Well the simple answer is don’t, most people don’t realize that you no longer need to DTS setup information into a new company from table to table or even import chart of accounts with integration manager.
We get asked this one a lot on the helpdesk as creating a new company is not something most systems administrators do regularly.
There is a copy company setup tool which will do this for you, simply tick what you want it to copy across. Versions 9 and 10 can be downloaded from automated solutions on the following link
https://mbs.microsoft.com/Cms/Templates/document/General.aspx?NRMODE=Published&NRNODEGUID={04AF87A8-8FD9-4BE5-9140-7B34BB2DA5C0}&NRORIGINALURL=/customersource/support/selfsupport/automatedsolutions&NRCACHEHINT=Guest&wa=wsignin1.0
and version 2010 is included in the PSTL tool kit.
It is a lot simpler than using DTS, a word of warning though , be careful when copying company or system specific information you can create redundant entries in tables.
Friday, 1 October 2010
Monday, 27 September 2010
The Clock is ticking for Dynamics GP version 9
This post is by way of a quick reminder that as of 11th January 2011, Microsoft will no longer be supporting Dynamics GP version 9. Therefore if you wish to stay on a manufacturer supported version of Dynamics GP and you are on version 9, you now have three months to plan, test and complete an upgrade to one of the supported versions.
A lot of clients have been holding off upgrading to Dynamics GP 2010 until service pack 1 was released. This was released last week and we have now installed it in our in house test environment.
Also Service pack 1 for Management Reporter (2010 FRx replacement) is now also available which will allow successful installation on UK regional settings.
If your interested in upgrading to Dynamics GP 2010 please contact helpdesk@touchstone.co.uk or myself andrew.hall@touchstone.co.uk
For further information on support life cycles of Microsoft products use the below link.
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifeselectindex#D
A lot of clients have been holding off upgrading to Dynamics GP 2010 until service pack 1 was released. This was released last week and we have now installed it in our in house test environment.
Also Service pack 1 for Management Reporter (2010 FRx replacement) is now also available which will allow successful installation on UK regional settings.
If your interested in upgrading to Dynamics GP 2010 please contact helpdesk@touchstone.co.uk or myself andrew.hall@touchstone.co.uk
For further information on support life cycles of Microsoft products use the below link.
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifeselectindex#D
Monday, 20 September 2010
All Change on 20% Tax Again January 2011
Tax Changes in Dynamics (GP)
This is a quick re working of the advice we put together last time the VAT changed from 17.5 to 15% and then again from 15% back to 17.5%. This change is happening in January 2011 so now would be a good time to start thinking about how this might affect your systems. The changes in VAT where originally set out in the Chancellors emergency budget 2010 (The full details are in the HMRC link at the end of this article). Because of the nature of Tax calculations in Dynamics (GP) this article is intended purely as a Guide and you will need to choose the appropriate actions for your circumstances.
Note: We have kept these notes fairly generic as we have clients on several different versions, however in version 10 and 2010 where we give a path to Setup>company etc these are found under Tools> setup > Company
Tax Details
We advise that everyone will need to set up a new set of tax details to replace the 17.5% details currently used. We recommend that you did not simply change the rate on your existing detail as this could cause you reporting problems and issues when trying to post back.
To set up a new Tax detail you need to go to Setup>Company>Tax details
You needed to set up a minimum of two details, one for sales and one for purchasing. This needed to be done in each of your companies.
Tax Schedule
Here you have Two choices.
Option 1: We advise that you could retain the existing Tax schedule and simply remove the 17.5% detail from this schedule. Then add the new 20% detail to the schedule and to the ALL Sales and ALL purchasing schedules that you have setup on the company. Schedules can be accessed from setup>Company>Tax Schedules. This has the advantage of not then needing to change any setup on classes , debtors, creditors , items or projects. Simply put where ever the old 17.5% detail appears in a schedule on its own (No other details)you will need to replace it with the 20% detail and wherever it appears with other details you will need to add in the 20% detail.
Option 2: is to setup two new Tax schedule (one sales one purchasing). Again this is done through setup>company>Tax schedules. Once these have been crested you will also need to add the 20% Tax detail to the existing All sales and All Purchasing tax schedules. However if you create a new schedule you will need to change all the card records within dynamics that have a schedule attached. These are Debtor maintenance, Creditor Maintenance, Item maintenance, Cards project categories, SOP setup options default tax schedules , and the appropriate Classes for all of the above , this will also need to be done in each company.
VAT Reporting and Vat input and Output codes
If you are using the standard Vat reporting within Dynamics (GP) this all works off of Tax detail ID so if you have created a new detail there should be no issues. However some of our clients are reporting directly off of the GL account code. If this is the case you will need to setup two new GL accounts for the new tax rate (input and output accounts) and add these accounts into the new details you have created.
Setup new accounts under cards >Financial>Accounts remember it will need to be a balance sheet account.
The Account can be associated with the Tax detail Setup>Company>Tax detail id.
You may wish to do this even if not reporting directly of the GL.
Sales Order Processing
SOP will cause some issues as any outstanding transactions created this week will retain their 17.5% tax detail when transferred to invoice (This is not a problem for POP as this recalculates). The Tax setup options for SOP are on the options Tab of the Sales Order setup window found under Setup>Sales> Sales order processing. To get round this issue you will need to go back and change the tax on the order to the new rate before transferring to invoice.
For a method of recalculating the tax on SOP Transactions, have a look at David Musgrave's blog as there is now functionality in the support debugging tool which will allow you to do this.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/developingfordynamicsgp/archive/2010/09/21/changing-sop-tax-rates-using-the-support-debugging-tool.aspx
Nolan’s Advanced VAT
We have spoken to Nolan’s and they are issuing no specific advise however like us they are advising to create new details rather than update existing ones. These are found in the same place as the standard Tax details as these are alternate windows.
Note: if using Nolan’s advanced VAT you can set an account to be Taxable, in which case a tax schedule is held against the account as well as an individual Tax ID , these will need to be changed as well where they are using the 17.5% tax detail. These are accessed under cards>financial>Account .
Project Accounting
Depending on how your projects are setup , you may need to change the tax schedules on Cards> Projects> cost category.
Further Advice from the Government
For further detailed information and HMRC guidance about the original change, please visit the HMRC Website at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/forms-rates/rates/rate-rise-guidance.pdf
No advice has been issued by Microsoft at this time , but when they do we will update you.
This is a quick re working of the advice we put together last time the VAT changed from 17.5 to 15% and then again from 15% back to 17.5%. This change is happening in January 2011 so now would be a good time to start thinking about how this might affect your systems. The changes in VAT where originally set out in the Chancellors emergency budget 2010 (The full details are in the HMRC link at the end of this article). Because of the nature of Tax calculations in Dynamics (GP) this article is intended purely as a Guide and you will need to choose the appropriate actions for your circumstances.
Note: We have kept these notes fairly generic as we have clients on several different versions, however in version 10 and 2010 where we give a path to Setup>company etc these are found under Tools> setup > Company
Tax Details
We advise that everyone will need to set up a new set of tax details to replace the 17.5% details currently used. We recommend that you did not simply change the rate on your existing detail as this could cause you reporting problems and issues when trying to post back.
To set up a new Tax detail you need to go to Setup>Company>Tax details
You needed to set up a minimum of two details, one for sales and one for purchasing. This needed to be done in each of your companies.
Tax Schedule
Here you have Two choices.
Option 1: We advise that you could retain the existing Tax schedule and simply remove the 17.5% detail from this schedule. Then add the new 20% detail to the schedule and to the ALL Sales and ALL purchasing schedules that you have setup on the company. Schedules can be accessed from setup>Company>Tax Schedules. This has the advantage of not then needing to change any setup on classes , debtors, creditors , items or projects. Simply put where ever the old 17.5% detail appears in a schedule on its own (No other details)you will need to replace it with the 20% detail and wherever it appears with other details you will need to add in the 20% detail.
Option 2: is to setup two new Tax schedule (one sales one purchasing). Again this is done through setup>company>Tax schedules. Once these have been crested you will also need to add the 20% Tax detail to the existing All sales and All Purchasing tax schedules. However if you create a new schedule you will need to change all the card records within dynamics that have a schedule attached. These are Debtor maintenance, Creditor Maintenance, Item maintenance, Cards project categories, SOP setup options default tax schedules , and the appropriate Classes for all of the above , this will also need to be done in each company.
VAT Reporting and Vat input and Output codes
If you are using the standard Vat reporting within Dynamics (GP) this all works off of Tax detail ID so if you have created a new detail there should be no issues. However some of our clients are reporting directly off of the GL account code. If this is the case you will need to setup two new GL accounts for the new tax rate (input and output accounts) and add these accounts into the new details you have created.
Setup new accounts under cards >Financial>Accounts remember it will need to be a balance sheet account.
The Account can be associated with the Tax detail Setup>Company>Tax detail id.
You may wish to do this even if not reporting directly of the GL.
Sales Order Processing
SOP will cause some issues as any outstanding transactions created this week will retain their 17.5% tax detail when transferred to invoice (This is not a problem for POP as this recalculates). The Tax setup options for SOP are on the options Tab of the Sales Order setup window found under Setup>Sales> Sales order processing. To get round this issue you will need to go back and change the tax on the order to the new rate before transferring to invoice.
For a method of recalculating the tax on SOP Transactions, have a look at David Musgrave's blog as there is now functionality in the support debugging tool which will allow you to do this.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/developingfordynamicsgp/archive/2010/09/21/changing-sop-tax-rates-using-the-support-debugging-tool.aspx
Nolan’s Advanced VAT
We have spoken to Nolan’s and they are issuing no specific advise however like us they are advising to create new details rather than update existing ones. These are found in the same place as the standard Tax details as these are alternate windows.
Note: if using Nolan’s advanced VAT you can set an account to be Taxable, in which case a tax schedule is held against the account as well as an individual Tax ID , these will need to be changed as well where they are using the 17.5% tax detail. These are accessed under cards>financial>Account .
Project Accounting
Depending on how your projects are setup , you may need to change the tax schedules on Cards> Projects> cost category.
Further Advice from the Government
For further detailed information and HMRC guidance about the original change, please visit the HMRC Website at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/forms-rates/rates/rate-rise-guidance.pdf
No advice has been issued by Microsoft at this time , but when they do we will update you.
Thursday, 8 July 2010
Calling all Dynamics GP users in the UK. YOUR PRODUCT NEEDS YOU
As most UK users will be aware HMRC are changing the company tax reporting requirements as of the 1st of April 2011. All reports will need to be submitted online in iXBRL format.
Management reporter is half way there and can import the XBRL tags from HMRC and can output in XBRL however we need an iXBRL out put option.
We have placed a suggestion on the Microsoft Connect site. For those of you who do not know you can place product suggestions here and vote for them , those that get the most votes get sent to the development teams to be assessed and possibly included in future releases or feature packs.
So please take five minutes out of your day to go and vote for our suggestion which will ultimately benefit all UK Dynamics GP users.
The link to the site is https://connect.microsoft.com/dynamicssuggestions
If you can enter your details and then go to the Management Reporter for Dynamics ERP section
There you will find a suggestion entitled "iXBRL Reporting output required in Managment Reporter for HMRC online tax reports in UK - by Andyha11"
Please open this suggestion and then click on the green voting arrow (pointing upwards) to register your vote.
Thank you for your help with this, we can use the power of the Dynamics GP online community to get Microsoft to add the functionality we need into the product (after all that’s what it’s there for)
Management reporter is half way there and can import the XBRL tags from HMRC and can output in XBRL however we need an iXBRL out put option.
We have placed a suggestion on the Microsoft Connect site. For those of you who do not know you can place product suggestions here and vote for them , those that get the most votes get sent to the development teams to be assessed and possibly included in future releases or feature packs.
So please take five minutes out of your day to go and vote for our suggestion which will ultimately benefit all UK Dynamics GP users.
The link to the site is https://connect.microsoft.com/dynamicssuggestions
If you can enter your details and then go to the Management Reporter for Dynamics ERP section
There you will find a suggestion entitled "iXBRL Reporting output required in Managment Reporter for HMRC online tax reports in UK - by Andyha11"
Please open this suggestion and then click on the green voting arrow (pointing upwards) to register your vote.
Thank you for your help with this, we can use the power of the Dynamics GP online community to get Microsoft to add the functionality we need into the product (after all that’s what it’s there for)
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Dynamics GP2010 and Word 2010 template documents Tips for Modifications
We have done several Dynamics GP2010 upgrades now and I have had occasion to modify several of these templates. The manual for this functionality is actually part of the report writer manual for dynamics GP 2010 however it is not as simple as it seems.
Below are several tips to make life easier.
1. Do not use logos in the base report writer report. If you have a logo any modified fields will not come across to the word template.
2. Do not modify the existing Microsoft templates. Its hard to tell whether a table is nested within another table on the templates and it is vital to know this to be able to accurately place the required word bookmarks that determine how the template behaves. It is a lot easier to create your own template from scratch as you will know for certain how the word tables are structured on the format.
3. Avoid placing images in the header or footer that are not within a single cell table.
4. Print the base report writer report to an XML data file. You can then use this as a import file for the dynamics GP datasource for the word document should fields go missing.
5. Avoid the use of multiple additional headers and footers on the base report writer document (this can get messy) keep to Report headers, Body and report footer as much as possible.
6. Keep it simple
Below are several tips to make life easier.
1. Do not use logos in the base report writer report. If you have a logo any modified fields will not come across to the word template.
2. Do not modify the existing Microsoft templates. Its hard to tell whether a table is nested within another table on the templates and it is vital to know this to be able to accurately place the required word bookmarks that determine how the template behaves. It is a lot easier to create your own template from scratch as you will know for certain how the word tables are structured on the format.
3. Avoid placing images in the header or footer that are not within a single cell table.
4. Print the base report writer report to an XML data file. You can then use this as a import file for the dynamics GP datasource for the word document should fields go missing.
5. Avoid the use of multiple additional headers and footers on the base report writer document (this can get messy) keep to Report headers, Body and report footer as much as possible.
6. Keep it simple
Thursday, 13 May 2010
Dynamics GP 2010 web services and Business Portal 5 installation
Hi folks
I have spent the morning configuring sharepoint services, Dynamics GP 2010 web services etc. to install Business Portal 5.
One of the pre requisites is that Dynamics GP 2010 web services are installed before business portal 5. Having followed the wizard I was convinced that the Dynamics GP 2010 web services were installed , however the business portal 5 installation wizard could not see them.
The Business Portal 5 installation wizard suggests the URL for the Dynamics GP 2010 web services should be :
http://computername/DynamicsGPWebServices
However this was not working.
The install documentation suggests the URL for Dynamics GP 2010 Web services should include the TCP/IP port (the default for Dynamics GP 2010 Web Services being 48620) as well as the web services being called DynamicsGPService.
http://computername:48620/DynamicsGPService
This does not work either.
However if you combine the two using the port number from the Install guide and the naming convention from the wizard you get:
http://computername:48620/DynamicsGPWebServices
This does work and you can continue with your Business portal 5 installation for dynamics GP 2010.
I have spent the morning configuring sharepoint services, Dynamics GP 2010 web services etc. to install Business Portal 5.
One of the pre requisites is that Dynamics GP 2010 web services are installed before business portal 5. Having followed the wizard I was convinced that the Dynamics GP 2010 web services were installed , however the business portal 5 installation wizard could not see them.
The Business Portal 5 installation wizard suggests the URL for the Dynamics GP 2010 web services should be :
http://computername
However this was not working.
The install documentation suggests the URL for Dynamics GP 2010 Web services should include the TCP/IP port (the default for Dynamics GP 2010 Web Services being 48620) as well as the web services being called DynamicsGPService.
http://computername
This does not work either.
However if you combine the two using the port number from the Install guide and the naming convention from the wizard you get:
http://computername
This does work and you can continue with your Business portal 5 installation for dynamics GP 2010.
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Searching on the New Microsoft Dynamics GP Forums
Hi Folks
The old Dynamics community newsgroups are now being phased out and replaced with the new forums. For the full details on this please see David Musgrave's blog on the below link.
http://blogs.msdn.com/developingfordynamicsgp/archive/2010/05/11/microsoft-responds-to-the-evolution-of-communities.aspx
We have been using the new Microsoft Dynamics GP forums for a while now and have had a good experience with them so far however we have discovered that there is a slight issue with the search. The only way to get meaningful results from your search is to enclose your criteria in double quotes.
For example Management Reporter will not return anything however "Management Reporter" will.
So enclose any query in double quotes and it will save you a lot of frustration.
I have copied in the links to the Microsoft Dynamics GP forums below from David Musgrave's article.
So the time has come to stop using the old newsgroups and shift to using the public community forum or the partner forum, see links below:
Microsoft Dynamics GP Community Forum
Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner Forum
The old Dynamics community newsgroups are now being phased out and replaced with the new forums. For the full details on this please see David Musgrave's blog on the below link.
http://blogs.msdn.com/developingfordynamicsgp/archive/2010/05/11/microsoft-responds-to-the-evolution-of-communities.aspx
We have been using the new Microsoft Dynamics GP forums for a while now and have had a good experience with them so far however we have discovered that there is a slight issue with the search. The only way to get meaningful results from your search is to enclose your criteria in double quotes.
For example Management Reporter will not return anything however "Management Reporter" will.
So enclose any query in double quotes and it will save you a lot of frustration.
I have copied in the links to the Microsoft Dynamics GP forums below from David Musgrave's article.
So the time has come to stop using the old newsgroups and shift to using the public community forum or the partner forum, see links below:
Microsoft Dynamics GP Community Forum
Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner Forum
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