Weekly Tip's

1. Correct Journal Entries



2. Account Rollups



3. Macro Basics



4. Auto Populate Account Descriptions



5. Free Your Data With Excel Reports



6. Let Smartlist Alerts Warn You



7. Limit Records to Speed SmartList Processing



8. Reconcile Bank Account Daily



9. Speed up the Populate of the JE numbers on the Correct / Copy Journal Entry Screen



10. Track Use Tax in Payables or P.O.'s



11. Fix Your Auto Complete



12. Leverage the List View for Reporting



13. Sub-Ledger Reconcile - V10



14. Backup, Backup, Backup



15. Protect yourselft with Account Security



16. Budgets Can Now be Tracked across Years



17. Reduce the time it takes to create and distribute reports



18. Copy a Journal EntryUse Account Aliases



19. Prioritize Your Vendors



20. Use the new Historical Inventory Trial Balance Report



21. Business Alerts

Tip of the week from Brenda Hopkins – Week 22

Business Alerts

Business Alerts can be used to setup a notification when a set of defined conditions are met. These conditions can be defined on a specific database.

Business Alerts takes advantage of the query features of Microsoft SQL Server to monitor your data for specific conditions. For example, suppose that you want to be notified when a customer’s credit limit has been exceeded. In that case, you can use the Business Alert wizard to create a query that compares the credit limit amounts to the current amounts for your customers.

You can use the wizard to set up the schedule for the alert—that is, when, how often, and for how long you want Microsoft Dynamics GP to check whether the conditions you’ve defined exist. You also can specify a list of people to notify when those conditions occur.

You can create an unlimited number of business alerts, combining information from any of the tables in company or system databases. For example, you can compare the outstanding commissions per salesperson from the sales tables to commissions paid in the payroll tables.

Once you have created and enabled a business alert, the conditions will be checked according to the schedule you set up. Whenever the alert condition is found, an e-mail message is sent to the people or groups that you specified or a task is created for the user that you specified.

You can use any of the notification methods supported by your messaging system with Business Alerts. For example, you can notify alert recipients e-mail. You also can create tasks that will be displayed on their home pages and their task list whenever an alert condition is found.

Alert schedule and notification
Use the Schedule and Notification window to modify when, how often, and for how long Microsoft Dynamics GP will check whether the business alert conditions exist. Microsoft Dynamics GP will check your data for the conditions specified in the business alert formula at the intervals you set up here. You also can add or remove e-mail addresses or user IDs from the list of recipients for this business alert.

Help with the MMREF format for Virginia Employment Commision

By Tunesia Winn

Have you received a notice from The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) stating that as of 1/1/09 if you have more than 100 employees you are required to electronically file magnetic media and the wage information must be in the MMREF format for the quarterly VEC report?

If so you among hundreds of others getting this notification. The VEC is now mandating this and taking actions on those not in compliance. We’ve received emails and calls for quite a few clients in regards to whether it can be accomplished within MS Dynamics GP. While GP does not have the capability to complete the task, MS works with a 3rd party vendor, Greenshades that has a product to suit your needs. It’s called the State Filing Package and its cost is dependent upon the # of states in which you file.

Because of the high # of inquires we’ve received, we have reached out to Greenshades to provide discount pricing. They have approved a 15% discount on all State Filing Packages for BroadPoint clients only.

Please let me know if you would like more information and we can setup a time to chat.

Tip of the week from Brenda Hopkins – Week 21

Use the new Historical Inventory Trial Balance Report

The new Historical Inventory Trial Balance (HITB) report is designed to help balance inventory to the GL regardless of the inventory valuation method.

The Historical Inventory Trial Balance (HITB) report shows your inventory value as of a specific date or date range and the value of the five different quantity types. You can use this report to tie your inventory balance to General Ledger based on a specific date.

If you want to use this report, you will need to use the HITB reset Tool for Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0, Service Pack 2.

In order to track historical inventory information a new table was added in Dynamics GP 10.0, Service Pack 2. The tool will populate this table and it will also find a starting point where the value of your Inventory and General Ledger are the same.

Before running the tool, you will want to complete the process on a test company first.

Contact BroadPoint for help downloading this tool.

Tip of the week from Brenda Hopkins – Week 20

Prioritize Your Vendors

• Payables Management includes a 3 digit alphanumeric field used to prioritize vendors.



• A simple ABC is generally more effective than a bunch of 3 digit numbers
  For example: If you are a Newspaper Company ‘A’ could be used for highest priority vendors like a newsprint supplier.



• Use this to actively decide which vendors are critical now, not when a crisis hits.



• This field can be used to select vendors during he check selection process.
  
  Cards > Vendor > Options
  Payment Priority Field

We have released a new White Paper!

A new white paper by BroadPoint explains how to pull more performance out of your accounting software and ERP software licenses

The White Paper "Squeeze Out Every Drop of Productivity: The Manager's Empowerment Guide to Improve Departmental Efficiency" to give business managers tools to build more efficient teams.

Dealing with cutbacks has become a way of life for most organizations, but creative managers can help their teams thrive even in these challenging times. Most organizations have barely tapped the potential of the office productivity software that they already own - there is plenty of room to squeeze. Adopting and incorporating currently owned software that supports collaboration and workflow can drive dramatic improvements in productivity. This White Paper gives several ideas on how.

Click here for your free White Paper.

Tip of the week from Brenda Hopkins – Week 19

Use Account Aliases

Account Aliases are shortcut names for accounts and are setup in Cards > Financial > Account.

In transactions, instead of entering an account, click the blue arrow next to the account tile and enter the alias. If you're using a long account structure, aliases provide a quicker method of data entry.

On Demand FastPath Webinars due to popularity

By Nadia Isata, Account Manager, BroadPoint Technologies

BroadPoint will be conducting a second on demand FastPath webcast for select customers, since the first was extremely popular. This webcast will show how Fastpath Audit Trail offers superior performance and configurability. Within a few hours, you can quickly know what was

changed, who changed it and the before and after values.

* Tracks changes made from inside Dynamics and external sources

* Extensive list of audit trail templates

* Quick implementation and ROI

* Best available performance and reporting for Microsoft Dynamics

Fastpath Config AD moves all user management to the IT help desk and eliminates potential security conflicts by taking all user administration out of Dynamics.

* Eliminates use of 'sa' and Administrator for better security management

* Streamline new hire, termination, and user change management.

* Fastpath has the only single sign on product for Dynamics GP

* Decrease user maintenance costs by 65%

Sessions will be scheduled on demand.  If you would like to attend, please contact Nadia Isata at nisata@broadpoint.net or at (301) 634-2403.

Tip of the week from Brenda Hopkins – Week 18

Duplicate a Journal Entry

Let’s say that last month you keyed a journal entry that was 100 lines long. Then next month, you find out that you need to enter this same journal entry again this month but with a few changes. Is there an easy way to key it again? Even with a few changes?

SURE!

By using the Copy a Journal Entry functionality found in Transactions>Financial>General>Copy.

In version 8.0 Microsoft introduced Journal Entry corrections and copies. You now have the ability to copy a journal entry, easily.

In Transactions->Financial->General, select Copy
You now have an option to Copy a Journal Entry.

You will need the Journal Entry number (you can look it up) and year of the entry you want to copy.

**The look up on the JE Number can be time consuming; it would be faster if you know the Journal Entry Number.

By default, Copy only works for transactions that originated in the General Ledger. However, the administrator can change this behavior.

Tools>Setup>Financial>General Ledger now has new check boxes to control this functionality.

Voiding/Correcting of Subsidiary Transactions
Mark this option to allow transactions originating in other modules to be copied in General Ledger.

Tip of the week from Brenda Hopkins – Week 17

Reduce the time it takes to create and distribute reports

SQL SERVER REPORTING SERVICES (SRS) helps summarize your data in Web-based charts and graphs. Build reports to support specific business activities, and share vital information across your organization.

Access reports easily from within Microsoft Dynamics GP or the Web. Let users log into the web site and access reports themselves, these reports can be printed or exported to excel.

ONLINE VIEWS offer forecasting insights that are easy to share across your organization or with designated vendors or contractors.

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services offers over 60 reports, you can use these sample reports either as-is or as templates for designing new reports.

Examples:

• General Ledger Detail and Summary Trial Balance Reports.
• Receivables Aged Trial Balance Report and Detail Historical Aged Trial Balance Reports.
• Payables Aged Trial Balance Report and Detail Historical Aged Trial Balance Reports.
• Open Purchase Orders Report: Purchase orders that have not been closed or canceled per vendor or for all vendors, including list views for the number, status, and date of each purchase order, assigned vendor, and line item detail.
• Open Sales Orders Report: Unposted sales orders for a range of customers, including list views for the sales order number and date, customer information, requested ship date, amount remaining, assigned salesperson, and line item detail.
• Customer Profitability Report: Sales, total profit, and gross margin percentage per customer for the selected year. Expandable customer ID offers a view of sales, total profit, and gross margin percentage by document number.
• Inventory Value by Site Report: Bar graph of the value of inventory by site and the total inventory value for the company. Clickable inventory site bars display Inventory value by Site. Use the Item Number Report to view items and their total value for that site.
• Item Quantity Back Order Report: Quantity of items that are back ordered, quantities allocated to purchase orders, and item quantities available for all sites.port to view items and their total value for that site.
• Employee wage and Hour Report: Employee Pay Codes with hours and wage for each pay code.
• Employee Pay History Report: Select Pay Codes and Departments to include showing historical employee pay history.
• Employee Earnings Register: Snap shot of employee summary earnings.
• Department Wage and Hour Report: Select departments and Pay Codes to include, hours and total paid for each department.

What is PCI and Why is PCI Compliance important for you?

For more information contact Kim Owens, (704) 987-9989

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of requirements designed to ensure that ALL companies that process, store or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment. Essentially any merchant that has a Merchant ID (MID).

Payment Card Industries (PCI) Security Standards Council members including Visa, MasterCard, AMEX, Discover, etc. continually monitor and fight payment card data theft. These compromises affect the full spectrum of merchants, from very small to very large organizations. A security breach of any sensitive data can lead to serious consequences, including:

• Potential heavy financial penalties (ie, regulation violation fees & fines)
• Loss of reputation
• Loss of customers
• Litigation
• Merchant Account Revoke

Being PCI Compliance ensures that a merchant has met rigid PCI security standards. In addition, Visa mandates that any custom requires integrated credit card processing applications, it must be PA-DSS certified credit card processing applications by Oct 1, 2009. (See attached Visa Mandate). This so-called phase IV is intended to eliminate the continued use of vulnerable payment applications by acquirers, merchants and agents within the payment system.

Understanding this mandates, companies should make sure that their credit card processing software provider for their Dynamics ERP has been validated to be in compliant with PA-DSS. Using a certified credit card processing software will definitely help merchants to meet all security standards requirements and can achieve PCI compliance easier.

(Optional) Learn more about the importance of PCI compliance. Join us for a specialized webinar session where we will walk you through PCI’s payment application mandates and show how BroadPoint and their partner Nodus can help you to meet PCI security standards requirements.

Tip of the week from Brenda Hopkins – Week 16

Budgets Can Now be Tracked across Years

There are times when a fund or grant does not start on the first day of the fiscal year or end on the last day of the fiscal year. The life of the fund or grant sometimes also crosses over fiscal years. This feature provides the ability to budget based on a start and an end date in Microsoft Dynamics GP Release 10.0.

Not for Profit and Public Sector organizations often have the need to track funds and grants to associate expenses against money received. Funds are typically tracked as a segment of the General Ledger account segment in Microsoft Dynamics GP, and grants are often tracked as a Transaction Dimension Code within Analytical Accounting.

A few changes have been made to the budgeting windows in Microsoft Dynamics GP Version 10 to accommodate the ability to enter budget start and end dates. The Budget Maintenance window was updated with these changes.

Cards > Financial >Budgets

To enter start and end dates for a budget, you will need to select the Date Range in the Based On field.

If Fiscal Year is selected in the Based On field, budget functionality works as before, and no budget start and end date can be entered.

Budgets created in the Single Account Budget Maintenance window, using the Budget Wizard for Excel or in Analytical Accounting Budget Maintenance can also be based on a fiscal year or date range and allow for start and end dates to be entered for budgets.

Tip of the week from Brenda Hopkins – Week 15

Protect yourself with Account Security

• Account Security limits the accounts that users can access.
• It requires setup via Organizational Structure.
• If you don’t set up Organizational Structures prior to turning this on, it appears that the chart of accounts has been wiped out.
• Know what you are doing before activating this.

Account security is designed to work with the Organizational Structure feature to limit access to certain accounts. Some organizations have a very complex account structure and it makes picking the right account easier if you limit a department to only be able to see their own accounts.

Organizational Structure provides information to define as many as four layers of structure within your business, and then to set up specific divisions, departments or other organizational groups. You can create relationships among different groups. You can assign accounts and users to different parts of the organizational structure.

Account Security is turned on with a check box in Tools->Setup->Company->Company.

You can see in the example below that this user is only allowed to see Department ‘200’ only.

Tip of the week from Brenda Hopkins – Week 14

Backup, Backup, Backup

If you are not backing up use the built in backup functionality in Microsoft Dynamics GP. This won’t get everything, you will still need to backup custom reports and forms, the Integrations Manager database and FRx reports, but backing up the database is a good start.

Dynamics GP 9.0 and 10.0 allows you to schedule backups from within the application. You'll need to be logged in to GP as an administrator and you'll need to be on the server.

Go to File> Backup [v9] / Maintenance > Backup [v10]

Enter the system password if you've set one.
When the backup window opens, pick Schedule.

• Name the backup schedule
• Pick the database to backup or backup the system databases
• Enter the backup path (this must be a path on the local server)
• Select the days to backup and the time. The time is entered is in a 24 hour format
• Pick how often to delete old backups
• Click Save. SQL Agent MUST be running when you click save
  
  

  

This process creates a job in the SQL agent with the information entered. You'll still need to move the backups off the server for real protection, that's easy with today's portable hard drives. There's no excuse for not backing up your Dynamics GP installation now.

Referral Program offers customers $50 AMEX Gift Cards

Our BroadPoint Referral Program has kicked off this week!

You remember what it was like not to have instant access to information through Smartlists, how long it took to close the books each month and how many clicks it took get to the transaction.

You probably have friends and associates that are still struggling with those same issues that are looking for solutions.

If you want to help your connections enjoy the same benefits that you do, we’ll thank you for a referral with a $50 AMEX gift certificate. If they are not currently a BroadPoint client and are interested in talking to us, you will have 50 thank you’s to spend.

If you have a contact that would benefit from working with BroadPoint Technologies, then let us know at www.Broadpoint.net/connections. We'll contact you & if your contact is interested in hearing from us then we will thank you with a $50 AMEX Gift Card.

The Evolution of Paper

Kim Owens, Account Manager, BroadPoint Technologies

Humans first started documenting information on stone. Egyptians then created paper made from the reed of the Nile River. Thousands of years later, we are evolving away from our dependency on paper because of the time and the costs involved.

We have seen this evolution before with the introduction of computers to the workplace. They allowed offices to operation efficiently by eliminating mistakes caused by human error and reducing overhead costs because of time intensive tasks. We can now print out reports on demand which once took hours to produce. So why are we still spending hours performing manual tasks when it comes to managing our paper? Wouldn’t it be easier to manage the documents essential to our business electronically?

According to the October 9^th, 2009 issue of The Economist, the paperless office is finally a reality. In order to understand the reason for the push to paperless, let’s look at some staggering statistics:

• We spend 20-30% of our time each day is spent filing, search and retrieving information
• It costs $20 to file a document, $120 to find a misfiled document and $220 to replace a lost document
• The average document is copied 19 times in its live
• It costs $25,000 to fill a four drawer cabinet
• 1 out of 10 documents is lost or misfiled

How much money is pushing paper costing your company and how much is the technology to correct it? Just like the introduction of computers, new affordable technology is also driving the paperless revolution. Storage space on servers is inexpensive compared to 30 years ago and the costs of scanners have dropped significantly in the past decade. For example, you can store 400,000 documents on $80 of disk space compare to $75,000 in 1973.

Document Management and Electronic Workflow software doesn’t have to be expensive either. PaperSave delivers a seamlessly integrated solution with Dynamics built on SharePoint starting at only $5,000 for the first 3 users. So manage the information that drives your business, not the paper. To learn more on PaperSave and how affordable document imaging and electronic workflow is for your company, register for a webcast on July 16^th or July 30^th.

Tip of the week from Brenda Hopkins – Week 13

Sub-Ledger Reconciler

Having issues reconciling the Payables Management or Receivable Manage sub-ledgers to the General Ledger? Version 10 has a new feature that helps with this.

Benefits:

• Automatically match transactions for users
• Identify any transaction discrepancies between the sub-ledger and the General Ledger
  

The Feature DOES NOT automatically do any of the below task to balance the sub-ledgers to the General Ledger:

• Fix imbalances between the sub-ledgers and the General Ledger
• Correct posted transactions
• Back out posted transactions
• Void existing transactions
• Recreate new adjusting transaction
  

Reconcile to GL

You can select one or more Accounts Receivables or Accounts Payable Accounts from the General Ledger that hold the posted outstanding balances. The balance of all the accounts entered in this window is the amount to which the Sub-ledger balance is reconciled against.

For example you could have the Accounts Payable account and the Purchase Discounts Available Accounts.

Reconcile Process

The balances Include:

• Beginning balances
• The difference between the beginning balances
• Transactions entered during the date range specified
• The total ending balance
• The difference between the ending balances

Microsoft Dynamics GP matches transactions from Payables or Receivables Management to the distribution line in the General Ledger.

• Transactions that exist in both ether sub-ledger and General Ledger
• Transactions that exist in either the sub-ledger or General Ledger, but not both
• Transactions that potentially match, but don’t meet all the matching criteria

Reconcile Report

Analysis of the reconciliation results is an important aspect of the process. In order to provide the appropriate tools to perform an analysis the results are sent to an Excel spreadsheet. Excel provides the typical functionality of an spreadsheet.

You can save each spreadsheet to document your exceptions and how they were handled by adding a comment to your Journal Entry noting the action taken to fix the problem.

Newsgroups within PartnerSource

Technorati Tags: Tips and Tricks,Microsoft Dynamics GP,Tunesia Winn,Expert Advice

Hello BroadPoint Clients,

It’s me Tunesia Winn, VA Territory Account Manager. Have you looked for Newsgroups within PartnerSource lately?

If you are asking the questions:

1. Where are the unmanaged Newsgroups specifically for GP and FRX?

2. Why can a customer on a Business Ready Enhancement plan have access to Managed News Group?

The answer to the first and second question is that all managed groups are also unmanaged. In other words all managed and unmanaged users are now one and the same. If you post a question but do not receive an answer back from the MS Community within 24 hours a process will run notifying MS Support that the user has an unanswered question. Then MS Support will follow up with you.

Please take the time to visit CustomerSource, http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/customersource.mspx. You will be able to find answers to your non-critical questions using this powerful tool!

If you do not have access and need assistance obtaining access to the site, please feel free to contact me or your dedicated Account Manager here at BroadPoint.

Thanks & Happy Searching!

Microsoft announces service extension

As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, BroadPoint is excited to share news of service pack extension dates.

Microsoft is extending the service pack support policy for Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics AX, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM to 24 months of support for a previous service pack, when a new service pack is released.

Some current service packs are being extended and new service packs will now be for 24 months versus the usual 12. For more information and to see if you are eligible call us or see the Microsoft announcement here.

Tip of the week from Brenda Hopkins – Week 12

Leverage the List View for Reporting


Have you ever scrolled through all report windows for a particular module looking for that special report that you know is there but you just can't find it? Something like the Historical Stock Status which is under Activity instead of History.

You can now search for a report, including all the options you have set for various reports.
V9 Select Reports >Report List
V10 Home >Administration>All Reports List

A box will come up with all the reports in the system. You can limit this list to various modules, search for reports and sort the list on the different criteria. From the Actions menu you can create new report options, review the option selections for a particular report and even import/export reports.