Method of Payment and Payment Proposal Linkage

While defining the Method of Payment in AX, I was wondering where does the value in the field (dropdown / pick-list, to be more precise) PERIOD affects the whole system. The values in the drop down are; Invoice, Date, Week and Total. This question was obvious because while creating and posting the payment journal, I couldn't figure out where these values are impacting. However later when I used the Payment Proposal for generating the payment lines in the payment proposal, I noticed the difference. We will consider the payment method as Check, for this particular post so as to detail this entire concept out.

For Period = Invoice, when I created a Payment Proposal, the Payment Proposal Lines are displayed in the bottom half of the form and the related open invoices are displayed in the top half of the form. When the Period = Invoice was selected, the system generated one payment line for each open invoice. When I clicked Transfer, one line per invoice was created in the journal. This is simple isn't it...!

For Period = Date, when I created a Payment Proposal, the system generated one payment line combining all the invoices having same Method of Payment, that had due date prior to the date (including today) when the payment proposal is created .i.e. today OR date specified in the MINIMUM DATE field PLUS each payment line for the invoices (or combination of the invoices if the future due date for the invoices is same) having same Method of Payment, that had due date after today OR date specified in the MINIMUM DATE.

For Period = Total, when I created a Payment Proposal, the system generated one payment line for all the invoices per Method of Payment (that were due previous to today OR date specified in the MINIMUM DATE PLUS invoices that were due later to today OR date specified in the MINIMUM DATE, both) for the date selected in the Total Payment Date .

Suppose the user selected date in the Total Payment Date field is less than the date selected in the Minimum date field, then the payment lines are generated based on the Minimum Date. And if the user selected date in the Total Payment Date field is more than the date selected in the Minimum date field, then the payment lines are generated based on the Total Payment date. But in any case payment lines will not be generated for the date less than today. And top of it, once the lines are transferred into the payment journal, there you can change the date of posting, which can be a future date as well as previous date. The Total Payment Date field works only when the Period on the Method of Payment is selected as Total.

NOTE: This can be made as complex as possible. By this I mean:

• We can include more than one methods of payment (CHECK and ELECTRONIC) on the same payment proposal having same Period = Invoice, Date, Weekday or Total
• We can include more than one methods of payment (CHECK and ELECTRONIC) on the same payment proposal having different Period = Invoice, Date, Weekday or Total. For CHECK, the Period = Date and ELECTRONIC, the Period = Total.
• We can further complicate by adding more vendors in the query and this can go on and on...

For Period = Weekday, when I created a Payment Proposal, the system generated payment lines based on the day selected in the Weekday drop down of the payment proposal screen. If no day is selected, then by default Monday is taken by the system to generate the transactions. The system adjusts the distribution of the payments such that most the of payment lines will have payment day as Monday (if Monday is selected as the value in Weekday), which however could be changed once the lines are transferred to the journal. One more thing while playing around with this option, every time I generated the payment proposal, I used to get this warning message, which after 100 trials, I could not get rid of :-(.The warning message was : "Payment date is suggested to 8/17/2013 as Monday 8/12/2013 is after due date." And above all this was appearing for all the days selected. By far I haven't seen anybody using this value in the Method of Payment, so chill.

This was about the actual implication of the values selected in the Method of Payment for Period attribute. But please do not stress yourselves (like the way I stressed myself :-)), as mostly the Period for all the Method of Payments is Invoice only.

Now something more about the Payment Proposal screen, that I came to know while doing all this testing.

Amount Limit : If you define the Amount Limit, the Payment lines will be generated within that amount limit.

Transaction Limit: If you define the Transaction Limit, then only those number of Payment Lines will be created, based on the data.

If you try to define both (Amount Limit and Transaction Limit) then, system gives following error:
Do not use both max amount and max number of lines.

Payment Date : Transactions that fall within that range will only be included in the proposal.

Total Payment Date and Weekday only are used and useful when the Period in Method of Payment is Total and Week respectively.

Minimum Date : This is by default the date when the user opens the payment proposal screen. This can be changed to the future date and the payment lines are then created as per that date. However if the date prior to today is given, the system still takes today's date for the creation of payment lines. More details on this is mentioned in the paragraph for Period = Total.

Once the payment lines are generated and if those contain lines with multiple Methods of Payment, then system warns you based on the setting done in the parameters section. If the payment lines have a combination of CHECK and ELECTRONIC and if the user clicks Generate Payment, then the system generates checks for the lines where Method of Payment = Check, changes it status to SENT. The line with Method of Payment = Electronic are remains unaffected during this process. Once the payment is generated for CHECK, then the user can click the post button to post the payment journal and the journal lines with both the Method of Payments is posted.

Thanks!

AXAPTAMANIAC
 

Mark Check Interval in Bank Reconciliation

While going through the Bank Reconciliation process in Dynamics AX, I came across "Mark Check Interval" button. I clicked on the same and I was asked to provide the interval for the Check numbers.
I did so and clicked ok, however couldn't really make out what happened.

Then I used the "Show Transactions" drop down for my assistance and I quickly understood what happened. If the transactions would have been less, then I would have immediately understood the functionality, but because the transactions were more I had to use the drop down.

Generally checks in the bank check book are sequential in nature. By this I mean if the first check in the series is 000111, then the next would be 000112, 000113...000120 etc. If you have issued checks to your suppliers and if they have been presented in the bank and honoured, then they will definitely appear on the bank statement. Now there may me tens and hundreds of checks issued and it may be difficult and frustrating to mark them one by one, while reconciliation. To avoid this pain, Dynamics AX has given this functionality where you can specify a range of checks that needs to be marked for reconciliation. And once clicked ok, all the checks in that range will be marked automatically.

Please have a look at the screenshots as picture speaks a thousand words...!

Notice that currently one transaction is marked as reconciled, after i have selected Show Transactions = Reconciled

 

I click on the Mark Check Interval and specify the range of the check numbers to be automatically marked for reconciliation.



 

After i click ok, the checks which fall in that range are automatically marked for reconciliation.

 

Hope this was helpful.

 

Thanks!

 

AXAPTAMANIAC

 

 

General Journal : Some interesting facts about Delete Lines and Lines Limit

Delete Lines after posting : If clicked, then the journal lines are deleted the moment the journal is posted. The journal header still exists in the journal list if the user selects Show : ALL, however if clicked on the Lines button for that journal, then system displays an empty journal without lines.
Such journals will NOT be visible if user selects Show: POSTED, even if the journal is posted.

Lines Limit: This refers to the number of vouchers and NOT physical lines in the journal. For example, if a journal has lines limit of 2 and if the user multiline journal (one debit and several credit lines to balance it). In that case as long as the journal voucher balances, that whole voucher will be considered as one line. Now suppose the user enters two more single line offset vouchers apart from the one multiline discussed above. If the user now tries to post it, AX allows the posting, but because of the lines limit, ONLY 2 lines are posted for that journal and the remaining one line is poste in another journal. The infolog displayed after the posting, gives this message to the user.

Interesting thing to note here is that the next journal that is created for that one line also has a lines limit of 2. So to test this I created one more journal with lines limit of 2 and created 5 lines (vouchers, mix of single line and multiline). This time after posting I got an infolog saying that the 2 lines are posted in the current journal, while the next two lines are posted in the next sequential journal and the remaining one line is posted in yet another sequential journal. This was an interesting yet un-important fact to know...!

Thanks!

AXAPTAMANIAC
 

General Journal : Detail Level - Details OR Summary

While creating the General Journal, in the Header, there is one parameter which affects the manner in which the transaction is posted.

As per the explanation in the AX Training Manuals:

Details: Every instance of the account number in the journal lines is posted as separate account transaction.

Summary: A summation of journal lines into one transaction is performed automatically during posting if voucher with date, account number, dimension and currency code contain the same value.

I decided to test this, by passing following transaction via general journal, once by selecting Details and the second time by selecting Summary.

Dr      Expenses   700
          CR     Petty Cash    300
          CR     Petty Cash    200
          CR     Petty Cash    150
          CR     Petty Cash      50

After I posted the transaction, I saw the voucher from the Inquiries section and this is what I found.

By selecting Details:

 

By selecting Summary:



Hope this helped to clarify the difference.

Thanks!

AXAPTAMANIAC
 

General Ledger Parameter : Accouting Distributions OR Source Document

General Ledger Parameters has one of the most important parameter called, "Value Used for Summary Account", and the options are:

1. Source Document
2. Accounting Distributions

What happens when either of the one is selected ?? Lets see...

This parameter is set at the beginning of the company setup, before any transactions are posted. This can be changed later, system allows it. But it is advisable that it shouldn't be changed, as it will mess up the entire reporting for the transactions.

This parameter decides whether the amount posted to the summary / control account should be distributed amongst the Financial Dimensions or not. This is very useful decision, as some companies might track the finances as per the financial dimensions (for e.g. Department, Cost Centre etc.) while some may not.

To understand this myself, I first created a purchase order and then added some charges to it by using the "Manage Charges" and "Allocate Charges" feature. Just before invoicing the PO, I changed the dimension of the charges line by using the "View Distributions" and "Distribute Amounts"  feature. And then posted the invoice. I performed the same steps for both the settings, namely "Source Document" and "Accounting Distributions".

Source Document: When the setting was "Source Document", even after me manually distributing the charges amount to different financial dimension (Business Unit, in this case), the entire amount (the invoice amount + the charges) were posted collectively ones to the summary / control account (the Accounts Payables account). This setting followed the dimension of the header of the PO.

Accounting Distributions : When the setting was "Accounting Distributions", after I manually distributed the charges amount to different financial dimension (Business Unit, in this case), the invoice amount was posted separately to the summary / control account (the Accounts Payables account) with the dimension it was supposed to be posted AND the charges amount was posted separately to the summary / control account (the Accounts Payables account) with the other dimension which was manually changed by me . This setting followed the dimensions that were given by the user. In this case the amount was posted to the summary / control account itself, but the only difference was, the amount was bifurcated to different financial dimensions. Hence now if the user wish to find out the charges per dimension, he can easily find out the dimensions consuming the least and the most charges. This can help him make better decisions.

For e.g.: The Invoice Amount = 302.71 USD and the Charges = 50 USD

Source Document

Accounting Distributions

 Please note these distributions to different financial dimensions are to be done manually.

Thanks!

AXAPTAMANIAC
 

Reversals in Dynamics AX 2012

I tried searching for the reversal process in AX 2012 for the following:

1. AP Invoice Reversal
2. AR Invoice Reversal
3. AP Payment Reversal
4. AR Payment Reversal
5. GL Journal Reversal

But I could not get proper explanation and the process details for all the above reversals neither on google nor in the Dynamics AX training manuals. Hence I tried and researched them all in AX 2012 VPC. This is what I found. Please correct me if I am wrong in any of the interpretations that I have posted here.

AP Invoice Reversal

I created a AP invoice by posting a normal AP Invoice Journal. I wanted to reverse that, however there is no functionality in AX 2012 to reverse the AP Invoice Journal. Atleast I could not find it. The only option that I as left with to reverse this transaction, was to pass a reverse transaction .i.e. AP Invoice with a negative value. I mean this a very regular and general scenario wherein you have keyed in a wrong invoice information and posted it and now you want to reverse it. However for this I need to create another AP invoice journal with negative values and then reduce the AP (Trade Creditors) balance in the system.

AR Invoice Reversal

Free text invoice can be corrected but cannot be reversed. By this I mean, that if I have posted a free text invoice for some customer and then I realised that I shouldn't have raised an invoice for that customer but it should have been for some other customer. Then in that case I need to raise a free text invoice with a -ve value and reduce the AR (Trade Debtors) account accordingly. There is no functionality to reverse a free text invoice in AX 2012.


AP Payment Journal Reversal

If the payment journal is posted using the Settlements. If Yes, then the next question is whether it is made by check or by other methods. If it done by check, then the user will have to first reverse the transaction from the Closed Transaction Editing form and then reverse the check from the Checks form in the Bank Management module. This will reverse the entire payment. OR If the user directly reverses the check from the bank management, then also the entire payment is reversed, without going to the Closed Transactions editing form of the vendor.

Remember: If the Reconcile check box is selected on the reversal form during the reversal, the check is reconciled and it will not be displayed in the Bank Account reconciliation form.

If the payment is done by other payment method (Wire Electronic etc), then the user will have to first reverse the transaction from the Closed Transaction Editing form and then pass a -ve payment journal. Then from the Settle Transactions screen, the user will have to manually select the +ve and -ve payments and then settle them.

If only payment was made, without selecting the Settlement, then the user will have to just pass a -ve payment journal. Then from the Settle Transactions screen, the user will have to manually select the +ve and -ve payments and then settle them.

This will reverse the AP payment journal.

AR Payment Journal Reversal

 If the payment is done using Settlements, then the user will have to first reverse the transaction from the Closed Transaction Editing form and then pass a -ve payment journal. Then from the Settle Transactions screen, the user will have to manually select the +ve and -ve payments and then settle them.

If only payment was made, without selecting the Settlement, then the user will have to just pass a -ve payment journal. Then from the Settle Transactions screen, the user will have to manually select the +ve and -ve payments and then settle them.

This will reverse the AR payment journal.

GL Journal Reversal

The GL journal involving the account type of Ledger can only be reversed and any other type of transactions posted from the GL General Journal cannot be reversed. A manual entry with reverse values needs to be posted to reverse those transactions.


Please do let me know if any of the information here is mis-leading or not correct. But from what all research that I have done, I have made the above conclusions.

Thanks !

AXAPTAMANIAC