Report Writer is pretty easy to use. It’s pretty easy to modify existing reports.

Some people like it. Some don’t. And another from Mark.

But beware of corrupting the reports.dic file. Oh precious, you don’t know what that is?

Take a look at these:

The Achilles’ Heel of Dynamics GP

Recreating reports.dic in Dynamics GP

If you’re intrepid and barrel forward, take heed of Musgrave’s advice:

“My answer is simple and I have been saying for years. Don’t use shared Reports.dic. Use a synchronised one instead. See the article below for more info:”

http://blogs.msdn.com/developingfordynamicsgp/archive/2008/08/20/automating-distribution-of-customisations-part-1.aspx

And if you want to see Harry in action, see it here (not for kids): http://youtu.be/daFb3J-cwLg

Do you feel lucky?

But finally today I was able to spare some time and write about one of my favorite topics Dynamics GP.

Recently I was talking with my friends about movies, Yes!! my work allows me to have a life after 5 PM PST and weekends!!!. So one of the movies we were talking about was about: Journalist Mikael Blomkvist and how he is aided in his search for a woman who has been missing for forty years by Lisbeth Salander, a young computer hacker..

On one of the last scenes in the movie, there is a part where Lisbeth provides Mikael a folder with documents and financial records of a suspected criminal, to my surprise when the journalist was going over the papers he had the following prints:

As you can see, Dynamics GP along with mc2software, were shown on those documents, I waited until the end of the movie to see the credits, but I was unable to locate any reference to Microsoft or a VAR (in all honesty I was waiting for Ian Stewart MVP to appear but no he was not in the movie).

The movie is called “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” there are 2 versions one released in 2009 and another in 2011, I am referring to the 2009 movie.

Have a great day!!

I am not a payroll expert, so what follows is a quick overview of processing a salary payroll in Dynamics GP, where I deftly avoid the complicated parts and make it look like anybody can run payroll. The fact is that it takes a fair amount of Dynamics GP knowledge and a lot of non-system payroll knowledge to accurately run a successful payroll using Dynamics GP. We process our own payroll on Dynamics GP, but they don’t let me touch it.

These are the three basic steps:

1. Build Payroll Checks
2. Calculate Payroll Checks
3. Print Payroll Checks

These are the reports that print out. The system steps you through the process:

Here is a quick video that goes through the Dynamics GP Payroll Processing process: http://youtu.be/TfndeYhOpM8

The definition of Free-forward quantity is the total of available and pending quantities of an item, plus any additional quantities from purchase orders, assembly receipts, manufacturing orders, and sales returns displayed in the scrolling window. The total sum is reduced by the item quantities from unallocated sales orders, sales back orders, and unallocated manufacturing components displayed in the scrolling window.

There is a feature that allows you to forecast when a new specific quantity of the item will be available, and when you could start a manufacturing order to build the quantity, if needed. Here is a good example that shows the various attributes of the calculation, and displays the related transactions:

In this example I wanted to know when a quantity of 200 would be available. I entered 200 in the Required Quantity field, and the results show that there will be at least 200 available on 6/15/2017. By quickly reviewing the list of transaction you can see that the manufacturing order for a quantity of 8o is the limiting factor for this result. If you click on the Calc. Mfg. Date button, a report will run that shows you the items required for the manufacturing order. In this case the manufacturing order is waiting for a supply of Black Ink that will be delivered on 6/12/2017.

The Inventory Available to Promise screen is also accessible directly from the Sales Order Transaction Entry screen by clicking on the blue expansion arrow just to the right of the QTY Ordered field label.

Here is a soon-to-be ancient brochure from Microsoft. GP-Available-To-Promise

We scoff at Luddites and barrel forward with new technology, gadgets, and new habits. We love it. How fun!

OK, well it’s not that fun. We recently made some system upgrades and service enhancements, and quite frankly, the results have been disappointing. Several trusted business tools are not performing well. Here is the status:

These are the current avenues for inbound communication:

1.) e-mail (<10% chance we’ll get it)

2.) telephone (>50% chance you’ll reach the person you’re intending to contact)

3.) USPS mail (unless the US Congress de-funds the Postal Service out of existence)

4.) You can walk or drive to: 11512 El Camino Real, Suite 310; San Diego, CA 92130 (If you’re on a spaceship with Ron Paul, here are the geographical coordinates:

Lat. 32.927616 – Long. 117.239044)

The Luddites are criticized for their lack of vision and disdain for progress. But maybe they deserve more credit than they’re generally given.

The Luddites also didn’t have the Robert Palmer Models. Now, things seem better.

There are two steps to running the depreciation projection report:

1. Run the projection routine: Routines >> Fixed Assets >> Projection. Specify the date to which you want to run the projection.
2. Run the projection report: Reports >> Fixed Assets >> Projection. You can run the report at a summary or detail level, and show either annual or periodic depreciation amounts.

Depreciating the assets is simple. Just navigate to: Routines >> Fixed Assets >> Depreciate. Select the book(s) you want to run the depreciation for, and the “depreciate to” date. If you go back and look at an asset you will see the individual depreciation records created for each period.

Periodically you will want to transfer the Fixed Assets transactions to the general ledger. To do this, run the GL Posting routine: Routines >> Fixed Assets >> GL Posting. I generally specify 0000-000 as the beginning period to ensure that I pick up all transactions in the fixed assets system. You will want to be careful when you specify the Ending Period because this routine will only make one journal entry per run. So if you haven’t run this routine for awhile, you will want to run it separately for each period; starting with the earliest period first.

I have always liked the standard reports in the Fixed Assets module. The reports are basically lists of assets. These are handy to address requirements for financial audits and property tax returns. The Property Ledger is the one I find most useful: Reports >> Fixed Assets >>Inventory >> Property Ledger.

There are also three SmartList objects that are very useful. Each one has dozens of additional fields you can add as desired.

Here is a quick video about Dynamics GP Fixed Assets Depreciation and Reporting: http://youtu.be/Urd-wb54f_k

You should set up Class ID’s to improve data entry speed and accuracy. You can also link Account Groups to Class ID’s and set your system up so that a default depreciation method and length of service are also defined when you add a new asset.

The asset book screen contains the depreciation information for each asset. You can specify as many depreciation books as you want. You will have at least one for your internal accounting needs. This one will link to your general ledger.

I recommend that you use the Book Class Setup screen to assign a default depreciation method and length of service for new assets when they are entered into the system.

The Fixed Asset module integrates with both the Purchase Order Processing and the Payables Management modules in Dynamics GP. If you plan on using Payables Management to enter fixed assets, you can set up one or more fixed assets clearing accounts to tie the payables invoice record to the fixed assets record. This will make the payables information for each new asset available to be turned into a fixed asset.

The Fixed Assets module is easy to use, and if you don’t already use it, you should try it out.

Here is a video to show Dynamics GP Fixed Assets in action: http://youtu.be/6biLxClmo3c

You can download the listing by clicking on the link below and requesting it:

Click here to fill out the form

I was lucky enough to take my family on a four week vacation to Europe last summer. My wife suggested that we get an iPad for the trip. It turned out to be a great idea.

This is how we used it on our trip:

• Read and send e-mail as necessary
• Finding local restaurants in Paris
• Maps, of course
• Finding information on local attractions
• It was our main photography device
• Blogging, to keep friends and family up to date
• Facebook, for my sons
• English/French and English/Italian dictionaries
• Pay bills back home

It was incredibly useful on our trip, and we decided not to throw it away after we returned.

So this is how we use it now:

• Catching up on Twitter and blogs, before drifting off to sleep
• Catching last minute e-mails during the evening (It’s a lot easier than trying to type into a smart phone)
• Reading books (my wife likes the fact that the font size can be easily changed, and books can be instantly received)
• Stupid little games for my sons

The instant-on functionality is a major attraction. Just turn it on and there you have your e-mail. Beautiful.

The iPad is starting to proliferate in our office as well. The big draw is the portable, instant-on access to e-mail. It’s a lot easier to grab the iPad for a meeting, than untether a laptop and drag it with you.

We also developed a set of KPI’s that work with myGPcloud and run on the iPad. You can also run Dynamics GP on an iPad if you use Citrix. We’ve done it.

Is an iPad necessary? Probably not, but it’s pretty handy.