Master Record Triggers Payables Minimum Check Utility 1099 Modifier Mass change documents to 1099 documents if you have incorrectly set up your vendors, or if you forgot to mark the 1099 vendor option on your vendor card for a year or a portion of the year Updates 1099 period and summary
Best Practices: Database Admin Professional Services Tools Library Receivables Historical Transaction Unapply
Best Practices: Fixed Assets Use a Fixed Assets clearing account to capture payables transactions or purchase order receipts
Best Practices: Fixed Assets GP 2013 Intercompany asset transfer GP 2013 Historical Depreciation report
Best Practices: Inventory Copy An Inventory Item Enter new item number Press the copy button at the top of the form Select which item you want to copy from Choose whether or not to copy things like the price list, site assignments, vendor and currency assignments
Best Practices: Inventory Using VBA to Mark Inventory Batches to Post to GL http://mbsguru.blogspot.com/2007/11/using-vba-tomark-inventory-batches-to.html
Best Practices: Payroll Fiscal Year Tracking in U.S. Payroll Tools > Setup > Payroll > Payroll > Enable Fiscal Year Tracking checkbox organizations can see Payroll data aligned with their fiscal year deduction and benefits can be setup to apply maximum limits based on the fiscal year amounts Users can switch between calendar and fiscal year information in payroll inquiry windows.
Best Practices: Payroll Easy Updating Of Tax Tables Log in as SA and open File>Maintenance>U.S. Payroll Updates>Check for Tax Updates. Select Automatic (if online) or Manual (requires TX.cab file download) then Process Tools>Setup>System>Payroll Tax allows you to verify date of latest tax update installed
Best Practices: Payroll Re-Print Payroll Checks/Earnings Statements Go to Payroll Check Inquiry window View the checks for an employee New checkbox lets you print a duplicate report for the employee. You can mark one or more checks to print.
Best Practices: Payroll How to Post Payroll Manual Transaction Where Gross Amount is Zero After batch gets error about how you can t post a batch with a check with gross amount zero Go to--> Transaction --> Payroll -->Manual Checks Call back transaction by entering Payment # Write down the Check Date then Clear Batch ID Enter Check date and Post Date will be now be enabled be sure to enter both correctly
Best Practices: Payroll Payroll Mass Transaction Entry (Transactions>>Payroll>>Mass Entry) Batch ID Select a pay code, deduction, or benefit Select date range and range of employees Enter specific amount can edit later Preview transactions to be created and delete the transactions that should not be created. Click Build Batch to create the transactions. You can then edit the transactions, including the amounts using the standard Payroll Transaction Entry window.
Best Practices: Payroll Auto Assign Codes Based On Employee Class Tools>>Setup>>Payroll>>Employee Classes>>Codes Assigned codes are automatically setup when employee class is assigned to an employee If you remove a code from the Assigned Codes list, you will be asked if you want to inactivate the code for all employees in the class Adding a code to the Assigned Codes list gives you the option to assign it to all current members of the group.
Best Practices: Sales Utilize New Ship To Address An address name is added to the sales ship to address entry window which can be printed on sales documents. This is helpful in situations when the name of the receiver of goods does not match the name of the person ordering. For example, if goods are shipped directly to a vendor. An option for printing a phone or fax number on the sales document is also added.
Best Practices: Sales Add suggested items If an item has suggested sales items assigned to it when entering an invoice, quote, order, or fulfillment order, you can use the Suggest Sales Item Entry window to mark the suggested sales items to add to the document. You can also enter the suggested quantity and the ID for each suggested sales item.
Finance Module Best Practices Dynamics GP Questions?
Thank You! Mike McDowell Mekorma - mike@mekorma.com David Eichner - ICAN Software - david@icansoftware.com Joyce Vanjura Luby s Fuddruckers Restaurants LLC - jvanjura@lubys.com SESSION # - UBGP004