3. Company setup
Once system-wide settings are in place, you will be
ready to set up your Dynamics GP company. Any company-specific setup
must be done while logged in to that company. Dynamics GP company setup
includes the following:
The following sections will go through each of these topics in detail.
3.1 Account format
The account format can be different for each
Dynamics GP company, as long as it conforms to the maximums of the
account framework you selected during your initial Dynamics GP
installation. To define the account format for your company, navigate to Microsoft Dynamics GP | Tools | Setup | Company | Account Format. No other users can be logged into the same Dynamics GP company when you are making changes to the account format.
The NJW company decided on account format XXXX-XX-XXX
representing Natural Account—Subaccount—Division. So their total
account length is nine (separators are not counted) and their total
number of segments is three.
On the Account Format Setup window change the number of Segments first, then the Account Length. This will automatically change the scrolling list under Segment to show the same number of lines as segments. Change the Name and Length of each Segment and identify the Main Segment ID. The Main Segment ID
is important for sorting and searching options on various Dynamics GP
windows, and is critical for FRx to interact with the Dynamics GP
General Ledger accounts correctly.
The default for Separate with is a dash (-), and while it is possible to change the separator, we have never seen a single company do this.
If you are planning to enter letters instead of numbers for any of your segments, you can change the Display Width
of that segment. This will resize the width of that segment on every
window where it is displayed. There are three possible widths, depending
on what letters will be used. For example, W takes up a lot more real
estate than I. This setting can be changed at any time, so you may want
to see how your account numbers display before making any changes.
3.2 Account setup
General Ledger accounts are needed to perform many
other setup steps and should be created as the next step. Even if you
have decided to import your chart of accounts, it is helpful to know how
to set up new accounts for any that you may want to create manually.
There are four types of General Ledger accounts in Dynamics GP:
|
Account Type
|
Description
|
Navigation Path
|
|---|
|
Posting Account
|
Posting accounts are the typical financial accounts that comprise a company's Chart of Accounts.
|
Cards | Financial | Account
|
|
Unit Account
|
Unit accounts are used to track non-financial data, for example head
count or square footage in a department. Unit accounts can be used for
calculations on reports and for allocation calculations. One-sided
transactions can be entered for unit accounts.
|
Cards | Financial | Unit Account
|
|
Fixed Allocation Account
|
Fixed allocation accounts allow transaction amounts to automatically be
allocated to multiple posting accounts based on hard coded percentages.
These allocations occur during posting, so the fixed allocation accounts
never have a balance.
|
Cards | Financial | Fixed Allocation
|
|
Variable Allocation Account
|
Variable allocation accounts allow transaction amounts to automatically
be allocated to multiple posting accounts based on other account
balances (either posting accounts or unit accounts). These allocations
occur during posting, so the variable allocation accounts never have a
balance.
|
Cards | Financial | Variable Allocation
|
To create a new posting account, navigate to Cards | Financial | Account. Type in the Account number. As you start typing you will receive the following pop-up message:
Dynamics GP attempts to get the name for each unique
segment of your GL accounts, so that it can suggest names for new
accounts created in the future. Most companies find this distracting and
not very helpful. To turn off these reminders, check the Do not display this message again checkbox and click No to close the window.
The following are explanations for the fields on the Account Maintenance window:
|
Field
|
Explanation
|
|---|
|
Account
|
The General Ledger account number—separators will automatically be added, so you can just type the numbers or letters.
|
|
Description
|
Account name with a maximum of 50 characters.
|
|
Inactive
|
Used to inactivate accounts no longer used, this is unchecked by default.
|
|
Alias
|
Optional field that can be used for speeding up data entry for long GL
accounts. Most companies do not use aliases, especially with relatively
short account numbers.
|
|
Allow Account Entry
|
Checked by default, this controls whether users will be able to manually
type this account number on transactions. Some companies choose to
uncheck this for control accounts, such as Cash, Inventory, Accounts
Payable, and Accounts Receivable, to prevent errors and reconciliation
issues. This can be changed at any time by users with security access to
the Account Maintenance window.
|
|
Category
|
A required field that helps group GL accounts. Appendix A contains a list of the default account categories in Dynamics GP.
|
|
Posting Type
|
Balance Sheet or Profit and Loss—this is a critical setting that controls behavior of account balances during the year-end close process. Balance Sheet account balances are brought forward to the following year, Profit and Loss balances are closed out into Retained Earnings.
|
|
Typical Balance
|
Either Debit or Credit—choose
whatever the typical entry for this account would be. This is not
critical, but is sometimes helpful when manually entering General Ledger
transactions or creating reports.
|
|
Level of Posting from Series
|
Available for Sales, Inventory, Purchasing, and Payroll
modules, this works together with the company's posting setup to
determine whether posting from subledgers creates summary or detail
entries in the General Ledger. It is typically not recommended to
control the posting detail at the GL account level, as it gets
cumbersome to maintain and confusing for users. These will all be
defaulted to Detail, which is the recommended setting.
|
|
Include in Lookup
|
This setting determines whether the account will be shown in a default
lookup (or search) from a transaction for each module listed. By default
all the series are selected, this is typically the recommended setting.
|
|
User Defined
|
Four additional fields are available to hold information for each
account. When migrating from other systems these are sometimes used to
store the corresponding account numbers from the old system.
|
|
Buttons at the bottom
|
Summary
|
Opens the summary of the period balances for the selected account for open years.
|
| |
History
|
Opens the summary of the period balances for the selected account for historical years.
|
| |
Budget
|
Opens the Budget Maintenance window to allow entry or changes of budgets (the budget must already exist).
|
| |
Analysis
|
Opens the Account Analysis Defaults window of the Multidimensional Analysis (MDA) module.
|
| |
Currency
|
Allows multicurrency setup for the account—this will not be available
until the currency settings for the company are completed and is
typically easier done on a more global scale, rather than one account at
a time.
|
Everything on the Account Maintenance window can be changed at a later time, except the Account number. The Professional Services Tools Library,
available from Microsoft, includes a tool to change or combine account
numbers if this is needed. The following is a typical General Ledger account:
