organizing dynamics gp – free chapter from microsoft dynamics gp 2010 cookbook

In this package, you will find: A Biography of the author of the book A preview chapter from the book, Chapter NO.2 "Organizing Dynamics GP" A synopsis of the book’s content Information on where to buy this book About the Author Mark Polino is a Microsoft MVP for Dynamics GP, a Certified Public Accountant, and a Microsoft Certified Business Management Solutions Professional. He is the author of the premier Dynamics GP related blog, DynamicAccounting.net and the creator and presenter of the successful series "Getting More Out of Microsoft Dynamics GP: 50 Tips in 50 minutes". Mark has worked with Dynamics GP and its predecessor, Great Plains, for more than 10 years. He works as a Principal Consultant with I.B.I.S., Inc. and spends his days helping clients implement Microsoft Dynamics GP. For More Information: www.PacktPub.com/ microsoft - dynamics - gp - 2010 - cookbook / book Sample Chapter 2 from: Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Cookbook By Mark Polino Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Cookbook Tens of thousands of Microsoft Dynamics GP users keep the accounting functions of their firms running day in and day out. They ensure that vendors get paid, customer payments are tracked, and the financial statements balance in the end. In short, they provide the information critical to corporate decision making. Although thousands of people use Dynamics GP, many of them only use a subset of the functionality. They figure out just enough to do their job but never delve into ways to do it better. Many users also start with a particular version of Dynamics GP but don't update their skills for new features in updated versions. Employers generally offer little or no training after the initial implementation. The work gets done, but users are left with a feeling that there must be a better way. This book is designed to remove that nagging feeling and provide ways to get more from Dynamics GP. What This Book Covers Chapter 1, Personalizing Dynamics GP includes recipes designed to enhance the usefulness of Microsoft Dynamics GP by personalizing the look and feel of the application. Chapter 2, Organizing Dynamics GP includes recipes that are designed to help administrators get more out of Dynamics GP for their users by changing the way Dynamics GP is organized. Chapter 3, Automating Dynamics GP includes recipes that focus on efficiency and automation and are designed to be time savers across the system. Chapter 4, Harnessing the Power of SmartLists includes recipes used to harness the power of Dynamics GP's Ad hoc reporting tool and ways to leverage the reporting power of SmartLists. Chapter 5, Connecting Dynamics GP to Microsoft Office 2010 includes recipes that help connect Dynamics GP with Microsoft Office 2010 and ways to use Office to improve processes in Dynamics GP. Chapter 6, Exposing Hidden Features in Dynamics GP includes techniques that are well known to consultants but often missed by users. It contains hidden settings that can help save a lot of time. Chapter 7, Improving Dynamics GP with Hacks includes recipes that are used to hack existing features in Dynamics GP so as to improve its usability. For More Information: www.PacktPub.com/ microsoft - dynamics - gp - 2010 - cookbook / book Chapter 8, Preventing Errors in Dynamics GP includes recipes for administrators and users to help prevent errors in Dynamics GP. It also includes ways to fi x erroneous transactions that managed to make it to the general ledger. Chapter 9, Maintaining Dynamics GP includes recipes for an administrator or power user to help maintain Dynamics GP. Chapter 10, Extending Dynamics GP with Free Software includes recipes that make use of third-party applications to provide additional functionality, address industry-specific requirements, and improve efficiency in Dynamics GP. For More Information: www.PacktPub.com/ microsoft - dynamics - gp - 2010 - cookbook / book Organizing Dynamics GP In this chapter, we move from recipes designed for a typical user to recipes fi t for the head chef. These recipes are designed to help administrators get more out of Dynamics GP for their users by organizing Dynamics GP. In this chapter, we will look at: f Speeding up account entry with Account Aliases f Gaining visibility with Horizontal Scroll Arrows f Streamlining payables processing by prioritizing vendors f Getting clarity with User Defi ned fi elds f Developing connections with Internet User Defi ned fi elds f Gaining additional reporting control with Account Rollups f Remembering processes with an Ad hoc workfl ow f Improving fi nancial reporting clarity by splitting purchasing accounts f Speeding up lookups with Advanced Lookups f Going straight to the site with Web Links Introduction Dynamics GP provides a number of features to better organize the overall system and improve its usefulness for all users. This chapter is designed to demonstrate how to implement and fi ne tune these features to provide the most benefi t. 2 For More Information: www.PacktPub.com/ microsoft - dynamics - gp - 2010 - cookbook / book Organizing Dynamics GP 36 Speeding up account entry with Account Aliases As organizations grow the chart of accounts tends to grow larger and more complex as well. Companies want to segment their business by departments, locations, or divisions. All of this means that more and more accounts get added to the chart. As the chart of accounts grows it gets more diffi cult to select the right account. Dynamics GP provides the Account Alias feature as a way to quickly select the right account. The account aliases provide a way to create shortcuts to specifi c accounts. This can dramatically speed up the process of selecting the correct account. We'll look at how this works in this recipe. Getting ready Setting up Account Aliases requires a user with access to the Account Maintenance window. To get to this window: 1. Select Financial from the Navigation Pane on the left. In the Cards section of the Financial Area Page click on Accounts. This will open the Account Maintenance window. 2. Click on the lookup button (indicated by a magnifying glass) next to the Account fi eld. 3. Find and select Account No. 000-2100-00. 4. Enter AP in the Alias fi eld, which is in the middle of the Account Maintenance window. This associates the letters AP with the Accounts Payable account selected. This means that the user now only has to enter AP instead of the full account number to use the Accounts Payable account: How to do it Once aliases have been set up, let's see how the user can quickly select an account using the alias. For More Information: www.PacktPub.com/ microsoft - dynamics - gp - 2010 - cookbook / book Chapter 2 37 1. To demonstrate how this works, click on Financial from the Navigation Pane on the left. Select Transaction Entry from the Financial Area Page under Transactions. 2. In the Transaction Entry window select the top line in the grid area on the lower half of the window. 3. Click on the blue arrow next to the Account heading to open the Account Entry window. 4. In the Alias fi eld type AP and press Enter: 5. The Account Entry window will close and the account represented by the alias will appear in the Transaction Entry window: How it works Account Aliases provide quick shortcuts for account entry. Keeping them short and obvious makes them easy to use. Aliases are less useful if users have to think about them. Limiting them to the most commonly used accounts make these more useful. Most users don't mind occasionally looking up the odd account. However, they wouldn't want to memorize long account strings for regularly used account numbers. It's counter-productive to put an alias on every account as that would make fi nding the right alias as diffi cult as fi nding the right account number. The setup process should be performed on the most commonly used accounts to provide easy access. See also f Gaining visibility with Horizontal Scroll Arrows For More Information: www.PacktPub.com/ microsoft - dynamics - gp - 2010 - cookbook / book Organizing Dynamics GP 38 Gaining visibility with Horizontal Scroll Arrows A consequence of company growth is that not only does the chart of accounts grow larger and less intuitive, but the actual lengths of account numbers tend to grow longer as well. Companies want to be able to report by account, department, location, and so on. This results in a proliferation of segments added to the main account number and can create very long account names. Dynamics GP can accommodate an account number as long as 66 characters. The longest I've seen used in practice was 27 characters and even that was unwieldy. Most users only need a portion of that length for their day-to-day work. This presents a problem because very long account numbers won't fi t into the account number fi eld on most screens. For this recipe, we'll look at how Dynamics GP provides a solution to this in the User Preferences window. How to do it Here we'll see how to increase the visibility of long account numbers: 1. On the Navigation Pane on the left select Home. 2. Click on User Preferences on the Shortcut Bar. 3. Select the checkbox for Horizontal Scroll Arrows: For More Information: www.PacktPub.com/ microsoft - dynamics - gp - 2010 - cookbook / book Chapter 2 39 This turns on the functionality to allow users to scroll horizontally within the Account fi eld and lets them see the full account number: How it works Once Horizontal Scroll Arrows are activated small arrows appear at the left-hand and right-hand side of the Account fi eld letting users scroll right and left to see the full account number. There's more Horizontal Scroll Arrows are implemented on a per-user basis, meaning each user has to turn this on individually. Administrators can make this active for all users with an SQL script. Additionally, for companies using alphanumeric characters in their chart of accounts, wide letters such as M or W are often diffi cult to see. There is also an option to increase the visible width of a particular segment. Activating Horizontal Scroll Arrows for all users Horizontal Scroll Arrows are activated by the user. However, an administrator can turn this feature on for all users in all companies by running the following SQL script against the Dynamics database: Update SY01400 Set HSCRLARW=1 Widening segments for better visibility When companies use alphanumeric characters in their chart of accounts wide letters, such as M or W, are often cut off. Horizontal scroll arrows don't help because the problem is that the segment fi eld is too narrow, not the entire account fi eld. To resolve this problem Dynamics GP provides an option to widen the segment fi elds as well. On the Navigation Pane click on Administration. Select Account Format. For each segment that needs to be wider, select the fi eld under the Display Width column and change it from Standard to Expansion 1, Expansion 2, or Expansion 3 to widen the fi eld. Expansion 3 represents the widest option. For More Information: www.PacktPub.com/ microsoft - dynamics - gp - 2010 - cookbook / book Organizing Dynamics GP 40 Companies using only numbers in their chart of accounts won't need to widen the segment fi eld. However, fi rms that include letters as part of their chart will need to increase the width. Following is a list of the expansion options and the letters these are designed to accommodate: f Expansion 1: A,B,E,K,P,S,V,X, and Y f Expansion 2: C,D,G,H,M,N,O, Q,R, and U f Expansion 3: W Streamlining payables processing by prioritizing vendors Management of vendor payments is a critical activity for any fi rm. It's even more critical in diffi cult economic times. Companies need to understand and control payments. A key component of that is prioritizing vendors. Every fi rm has both critical and expendable vendors. Paying critical vendors on time is a key business driver. For example, a newspaper company that doesn't pay their newsprint supplier won't be in business for long. However, they can safely delay payments to their janitorial vendor without worrying about going under. Dynamics GP provides a mechanism to prioritize vendors and apply those priorities when selecting which checks to print. That is the focus of this recipe. Getting ready Setting this up fi rst requires that the company fi gure out who the priority vendors are. That part is beyond the scope of this book. The Vendor Priority fi eld in Dynamics GP is a 3-character fi eld. Users shouldn't be tempted by the possibilities of 3 characters. A best practice is to keep the priorities simple by using 1, 2, and 3 or A, B, and C. Anything more complicated than this tends to confuse users and actually makes it harder to prioritize vendors. Once the vendor priorities have been determined the priority needs to be set in Dynamics GP. Attaching a priority to a vendor is the fi rst step. To do that: 1. Select Purchasing from the Navigation Pane. In the Purchasing Area Page, under Cards, click on Vendor Maintenance. 2. Once the Vendor Maintenance window opens, click on the lookup button (indicated by a magnifying glass) next to Vendor ID. 3. Select a vendor and click on OK. 4. Once the vendor information is populated, click on the Options button. This opens the Vendor Maintenance Options window. For More Information: www.PacktPub.com/ microsoft - dynamics - gp - 2010 - cookbook / book Chapter 2 41 5. In the center left is the Payment Priority fi eld. Enter 1 in the Payment Priority fi eld and click on Save: How to do it Now that a vendor has been set up with a priority let's see how to apply that information when selecting checks to print: 1. To use vendor priorities to select invoices for payment, click on Select Checks from the Purchasing Area Page. 2. In the Select Payables Checks window enter TEST to name the check batch. Press Tab to move off the Batch ID fi eld and click on Add to add the batch. 3. Select a Checkbook ID and click on Save to save the batch. 4. In the Select fi eld click on the drop-down box and select Payment Priority. Enter 1 in both the From and To fi elds. 5. Click on the Insert button to lock in Payment Priority as an option: For More Information: www.PacktPub.com/ microsoft - dynamics - gp - 2010 - cookbook / book [...]... www.PacktPub.com /microsoft -dynamics- gp- 2010- cookbook/ book Where to buy this book You can buy Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Cookbook from the Packt Publishing website: https://www.packtpub.com /microsoft -dynamics- gp- 201 0cookbook/ book Free shipping to the US, UK, Europe and selected Asian countries For more information, please read our shipping policy Alternatively, you can buy the book from Amazon, BN.com,... in cash and the remaining $80 would go to accounts payable By default, GP will create a transaction distribution that looks similar to the following screenshot: 53 For More Information: www.PacktPub.com /microsoft -dynamics- gp- 2010- cookbook/ book Organizing Dynamics GP After the Separate Payment Distributions checkbox is selected, GP will create a transaction that looks similar to the following screenshot:... list selections, and currency 43 For More Information: www.PacktPub.com /microsoft -dynamics- gp- 2010- cookbook/ book Organizing Dynamics GP See also Renaming Fields for clarity Developing connections with Internet User Defined fields Going straight to the site with Web Links Developing connections with Internet User Defined fields Dynamics GP provides a built-in set of Internet fields for users to enter information... Account Rollup Detail Inquiry Zoom window drills back to the detailed transactions behind the balance: 49 For More Information: www.PacktPub.com /microsoft -dynamics- gp- 2010- cookbook/ book Organizing Dynamics GP How it works Account Rollups combine the account totals from disparate accounts for reporting This is great for tying back multiple accounts that roll up into a single line on the financial statements... next to Microsoft Dynamics GP Click on the plus sign (+) next to Financial and select the window named Quick Journal Entry Change the name at the top to 1) Quick Journal Entry Click on Add Putting a number in front of the text prevents this shortcut from interfering if the same shortcut appears somewhere else on the Shortcut Bar: 51 For More Information: www.PacktPub.com /microsoft -dynamics- gp- 2010- cookbook/ book... For More Information: www.PacktPub.com /microsoft -dynamics- gp- 2010- cookbook/ book Organizing Dynamics GP 5 Next, select Clearing Entry also under Microsoft Dynamics GP and Financial Rename it to 2) Clearing Entry in the Name field and click on Add 6 Finally, click on the plus sign (+) next to Company under Microsoft Dynamics GP and select Fiscal Periods Setup Rename this to 3) Close Period and click on... Use the lookup buttons (indicated by a magnifying glass) in the From and To fields to add account 4130 and click on Insert Repeat this process to insert 4120 and then 4100 into the Restrictions box below Click on Save and close the window: 47 For More Information: www.PacktPub.com /microsoft -dynamics- gp- 2010- cookbook/ book Organizing Dynamics GP Notice when looking up these accounts for selection that these... Inquiry Zoom window, Dynamics GP provides a checkbox option to show accounts even if these have zero balance Additionally, an option at the top controls the printing of Account Rollup information The rollup can be printed in Summary or in Detail 48 For More Information: www.PacktPub.com /microsoft -dynamics- gp- 2010- cookbook/ book Chapter 2 6 Selecting a line and clicking on Balance from the Account Rollup... a prefix in the Internet User Defined fields explicitly defines how this link should work and provides the most consistency to users 45 For More Information: www.PacktPub.com /microsoft -dynamics- gp- 2010- cookbook/ book Organizing Dynamics GP There's more Some Internet User Defined fields look special but aren't, and some really are special Login and password By default Label 5 is set to Login and Label 6 is... side of the window The search box at the top also changes to allow searching by selected lookup In this case, will be Zip code: 55 For More Information: www.PacktPub.com /microsoft -dynamics- gp- 2010- cookbook/ book Organizing Dynamics GP How it works Administrators get the chance to set up four extra lookups for each of the lookup options Lookup options include: Accounts Addresses Customers Employees . implement Microsoft Dynamics GP. For More Information: www.PacktPub.com/ microsoft - dynamics - gp - 2010 - cookbook / book Sample Chapter 2 from: Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Cookbook. efficiency in Dynamics GP. For More Information: www.PacktPub.com/ microsoft - dynamics - gp - 2010 - cookbook / book Organizing Dynamics GP In this chapter, we move from recipes. www.PacktPub.com/ microsoft - dynamics - gp - 2010 - cookbook / book Chapter 8, Preventing Errors in Dynamics GP includes recipes for administrators and users to help prevent errors in Dynamics GP. It