In Touch with Dynamics GP

This blog is intended to be a useful resource for Microsoft Dynamics GP users and professionals in the UK and the wider Microsoft Dynamics GP community as a whole.

Thursday 14 March 2019

Category Lookup blank from Account Maintenance Dynamics GP 2018

Here is an odd one we have come across on a couple of sites now.

When creating a new account in the Account Maintenance window for Dynamics GP2018 you are unable to select an account Category from the category lookup.

If you select the category lookup a blank list is returned and the only options on the tool ribbon are select or cancel.



This prevents you from selecting a category (which is a required field, making this ever so awkward).

There is a work around for this, the problem appears to be with the smartlists lookup. You can get round it by going into Administration-->setup-->System-->user security-->Alternative forms and reports and selecting windows and expanding financial to Categories. Then setting the lookup to use the standard GP window rather than the smartlists.



This will still return a blank list of categories, however, this standard window has a Redisplay option , if you use the Redisplay option from the tool ribbon it will then populate the categories allowing you to select one.


Wednesday 6 March 2019

Dynamics GP and Making Tax Digital (MTD)

Well I have been away from my blog for a long time, however, I am now firmly back in the Microsoft Dynamics GP world and the shear volume of questions we are getting regarding Making Tax Digital and how it effects Microsoft Dynamics GP has prompted me to once again take up my keyboard.

I'm not going to go into great detail about what Making Tax Digital is (there are plenty of other blogs out there on the subject) but in summary, HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) require that all companies with turnover above the threshold submit their tax return digitally. This comes into force April 2019. In other words you can no longer go onto the website, fill in your 9 boxes, and hit submit.

What they want you to do is to have your ERP system (In our case Microsoft Dynamics GP) submit direct to HMRC and for you to store your tax records digitally.

This is only the first stage of HMRC's plans they have hinted there will be further requirements in the future.

So How does this effect Microsoft Dynamics GP?

Well first things first you are going to need to start using the VAT reporting functionality in Microsoft Dynamics GP. It has been my experience that a fair few companies prefer to do their VAT reporting outside of Microsoft Dynamics GP for multiple reasons. Again I wont go into all the reasons here but they include things like partial exemption and partial recovery or other such caveats that mean that the tax may not be fully determined at the point of transaction entry.

There are 2 ways of reporting on VAT in Microsoft Dynamics GP, these are the VAT Daybook and the VAT return.

The VAT return is a hangover from the old VAT100 report from the UK dictionary days and simply put, takes all of the TAX transactions that have tax details assigned to them and puts them in predetermined reporting buckets (your 9 boxes used by HMRC).  This is not configurable , it simply pulls everything in.

The VAT Daybook report gives you more flexibility and control with configuration as it allows you to determine which details go to which reporting box.

Right that seems simple enough, which one should I use?

There are several things to consider here. There is less setup with the VAT return but the VAT daybook is more flexible. You also need to consider your reasons for why you were not using them in the first place. So for instance if it was because of partial recovery etc. Then you need to consider which of the 2 reporting options will work best with your chosen mechanism for dealing with the partial recovery.

Your Microsoft Dynamics GP partner should be able to help you here with some advice and there are modules for Microsoft Dynamics GP specifically designed to cope with some of these contingencies.
The advanced VAT module from Nolans Business Solutions is a good example of this (I'm not just saying that as I now work there, it is really good).

Also you will need to consider your final submission solution from Microsoft Dynamics GP to HMRC for Making Tax Digital. For instance the Microsoft hotfix released to allow digital submissions works with the VAT return.  There are some caveats around this as well , so don't make your decision now as I'll discuss these later in the article.

With both of the above I would recommend running them in parallel with your current VAT reporting mechanism so you can be sure that you are getting the same results before you switch over entirely.

What submission software should I use ?

The main caveat here is it needs to be approved by HMRC, they have produced an interactive list on their website of all of the approved products. So if its not on that list you don't want it.

The interactive list allows you to specify which features you need. You don't need to digitally store your Tax (you are already doing that in Microsoft Dynamics GP). What you are after is something suitable for a business , that will do the bridging and will check what vat you owe and your payment history. Again viewing submitted returns is not necessary as you have those records in Microsoft Dynamics GP.

The next thing to consider is how the software is extracting your data from Microsoft Dynamics GP.
There are 2 basic ways of doing this. The first is a link directly into the ERP software that takes the data and submits it to HMRC. The second is an upload or a bridge where you you push data into your chosen piece of software from a csv file or spread sheet or even manually enter it and it then submits this digitally to HMRC.

You may remember that earlier in the article I hinted that there were further plans from HMRC, well we are led to believe that in the future the ability to submit from a spread sheet or csv file may well be discontinued and that the direct link will be the preferred method from HMRC. This means that if you go for a solution that only has this csv method and no direct link it may have a limited life span.

So having considered the above submission types and found and ensured that our preferred solutions are on the approved list we are ready to start making some decisions.

Microsoft have released their own solution in the February hotfix for Microsoft Dynamics GP.
This works in the direct link method mentioned above and pulls from the VAT return (its triggered when you finalise the submission), however it only works for Microsoft Dynamics GP2016 to Microsoft Dynamics GP2018 R2. So if you are on an older version of Microsoft Dynamics GP you will need a different solution for submitting to Making Tax Digital.

If you wish to submit by the CSV file method then there are several solutions available and because it is not using the direct link they are not product specific this will mean they get around the versioning issues with Microsoft Dynamics GP and the february hot fix.

However, if you wish to use the direct Link method then Nolan Business Solutions have their Nolan Cloud Services offering which will do both link and csv options and the Link will work with Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010, GP 2013, GP 2015, GP 2015 R2 and upwards for making tax digital. If you are using Nolans Advanced VAT then you need to be on Microsoft Dynamics GP2015 and upwards. At the time of writing I believe this is the only other link option for Microsoft Dynamics GP that's on the HMRC List.

So In Summary


  • Enable your Vat reporting in Microsoft Dynamics GP
  • Ensure you have a mechanism for dealing with any different VAT requirements you may have (Partial recovery etc.)
  • Make a decision on Submission type (Link or CSV)
  • Ensure your chosen solution is on the HMRC List
  • run in parallel with previous reporting method to ensure the accuracy of results.




Wednesday 15 May 2013

Un applying Historical RM Invoices in Dynamics GP


This question comes up a lot and I saw it come through our helpdesk again today so I thought a blog post was in order.

The RM side of Dynamics GP behaves slightly differently to the PM side in that fully applied payments do not automatically move to history. The paid transaction removal process needs to be run on the RM side to achieve this. This also means that once the routine has been run you can not un apply the now historical invoices within Dynamics GP.

So how do you un apply a historical invoice in receivables management?

You basically have three options.

1.       Down load the Professional services tools library (PSTL) which is now free from version 10 onwards and use the Receivables transactions un apply feature.  This will move the records back to open  and you can then re apply them as required.

2.       Post reversing transactions. You would need to post a credit note for the original invoice and a debit note for the payment. These will then need to be applied to each other (and sent to history). You will then need to re enter the original invoice and the payment again and this time apply appropriately.  If you are using the bank rec module as well, you may need to void any cash receipt separately within bank rec.

3.       Use the Remove transaction History utility in Dynamics GP to completely remove the invoice and the payment and re enter them.

I would not really recommend option 3 and have only mentioned it here to cover all the bases.

With all of these options I would suggest doing it in the test company first (having restored a back up from your LIVE into it)

I would also recommend doing a back up of your LIVE company database before doing any of the above options in Live.

PSTL can be downloaded from :


 

Wednesday 8 May 2013

32766 maximum row export to excel from smartlists in Dynamics GP2013


Hi Folks

This issue was causing us some concern and we could not find any reference to it on any forum or partnersource so now we have an answer, I thought I would put it on the blog so the rest of the community was aware and maybe save some people some serious head scratching.

The issue is this, when exporting to excel from Dynamics GP 2013 smartlists it was crashing out when reaching row 32766.

All the DEX developers out there are now going “oh , Oh , 32766, that’s the maximum integer value in Dex” and you would be right. Here in lies the problem, the smartlist code in Dynamics GP2013 has been rewritten to speed it up. It used to do it line by line but it is now casting to an integer.

The folks at Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Support have been great helping us with this (thanks folks you're all stars) and it has now been written up as a change request and sent to development.

I’ll update the blog when we get a date, however in the mean time you just need to be aware this limitation exists.

Wednesday 1 May 2013

Cheque (check for US readers) Remittance word template not emailing from Dynamics GP


Here is an interesting set of circumstances one of my team came across. The word template for the cheque (check) remittance in Dynamics GP 2010 sp3 would print but not email. We had the vendor id field from the pmRemittanceTemp file on the report layout but the word template was still not emailing.

The clue to the issue was that the exception report was not showing the supplier id’s we were expecting to be emailed.

In the end it was traced to the fact that the report writer version of the report had had the “Payment Number” additional footer removed. Once this was replaced the templates emailed fine.

So to sum up , to be able to email the Cheque (Check) Remittance word template you must retain the “Payment number” additional footer.

Thursday 25 April 2013

Value cannot be null. Parameter name: title Value when switching navigation pages in GP2013


Hi Folks

I have been fairly quiet for a while on the blogging front however with the roll out of GP2013 there is  now a whole raft of new features and the odd issue that have prompted me to start typing.

We have experienced an issue with navigation pages and according to the forums a few other people out there have come across the same. In GP2013 when switching to certain navigation pages the user may get an error message saying "Value cannot be null. Parameter name: title Value", you may then be forced to crash out of GP (this does not seem to happen every time).

According to the forum post, Microsoft were tentatively looking at putting a fix in SP1. However SP1 has been released and the fix did not make it in in time. All is not lost though there are a couple of workarounds available.

·         You can run the following SQL script, this will temporarily solve the issue, however it may re occur and you will need to run the script again.
 
Delete DYNAMICS..SY07140 where CMDDICTID = 1

·         On the Splash/Home page of the module in which this occurs, if you click into the 'Customise this page' link you will see a blank module which is ticked. Un-tick the mystery option, and the error will go away. However, the blank option remains in the list...(and the error won’t always allow you to get to the customise this page option).

Microsoft are working on a fix and I’ll update this blog when we know a release date.
UPDATE.....UPDATE......UPDATE......

Since publishing this article it would now appear that the fix has been included in SP1 (Conflicting information from two different engineers). I have confirmed this with our TSAM , full details can be obtained from the below Knowledgebase article:


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2843273

Thursday 25 August 2011

Management reporter not warning me to save.

Hi Folks

Quick tip for MR, unlike FRX it will not always warn you to save changes when logining out, there is a Tick box under tools options which alows you to set  MR to warn you.

The tick box is " Display confirmation before exiting Management reporter"