Rose Business Solutions Dynamics GP

Posts Tagged ‘Dynamics GP’

Free Dynamics ERP Demos are available at www.goerpcloud.com. If you just want to get your hands on Dynamics AX, GP, or NAV, this is a great place to do it.

If you want to try out the new web clients for GP and NAV, they’re at goerpcloud as well. Does it take a long time to set up a free demo? No; about 5 minutes.

You might also check out the Cloud Resource Library. There are a lot of white papers, brochures, blogs, etc. that you may find interesting. You can filter results to just get what you’re looking for. For example, if you’re just looking for something about manufacturing, filter by Industry Solutions:

 

To get started, you can start here to access AX, GP, or NAV, or complete the sign up form below for GP:

If you’re looking at new ERP solutions for your organization  wouldn’t you like to at least try it out first, before you commit to a new system. goERPcloud allows you to do that instantly, with no commitment. You’ll have access to a fully working Dynamics ERP system for 30 days with no credit card and no wait. Try it out now.

A Dynamics GP Management Reporter Income Statement can easily be created from scratch.

You just need to create a Row Definition and a Column Definition, and then include them in a Report Definition, and print.

Simple.

These are the three components:

Here is a Row Definition:

 

Here is a Column Definition:

 

Here is a Report Definition:

 

 

If you’re used to FRx, Management Reporter will feel very comfortable to you.

Here is a quick video I put together that shows a glimpse of Management Reporter:

 

 

A good way to get started is to try the Report Wizard to create your first few reports. It walks you through the process of creating a report, and takes advantage of your chart of accounts and your account format.

This is a quick demo that shows this being used:

 

 

Last year I worked closely with customers that performed data dumps into excel from Dynamics GP.

There are the easy exports where they just publish the report in text mode and then open the same in excel and I’ve seen customers that love formatting data in excel, spending countless hours formatting and at the end they have to do it again because data was refreshed.

 

There are others that are more complicated but yield better results, like Excel Reports, SSRS or plain T-SQL extracts and just very few who take advantage of the Export Solutions but that will be a subject of a future post so stay tuned.

 

Smartlist is a very useful tool within GP but some customers find it confusing because of the filters and how data is stored in GP.

One of the questions that made me write this post for you is, How can I sort data in Smartlist using more than one field, so I don’t have to do this in Excel?

 

The solution is simple but believe it or not, I learned that not many people know about this, I queried my own colleagues and I was shocked.

Here is my revelation for you, hope I can save you some time …

Use the Order By feature in Smartlist. Let’s go thru a sample:

Step 1.- Open Smartlist

Step 2.- Open Financial > Account Transactions

Step 3.- Double click on the * named smartlist

Step 4.- In the Search Account Transactions window click on the Order By button

Step 5.- Add the sort rules/levels from the list on the left, by using the Insert button

in my sample I am sorting by Account, then by the amounts, but I want all debits  from highest amount to the lowest, then I want all Credit postings same rule and lastly I want to sort by the Series.

 

And here is the result, so no more single column sorting!!!

Step 6.- Click OK twice and see your results

 

Here is another sample where I am sorting by Journal entry then Highest Debit Amount to lowest and lowest Credit Amount.

 

 

Until my next post!!!

Francisco G. Hillyer

Hello all, I would like to provide you with some information on what to look when Dynamics GP seems to be working slow. As you may already know Dynamics GP is a process driven application and you may experience slow performance when specific processes are performed in GP please take a look:

 

· While posting might be due to the PJOURNAL table as you know checks post too or remittance is being printed separately

· Client workstations should have a default printer setup and online, remove invalid printers

· While opening windows, the autocomplete feature may cause performance issues and if not used can be turned off

· While login into Dynamics GP or utilizing 3rd party dictionaries as well if Menu Master table (SY07110) became too large.

· The location of the modified dictionaries other than local workstation

· Certain Smartlist reminders might interfere with login into Dynamics GP

· You may have shortcuts to network locations that are no longer mapped or available

· Printing to file directly into the client/remote computer instead of the hosted server user folders

· OLE Notes path in Dex.ini

· SQL AutoClose and AutoShrink options not set to false

· Virus scanner setup not excluding the following extensions (CNK, DIC, CHM, SET, INI, DAT, IDX, VBA, LOG, LDF, MDF)

· The Dynamics GP homepage smartlist favorites

· The Dynamics GP homepage outlook integration

· Enabling tracing options in DEX.ini

· Bad user defined triggers in SQL

· Bad configuration of SQL server memory allocation

· SQL server or Dynamics GP server available disk space

· SQL server log file is full and is not set to Autogrow

· TNT*.* files, your %TEMP% folder has not been cleaned

· Non-compliant SQL server/GP Server/Client hardware

· Different DB owner than DYNSA

· Little or no SQL server maintenance (Table Fragmentation)

· You might be missing table indexes or statistics

· When exporting a budget, thru the budget wizard it seems locked (if you are using the excel wizard to export, make sure the “save as” dialog is not on the background, Alt-Tab to it as it must have been opened and its behind your main GP windows.

· Too much history (You can archive historical years, specially if you have large tables like Item Master, Customers, Vendors) Believe me I ran reconcile one time and it took 6.5 days on a company with more than half a million SKUs and 5 years of sales.

 

I have witnessed how few administrators that in order to preserve enough disk space they have a tendency of running SHRINK on the SQL server, this obviously will fragment tables affecting performance. I have a post that covers that here.

 

If you want us to take a look at your environment don’t forget to contact us, and as always when troubleshooting record answers for the following questions:

1.- Can you replicate the issue? write down steps that let you reproduce the issue.

2.- If its related to posting, please note the module( s ), how many transactions are in the batch, how long does the process last? how long did the process last before?

3.- On a Server/Client install, can you replicate on the server?

4.- Can you reproduce on all or other clients?

5.- Are there any 3rd party products running on the same SQL/GP server or together with Dynamics GP?

6.- Are there any customizations in GP?

 

Until my next post and let us know if we can help!!

Francisco G. Hillyer

Hello all, here is something I was asked recently:

“I have processed my 2012 payrolls for the year, my IT is always on the latest and greatest regarding service packs, hotfixes, updates etc, and they installed the 2013 payroll tax tables update, and I have not executed the Payroll Year End, can I close it anyway?”

Short answer: Yes you can close it, but it will be incorrect.

Please if this happens to you, make sure to restore the Dynamics DB prior to the install of the payroll tax table update because I am sure you always do a backup of your databases prior to any updates installed right?

Leslie Vail has a post from 2011 where she explains how FICA/S wages and withholding is calculated Leslie’s Post

NOTE FOR LESLIE (Step 5b says “he year-end” instead of “the year-end”)

But I wanted to provide a graphical representation of it

 

Until my next post…

 

Francisco G. Hillyer

So just like every year we go thru similar steps, I am providing some help along the way, many of the processes described here belong to a published KB from Microsoft as well links to posts from other resources but I wanted you to have them all in one place.

Please note that some of the links require you to have access to Customersource/Partnersource.

 

Difference between Year End Update and Payroll Tax Table Updates

The Year End Update download contains software changes to allow you to comply with 2012 filing requirements as well as the most recent fixes for your Dynamics application.

The 2013 Payroll Tax Table Updates contains updated rates and tax changes as well it might contain FICA/Medicare changes to be applied when processing 2013 payrolls.

Here is the link for the 2012 US Payroll Year End Update: Click Here

Here is the link for the US Payroll Tax Updates: Click Here

It is important to mention that you can install the Year end update prior to your last payroll for 2012, however do not install the Tax table updates before your last 2012 payroll as you might end up with a wrong calculation.

Always backup your data, your .DIC files as well.

 

Setting up / Adjusting Fiscal Periods in GL

Microsoft provides a KB article number 871679 KB871679

 

Closing Dynamics GP GL

STEP 1: CLOSE ALL OTHER MODULES

Complete the posting/closing procedures for the modules in the suggested order prior to closing GL, please note that if you are not using a particular module, just skip it:

Follow the instructions provided in each KB

Inventory: KB 872713

Receivables Management: KB 857444

Payables Management: KB 875169

Fixed Asset Management: KB 865653

Analytical Accounting:

For Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 Service Pack 2 and greater, functionality was added to consolidate balances for dimensions in Analytical Accounting. Please review KB 960356 to make sure you have properly marked the dimensions that you want to be consolidated  during the year-end process. Please note that there is no separate year-end process that needs to be run in the Analytical Accounting module. When the year-end close process is run for General Ledger, it will automatically consolidate the balances and move the transactions in Analytical Accounting for dimensions that were properly marked.

PAYROLL year end procedures are independent of the procedures in other modules and are usually performed at the end of the calendar year. Please see this KB 850663

STEP 2: POST FINAL ADJUSTING ENTRIES

Adjusting entries are considered most of the time as entries that allow you to correct errors that were made when transactions were recorded as well they might be utilized to assign revenues or expenses to period or periods in which revenues were earned or expenses incurred.

If you need to in setup or adjust your fiscal periods in GP, please review the section “Setting up / Adjusting Fiscal Periods in GL” at the beginning of this article.

STEP 3: VERIFY ACCOUNTS POSTING TYPE

The posting type helps Dynamics GP determine whether an account will be closed to the retained earnings account or if the account balance will be brought forward to the next fiscal year.

Follow these steps to print an account list:

1. On the Reports menu, point to Financial, and then click Account.
2. In the Reports list, select All Accounts, and then click New.
3. In the Option box, type all accounts.
4. Click to select the Inactive Accounts check box. (if you want to delete inactive accounts)
5. Click Destination to specify a report destination, and then click OK.
6. Click Print.

STEP 4: CLOSE FISCAL PERIODS FOR 2012 (OPTIONAL)

Use the fiscal periods setup window to close all fiscal periods open for the 2012 year. This will prevent transactions from posting to the wrong period or the wrong year.

NOTE: If you still use Microsoft FRx, keep one period in the most recent historical year open to prevent the error: “FRX Print Engine Failed to Load the Company Calendar” see this KB 874932

STEP 5: PERFORM MAINTENANCE ON FINANCIAL SERIES (OPTIONAL)

Run the check links procedure on the financial series group of modules.

Make sure that you always have a backup and that you can confirm you can restore from it.

STEP 6: VERIFY SETTINGS IN GL SETUP WINDOW

If you are like me and always want to keep historical records, you must enable the checkbox next to Accounts and Transactions in the Maintain History area of the General Ledger Setup Window.

NOTE: If for some reason you have the checkbox enabled for “Close to Divisional Segments” and you are no longer closing to Divisional Segments or by mistake someone else enabled it and not using it pay attention:

I have discovered in the past a BUG in dynamics GP that is still there as I reported in this blog in August 14, 2012, if you would like to read more about this important step please click here: YEAR END CLOSE BUG 64711

STEP 7: MAKE ANOTHER BACKUP (OR BACKUP IF YOU HAVE NOT)

Make sure all users are out of the system

Remove stranded user sessions, you can follow this post Removing Stranded Sessions

Backup DYNAMICS database

Backup all company databases if you are unsure which databases to backup you can query the company master table (SY01500) and retrieve the names, the following script can help you determine that information.

select INTERID, CMPNYNAM from dynamics..sy01500

Make sure to backup as well the Dynamics GP code folder

STEP 8: PRINT A TRIAL BALANCE REPORT (OPTIONAL)

Use the Trial Balance report window to print a year end detailed trial balance report. Even when this step is optional it is highly recommended to be followed.

STEP 9: PRINT YEAR END FINANCIAL STATEMENTS (MR, FRx, Other)

Print any year end financial statements that are required. The most common are:

• Balance Sheet
• Profit and Loss Statement
• Statement of Cash Flows
• Statement of Retained Earnings

STEP 10: SETUP A NEW FISCAL YEAR

Before you can perform the year end closing routine, you must setup a new fiscal year, please follow the instructions on the section at the top of this article to Setup or Adjust Fiscal Periods.

STEP 11: CLOSE THE YEAR

• Click on the Microsoft Dynamics GP Menu > Tools > Routines > Financial > Year End Closing.
• If its not specified, you can key in the Retained Earnings Account.
• Optional: Specify the Starting Journal Entry
• Click on Close Year

STEP 12: BACKUP YOUR SYSTEM

Make another backup of the Dynamics DB and all the company Databases.

 

Thank you for reading I would like to mention that this post enhances Microsoft KB 888003 

 

Until my next post

Francisco G. Hillyer

Hello all, it has been quite some time since my last post, kind of missing all of you, specially with the holidays approaching etc.

This time I would like to share with you something that I recently learned “the hard way” obviously on a support case.

First of all, I want to express the importance of validating your information and that the engineers/partners that are/were involved in your company setup of Dynamics GP were bound to the best practices established by Microsoft and supported by many of my colleagues.

In my case, a customer did a side by side upgrade of SQL, with this came the issue of not having the DYNSA login in the new SQL instance, we followed certain processes to make sure DYNSA was the owner of the Databases Dynamics GP is using.

But you may ask who or what is DYNSA? my friend Mariano Gomez has a post very complete about this subject and you can find it here: Mariano’s DYNSA Info since I am not reinventing the wheel take a look at Mariano’s blog its packed with information for all audiences (GP related !!).

So when I was working on this customer DYNSA setup, I suddenly remembered another case where I was having issues with a third party, I jumped into their environment (literally) and started investigating this DB configuration, to my surprise the owner of the databases was an AD account not DYNSA. I proceeded to replace the owner and then certain SQL reports started working and producing results. I am still intrigued on why, but I will do a full research on spare time.

So back on the game for this customer issue I was having while trying to archive data, just imagine a SOP30300 table with 11 million records and a huge base of customers.

The queries running were taking countless hours to execute not even mentioning the impact on the processor. memory and of course user experience.

I learned that the customer had a “Maintenance Plan” where they executed the Shrink process on SQL, as you may know I am a SQL enthusiast and I recalled an important blog post from another noted resource Mr. Pinal Dave aka “The SQL Authority” here is his post about why is BAD to shrink a DB Shrink is Bad for you… there is one section in the article that explains that Shrinking a DB to obtain disk space will actually fragment your tables, obviously to reduce fragmentation you rebuild indexes. So this maintenance plan was being executed to reduce disk space, then to improve performance, and the disk space was gone again. Wise words from a mentor that prefers to be in the shadows once said “with current prices on storage why waste time shrinking when you can focus on performance”.

I ended up tweaking some SQL scripts to automate a SQL job on finding fragmented tables in the DB and executing that as part of DB maintenance, as I said “go buy another disk drive and add it to your server, move the logs to this new disk and keep data apart from the logs and you will be better than now”.

If you need help, let us know, our team at RoseASP and RBS we have experience in solving this type of issues.

I hope my experience helps you for a better community.

 

Until my next post

Francisco G. Hillyer

Dynamics GP 2013 includes new functionality that allows you to create prepayments in accounts payable and assign them to specific purchase orders. You can easily do this from the Purchase Order Entry screen. You can enter a prepayment amount that you can then generate a check for using the regular computer check functionality in GP. Or you can create a manual check transaction that is associated with the purchase order.

Lorna Link at InterDyn BMI covers this topic in much more depth at the ERP Software blog, here: http://www.erpsoftwareblog.com/2012/10/gp-2013-new-feature-purchase-order-prepayments/

I created this short video to show this new functionality in action: http://youtu.be/RXB7-xmf_jo

I put together some videos showing some of the new functionality in Dynamics GP 2013. This playlist includes the current collection: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPx395HRNzZDrNBOoZuDX64tehFukqyOH

Included in this list:

• Multiple Selection of Serial Numbers
• Selecting Serial Numbers on Drop Ship Orders
• PO Tolerances
• Suggested Items
• Home Page Changes
• Consolidating Invoices