Using Dynamics NAV to Report Unclaimed Property

Unclaimed Property Laws

Unclaimed property laws have been around since the 1930s, but have become much broader and more strongly enforced in the last 25 years or so. Most recently a concerted effort has been made by many states to locate and assist in resolving Unclaimed Property. As a result, newer requirements for filing Unclaimed Property are being put in place each year.  It is each business’ responsibility to review Unclaimed Property found, and file returns to remain in compliance with the established laws. 

According to the NAUPA (National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators), some of the common types of unclaimed property include:

If processing any of these are a part of normal business in your organization, reach out to your state to understand the requirements and  practice of filing and returning property.

Several states have established a coordinated effort to standardize the reporting process. As a result, a freeware application called HRS Pro was developed to assist in filing claims with each state. Basically this application will allow you to export an Excel template, load data into the template and then import the template. The application will then allow you to print a report in a format that has been accepted by some states. If your state doesn’t participate in the NAUPA File format, you may need to purchase the enterprise edition of the application. 

How can Dynamics NAV assist with Compliance?

Dynamics NAV is a great tool to help you identify and prepare Excel files of any Unclaimed Property in the form of Uncleared Accounts Payable checks and Accounts Receivable Credit balance. Users can also easily identify any Accounts Receivable Credit balances by using NAV’s great filtering capabilities. 

Use of the bank reconciliation tool makes it easy to identify AP checks that have been issued and not cleared the bank. When printing a check, NAV creates a record in the Bank Account Ledger entry. This entry is updated during a bank reconciliation when the transaction is marked as having cleared the bank. A very simple analysis of bank account entries can be performed where the Document type = Payment and the Field Open = yes.  This will represent the entries that have not cleared the bank account. 

The examples below will provide a high level overview of how to use the Customer Ledger and Bank Ledger to identify possible Unclaimed Property. In the examples I will be using Dynamics NAV 2017, but these features are common in older versions of the NAV product. The only assumption made is that you are using Bank Reconciliations to regularly review and mark transactions that clear your bank accounts. 

Using Bank Ledger entries to Identify Uncleared Payments

1. From the CRONUS USA, Inc./Departments/Financial Management/Cash Management menu select Bank Accounts
   
   Figure 1 - Navigating to the Bank Accounts Section of Dynamics NAV 2017
2. Select the Bank Account that you use and on the Navigate tab of the ribbon menu, select Ledger Entries
   
   Figure 2 - Navigating to Ledger Entries from Bank Account in Dynamics NAV 2017
3. Using a detail filter, set the appropriate filters for identifying outstanding payments. Highlight the lines and send the list to Excel.
   
   Figure 3 - Send Selected Ledger Entries from Dynamics NAV 2017 to Excel

Using Customer Ledger Entries to Identify Uncleared Credits

You can easily access all of your outstanding customer ledger entries from any customer card by setting a filter for all open transactions that are less than 0.00. This represents the outstanding credits that can be investigated for meeting the filing requirements. 

1. From the CRONUS USA, Inc./Departments/Sales & Marketing/Order Processing menu select Customers
   
   Figure 4 - Opening the Customer List in Dynamics NAV 2017
2. On the Navigate tab of the Ribbon menu, select Ledger Entries.
   
   Figure 5 - Navigating to Customer Ledger Entries in Dynamics NAV 2017
3. Set a filter for all open transactions that are less than 0.00, and send to Excel for your analysis
   
   Figure 6 - Filtering on Open Transactions in Dynamics NAV 2017

Understanding how to use Dynamics NAV to ensure you are compliant with Unclaimed Property laws is just one of the many ways Dynamics NAV can help your business. For more on the many capabilities of Dynamics NAV, please visit our resource center. And, be sure to subscribe to our blog so you’ll never miss another update. 

Dynamics NAV Year-End Wrap Up To-Dos

Are you looking forward to the New Year? Or feeling stressed about everything you need to get done before year’s end? Fortunately, there’s still time to end the year on a high note, and set yourself up for a successful 2017. And, we can help. (At least as far as Dynamics NAV is concerned.) To help you start 2017 with your best NAV foot forward, we’ve compiled a list of “to dos” for year-end Dynamics NAV wrap up.

Dynamics NAV Year-End Check List:

1. Transaction Dates: Be sure your transaction posting dates are set to the correct year in the General Ledger. You can change dates in the General Ledger Setup and User Setup sections of NAV.
2. Accounting Calendar: Make sure your accounting calendar is set to 2017 with all the appropriate accounting periods for 2017.
3. Budgets and Financial Statements: If you use Financial Budgets, they should be updated for the new year before you print financial statements containing any budget information.
4. Processing Year-End Close: While it’s a fairly simple process, most of us only process the year-end close once per year and often forget the steps involved. Gwen Britt has created a short video entitled Processing the Year-End Close in Dynamics NAV which walks through all the steps.
5. 1099 Vendors: Be sure to review your vendor setups for 1099 Reporting.  Confirm that all of your vendors that require 1099s are set up appropriately so you can start capturing 2017 information.
6. Be Aware of Posting Dates: Be sure your posting dates are set for 2017. Remember, NAV automatically defaults to the current year. And, the current year will be 2017 on January 1. So if you’re not careful, entries for 12/31/2016 will be posted to 12/31/2017. This happens more than you’d image, so take the time to ensure all posting dates reflect the new year, 2017.

Complete this checklist and your Dynamics NAV-related transition to the new year should be as painless as possible.

For more information on this or other Microsoft Dynamics NAV topics, please be sure to visit our resource center. And, be sure to subscribe to our blog so you’ll never miss another update.

How-to Create Column Layouts for Account Schedules in Dynamics NAV

In Dynamics NAV, the Column Layout screen allows you to determine how you want to see the columns on your account schedules. You may define columns that are visible on the financial reports or columns that are strictly used for calculations. This blog will illustrate how to create custom layouts for account schedules in Dynamics NAV.

You may define columns that are visible on the financial reports or columns that are strictly used for calculations. Each line on the Column Layout page represents a column.

Unless otherwise stated, the following examples assume a fiscal calendar year.

Let’s get started!  Go to: Departments > Financial Management > General Ledger > Account Schedules.  Select the Edit Column Layout Setup button on the ribbon.

Figure 1 – The Edit Column Layout Setup button on the Account Schedule Names list

From the Column Layout screen, click into the Name field.

Figure 2 – The Name field on the Column Layout page

From the Column Layout Names page, click the New button on the ribbon. Create a Name and Description for your new column layout.

Figure 3 – Creating a new column layout from the Column Layout Names page

Once you have created the new Column Layout Name, select it and complete the line information in the Column Layout page. The following is one example of a simple column layout.   

BAL ONLY– Represents the balance at date as determined by the Date Filter used. Used for balance sheet accounts. 

Figure 4 – BAL ONLY Balance Only

The following are samples of additional column layouts that may be created for use with the account schedules.

BAD– Represents the balance at date for each of the twelve months. Typically used for the Balance Sheet.

Figure 5 – BAD Balance at Date – 12 Mo of Fiscal Year

BADA (alternative)– Represents the balance at date for each of the twelve months. Typically used for the Balance Sheet.

Figure 6 – BADA Balance at Date – 12 Mo of Fiscal Year (Alternative)

BUDGANALYS: Represents the deviation from the budget. 

Figure 7 – BUDGANALYS Budget Analysis

CASHFLOW– Represents the statement of cash flow comparing month to year.

Figure 8 – CASHFLOW Comparison Month -Year

CP – Represents the current period. If the Date Filter is set to April, report displays April. 

Figure 9 – CP Current Period

CPA (alternative)– Represents the current period. If the Date Filter is set to April, report displays April.

Figure 10 – CPA Current Period (Alternative)

DAY– Represents one day of activity. The Date Filter must be set to one day.

Figure 11 – DAY One day of Activity

DEGREE– Represents the key cash flow ratio.

Figure 12 – DEGREE Key Cash Flow Ratio

EY – Represents the entire year. Will display data from January to December regardless of Date Filter.

Figure 13 – EY Entire Year

MY – Represents multiple years. Displays four years of activity.

Figure 14 – MY Multiple Years

NC– Represents the net change for 12 months of the fiscal year. This is typically used for income statements.

Figure 15 – NC Net Change

NCA (alternative)– Represents the net change for 12 months of the fiscal year. This is typically used for income statements. This is an alternative method as it relies on the Date Filter being set to the last month of the year.

Figure 16 – NCA Net Change (Alternative)

PERIODS– Represents the current period and two prior periods.

Figure 17 – PERIODS Periods Definition for Mini Charts

PTD + YTD– Represents the period to date and the year to date net change.

Figure 18 – PTD + YTD Period and Year to Date

PTD + YTD + %– Represents the period and year to date percentage of the budget.

Figure 19 – PTD + YTD + % Period and Year to Date with Percent of Total Revenue

PYTD – Represents the balance of one fiscal year prior to the Date Filter.

Figure 20 – PYTD Prior Year to Date

PYTDA (alternative)– Represents the balance of one fiscal year prior to the Date Filter.

Figure 21 – PYTD Prior Year to Date (Alternative)

QP – Represents a column for each quarter of net change.

Figure 22 – QP Quarterly Period

RFY– Represents the remaining amount for the fiscal year.  This is typically used for budget entries.

Figure 23 – RFY Rest of Fiscal Year

SMP– Represents the first six periods of the current fiscal year summarized in one column.

Figure 24 – SMP Specific Multiple Periods

SP6 – Represents a specific period regardless of the Date Filter.  In this example, the period for June is used.

Figure 25 – SP6 Specific Period - June

SPPY– Represents the same period of the prior fiscal year, based on the Date Filter.

Figure 26 – Same Period of Prior Year

SP-PY– Represents a specific period in the prior fiscal year regardless of the Date Filter.

Figure 27 – SP-PY Specific Period of Prior Year – June

WK– Represents the previous 7 days. The Date Filter must be set to the last day of the week.

Figure 28 – WK Last Seven Days

YTD – Represents the year to date depending on the Date Filter. If the Date Filter is set to June, the report will display data from January to June.

Figure 29 – YTD Year to Date

YTDA (alternative) - Represents the year to date depending on the Date Filter. If the Date Filter is set to June, the report will display data from January to June.

Figure 30 – YTDA Year to Date (Alternative)

YTDCOMPARE– Represents the year to date activity compared to the prior year.

Figure 31 – YTDCOMPARE This Year to Date vs. Prior Year to Date

The following Column Layouts will need to be created for each of the day of the month options.

Figure 32 – Column Layout Names

31MO– Represents each of the days in a given month. The Date Filter must be set to the last day of the month.

Figure 33 – 31MO All the Days in a 31 Day Month

Check out our blog for more information on setting up columns in Dynamics NAV.

And, be sure to subscribe to our blog so you’ll never miss another NAV-related update. 

Dynamics NAV Pricing on Azure

I’ve often asked myself why the prices for cloud computing for Dynamics NAV (Navision) haven’t dropped in line with Microsoft and Amazon price decreases. I set out to answer that question and what I discovered has now convinced me that no one should ever buy another physical server to run NAV ever again.

Starting with Dynamics NAV 2016 and later we can now use Azure SQL which eliminates the need to license Microsoft SQL separately on either a physical or virtual machine. The cost savings using Azure SQL means that we can now run NAV 2016 or later on Azure SQL from a half to a quarter of the cost of traditional hosting or running it on premise. In addition to an Azure Subscription the only other thing you need is an SSL Certificate.

To see for yourself all you need to do is go to the Azure Pricing Calculator.

For a standard configuration that should easily support 25 users, all you need is an Azure Windows Virtual Machine and an Azure SQL Database. I’m including a screen shot of the configuration below so that you can replicate my configuration in the pricing calculator. You’ll notice that the estimated monthly cost is only $283.32 per month. What is even more amazing is that for this price you can also use point-in-time restore as far back as 35 days along with the ability to restore databases from geo-redundant copies of recent backups, or failover to database replicas in a different region. To create that kind of capability in a hosting or an on premise environment is often cost prohibitive.

Figure 1 - Azure SQL Server Pricing Configuration for Dynamics NAV 2016

Hopefully, once you do your own analysis, you’ll come to the same conclusion that I did. That no one should ever buy another NAV server again.  If you would like to learn more please feel free to contact me at gkaupp@archerpoint.com. For more information on Microsoft Dynamics pricing, visit our site.

And, be sure to subscribe to our blog so you’ll never miss another NAV-related update. 

Creating (or Extending) a Shop Calendar in Dynamics NAV

One of the most frequent requests we receive is with regard to the error message that is received when trying to create a Production Order. The error message looks similar to the error message below:

Figure 1 - Error Message

The message is communicating that it is trying to calculate the start date for the order, but could not find a shop calendar (also known as capacity calendar) going back far enough to know what capacity is available in the work center. If the order has been backward scheduled, then the error message will say “When calculating Backward.” If the error happened as a result of using forward scheduling, then the message will say “When calculating forward.” 

The fix to this message is to calculate the capacity for the work center so that the system can calculate the number of days required to produce the production order. The information below walks you through the process of creating/extending the shop calendar for a work center.

To create or extend the shop calendar:

1. Go to the Work Center card for the work center involved.
   
   Figure 2 - Work Center Card in Dynamics NAV
2. Confirm that the “Shop Calendar Code” field has a value (field is identified with the arrow in the figure above).
3. Select the Calendar Icon on the ribbon (identified by red rectangle in the figure above).
   
   Figure 3 - Work Center Calendar
4. The page above displays.  This page allows you to set the options to view the “Shop Calendar” or capacity calendar for the work centers. 
5. Select the Show Matrix icon on the ribbon (highlighted by the red rectangle in the figure above).
6. The page below displays showing the capacity information that has been calculated at this point.
   
   Figure 4 - Dynamics NAV Work Center Calendar Matrix
7. Select the ACTIONS tab as highlighted by the red rectangle in the figure above.
8. Select the Calculate Icon on the ribbon of the ACTIONS tab (highlighted by red arrow in the figure above).
   
   Figure 5 - Calculate Work Center Calendar
9. The above options box displays allowing you to apply any filters and set the date range to use to calculate capacity for the selected work centers.
10. Enter the Starting and Ending dates.
11. Select the work center you want to calculate the shop calendar for (Leave the No. filter field blank to calculate the capacity/shop calendar for all work centers).
12. Click the OK button to start the calculation.
13. Refresh the screen to see the capacity that has been calculated for your work center.
    
    Figure 6 - Shop Calendar Error Fixed
14. You have now corrected the Shop Calendar error you had received.

For more information on Microsoft Dynamics NAV and production order calendars, please visit our Resource Center. And, be sure to subscribe to our blog so you’ll never miss another NAV-related update.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 and the Change Log

As a Dynamics NAV user, you may need to identify who and when someone has modified a Field Value. For example, if you want to record all changes in the Allowed Posting Dates field within in the General Ledger Setup, using the Change Log is ideal. While you can use the Roles and Permissions tool, this only allows for controlling who can make the changes, it does not record which user changed it and when. With the Change Log, we can log the Insert Modify and Delete operation in the whole table or selected Fields to record any changes.

Activating the Change Log in Dynamics NAV

To activate the Change Log navigate to Departments/Administration/IT Administration/Tasks, under General select Change Log Setup. From there set Change Log Activated to TRUE.

Figure 1 - Enable Change Log in Dynamics NAV 2016

Now from the Action Tab, select Tables. This will open the Change Log Setup (Table) List. Select the tables for which you want to activate the Change Log. And, select the appropriate fields. Please note that if you select All Fields, a log entry will be created whenever any data element in a table changes. If you select Some Fields, a log entry will be created whenever any data element in a selected Table field changes. Using Assist Edit you can select the fields that you want to use to Track Changes.

Figure 2 - Change Log Setup Table List with Change Log for All Fields

Figure 3 - Change Log Setup Table List with Change Log for Selected Fields in Dynamics NAV 2016

Once you have setup all tables that you want to change the Log for, you then need to reopen the NAV Client to the Change Log to start recording changes.

View Change Log Entries

To view the Change Log entries, navigate to Departments/Administration/IT Administration/General/Change Log Entries. From here you can find log entries for the tables which you have configured in setup. Each entry will contain primary keys (only first 3 primary keys in a table), type of change, old value, and new value of a field, date, and time of log.

Best Practices for Change Log Setup

Some best practices for setting up and using the Change Log include:

1. Don’t setup Change Log for all tables and all fields in table. While it is very easy to setup, it will have huge impact on database size as each event from each user will be logged.
2. Try to keep Change Log on selected fields of setups that impact your business, again to help manage the size of the database.
3. Don’t setup Change Log on transaction tables like Sales Header and Line, Item Journal Line, or on Ledger tables like Item Ledger Entries or General Ledger Entries.
4. Setup Change Log for setup Tables, and if you want it on transaction tables, then activate the Change Log for selected fields only.

If you have any questions about this function or other Dynamics NAV questions for any version, contact ArcherPoint.

Read more "How To" blogs from ArcherPoint for practical advice on using Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

Dynamics NAV Coffee Break: Setting up and Issuing Reminders in Dynamics NAV

Setting up and Issuing payment reminders in Microsoft Dynamics NAV can be quite useful to ensure timely payment from your customers. In this video, Gwen demonstrates everything you need to do to set up reminders in the Financial Management section of Dynamics NAV. You will also see how to create terms,  set up additional fee accounts in customer posting groups, add and choose a text variable for the reminder, and finally issue the reminder.

You can view this video and many other video tutorials for Dynamics NAV on ArcherPoint's YouTube Channel. 

For more information on this or any other Dynamics NAV topic, please contact ArcherPoint.

For more step-by-step instructions on how to perform specific tasks in Microsoft Dynamics NAV, see our collection of How-To blogs.

Dynamics NAV Coffee Break: Setting Up Subcontractors in Dynamics NAV

This Dynamics NAV Coffee Break is the first of two video blogs that explain how to set up and use subcontractors for the manufacturing process in Dynamics NAV.

Setting up subcontractors for the manufacturing process in Dynamics NAV is not difficult, but ensuring you do the setup correctly from the start is key. This video demonstrates everything you need to do to setup subcontractors - starting with choosing the Location, to General Posting setup, and avoiding errors from the potentially tricky Stockkeeping Units fields.

See our next blog to learn how to use subcontractors in Dynamics NAV.

You can view this video and other Coffee Break videos for Dynamics NAV on the ArcherPoint Coffee Break playlist. 

For help with your manufacturing processes in Dynamics NAV, contact ArcherPoint.

Dynamics NAV Coffee Break: Using Subcontractors in the Manufacturing Process in Dynamics NAV

This Dynamics NAV Coffee Break is the second of two video blogs that explain how to set up and use subcontractors for the manufacturing process in Dynamics NAV.

If you haven’t see the video on setting up subcontractors, you may want to view it first. Once you’ve set up your subcontractors in Dynamics NAV, it’s quite easy to use them in the manufacturing process. In this short video, you will see a demonstration of everything you need to do to tie it all together, from transfer orders, to purchase orders, to using multiple subcontractors. It really is easy to use subcontractors in the manufacturing process in Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

You can view this video and other Coffee Break videos for Dynamics NAV on the ArcherPoint Coffee Break playlist. 

For help with your manufacturing processes in Dynamics NAV, contact ArcherPoint.

Processing Check Payments in Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Microsoft Dynamics NAV users often have to make a payment to a vendor using a check. Fortunately, Dynamics NAV does have a provision to process payments via check.

To get started, navigate to Department, Financial Management, Payable, and select Payment Journal.

There are two ways to generate Payment Entries:

1. Dynamics NAV can suggest the payment that needs to be processed based on last payment date and other fields. Select Suggest Vendor Payment from the Payment Journal as shown below:
   
   Figure 1 - Suggest Vendor Payments

2. You can create payment journal entries for a specific Vendor and apply documents that you want to process against that payment using the Apply Entries function.

   Key in the Vendor No and select 'Apply Entries'. The system will populate Open Entries for the Vendor. You can select one or more documents that you want to process against this payment using Set Applies-To ID in the Apply Entries screen:
   
   Figure 2 - Apply Document(s) Against Payment

For check payment, select the following options in the Payment Journal:

• Bal. Accounting Type = Bank Account
• Bal. Account No. = the bank account you wish to pay from (Note that the Last Check No. should be available & Bank Currency should be same as Payment Journal currency)
• Bank Payment Type = Computer Check
  
  Figure 3 - Mandatory Fields for Check Payments

For a Check Payment Journal Line, the check should be printed before posting the payment. You can preview the check using the Preview Check option.

The Check Report should be printed on the check received from the bank. Standard Microsoft has a letter size check but your partner can customize your check report as you require.

Figure 4 - Print the Check Prior to Posting

Once a user has a printed check, they can post it in the Payment Journal. If there are some discrepancies, then the user can void the check using the Void Check Option from the Payment Journal screen.

If you have any questions about this function or other Dynamics NAV questions for any version, contact ArcherPoint. You can read more "How To" blogs from ArcherPoint for practical advice on using Microsoft Dynamics NAV. And, if you are interested in NAV development, check out our collection of NAV Development Blogs.

How to Tweak RDLC Reports to Increase Performance in Dynamics NAV 2013R2 or Higher

RDLC reports can have performance issues occassionally. Microsoft is aware, and has been enhancing report performance in every release since this became an issue. In this blog, I will explain how you can use a small feature in RDLC reports called "labels" to optimize performance.

RDLC report performance depends directly on how optimized the Dynamics NAV dataset is. With Labels, we can reduce the size of the dataset, which in-turn increases the performance of the report.

Report data have two components: Captions and Values. Captions can further be classified into three groups:

1. Table Field Captions: These are the captions used when one selects “Include Caption” in the Report Dataset Designer. 
2. Captions generated at run time: These are the captions generated when a report is executed. 
3. Fixed Text: These are things like the Report Name, or Field Captions, all of which we can define under Global Text Constants.

Figure 1 - Dynamics NAV Report Dataset Designer on Report 111, the Customer Top 10 List

Text Constants (with fixed values) are required to be added in the dataset, and that will increase the size of dataset.

Figure 2 - Dynamics NAV Dataset for Report 111, Customer Top 10 List

As we can see, that last 05 Dataset field value is not changing for any record when we run the report.

Steps to Use Labels

Open the Labels window from 'View Action' and select Labels.

Move all fixed text from Text Constants to Labels.

Figure 3 - Move Global Text Constants with Fixed Text to Labels

You can update the Report Layout and Change Expressions from Dataset Fields to Parameters.

All Table Field Captions and Labels are available as parameters in Layout.

Figure 4 - Update Layout Instead of Fields Select to Parameters

This is how it affects the Report Dataset:

Figure 5 - Updated Report Dataset in Dynamics NAV Report 111, Customer Top 10 List

When using Labels and Table Field Captions, the dataset size will be reduced and in turn performance will increase. If you have any questions about this function or other Dynamics NAV questions for any version, contact ArcherPoint.

Read more "How To" blogs from ArcherPoint for practical advice on using Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

If you are interested in NAV development, check out our collection of NAV Development Blogs.

Jet Reports Web Portal Setup

The new Jet Reports Web Portal brings collaboration and sharing to a new level. Features include version control, central permissions, sharing settings as well as the ability to use Office 365 to use your reports anywhere.

Jet Reports: Server Setup

To publish reports to the Jet Web Portal you first need to install the Services Tier and the Web Portal on a local server. To do this, run the Jet Professional install and check the additional boxes.

Figure 1 - Jet Reports Web Portal Installation

The install will configure IIS and install a Jet Services Tier database. This will be used to host the web portal and control permissions. 

The last step of configuring the Jet Web Portal is to assign a certificate in IIS to direct the traffic to the newly configured web portal.  To do this:

Open IIS Manager > Server Name > Sites > Jet Web Portal > Edit Bindings

Here you can set the SSL certificate. If you do not have a certificate, then you can create a self-signed certificate by going back to the top level of the IIS management tree and opening the feature Server Certificates. Here you will find a link to Create Self-Signed Certificate that you can then attach.

Now that everything is up and running, open the Jet Administration Console and connect to the newly created service. Here you will manage the data sources and user rights. Simply add your users and data sources and now you are all setup. 

Jet Reports: User Configuration

Each user will need to have their Excel profile reconfigured to use the Jet Services Tier service. To do this, open Excel and in the Jet Ribbon select Application Settings. Inside Application Settings, change the Settings location from Local user profile to Jet Configuration Service, update the server name and test. If all is correct then your data sources and permissions are now setup and you no longer have to setup users individually.

Figure 2 - Jet Reports Application Settings

In the Jet ribbon, the Publish button should now be available. Once you build your report, you can then publish it to the Jet Web Portal using this tool. 

After published, you can run the report by logging into the Jet Web Portal page at HTTPS://ServerName

Figure 3 - Jet Reports Web Portal Page

If you have any questions about Jet Reports, please contact ArcherPoint.

For more advice on using Microsoft Dynamics NAV, please visit our resource center and subscribe to our blog.

Dynamics NAV Coffee Break: Finance Charge Memos

Dynamics NAV makes it easy to create a Finance Charge Memo. In this In this latest installment of our NAV Coffee Break video series, Gwen demonstrates how to create the charge, identify the charge terms, interest rates, interest time periods, as well as minimum charges. She also shows how to assign a customer and send the finance charge memo.

You can view this video and many other video tutorials for Dynamics NAV at ArcherPoint's YouTube Channel. 

For your convenience, the transcription of this video follows:

Today’s coffee break is on finance charge memos. You want to create finance charge memos and add an additional fee. That’s something that Navision does pretty easily. So the first thing you need to do is actually create your finance charge terms. So we do that under Departments, Financial Management, and we’re going to go to Receivables and then way down here at the bottom under Administration, we have our Finance Charge Terms.

So I’ve got a couple created in here. I’ve got one for domestic and foreign. I have different grace periods and things like that depending on where they’re located. So you may want to do the same thing.

Here we’ve got – let me just make this a little bigger for you. We’ve got the first one which is 1.5 percent charge for domestic customers and I’ve got a description here just to let me know what it’s for and then I’m saying that I want to calculate my interest based off of the open entry. So you can do closed entries or you can do both.

For the interest calculation method, I go for an average daily balance. But you could also do balance due. For the interest rate for my domestic customers, I charge a 1.5 percent interest rate and the interest period is broken down into 30-day buckets.

The minimum amount is I put $15.50. So what happens is it’s going to go through and calculate the interest. If it’s less than $15.50, then it’s not going to create a finance charge memo. So we’re basically not going to bother. So once it hits this number, then we’re going to go and have them create the finance charge memo.

In addition to creating a finance charge, we’re going to do an additional fee for my time and sending out mail and all that good stuff. So my additional fee is $7. We’ve got a grace period of five days and my due date calculation is one month.

Now over here, we have the line description. It has actually got some symbols in there that will be replaced with data. So in this case, I have “percent for” which ends up being the interest rate. So we will actually show 1.5 percent finance charge of and then in here, we’re going to have the amount. So it’s going to replace those symbols with data. If you want to see different options for that, we have here – I’m going to hold this up for a minute so you can get a screenshot. But the line description field will look at these little predefined options and replace them with the data accordingly.

All right? So you can see how I chose my interest rate and the amount. All right. So now that I’ve got that, I say I do want to go ahead and post the interest, which means I’m going to have to establish a GL account for that interest to be posted to and I will show you where to do that and I want to post my additional fee, which is that $7 fee.

All right. So once that has been created, I need to assign it to my customer. Let’s go back up here to the customers. Let’s go back up here to the customers. There we go and on my customer card, on the payment tab, there we go, I have on the payment tab over here Finance Charge TermsCode. So this is a domestic customer. So I went ahead and assigned the 1.5 domestic code to that account.

Now while I’m in here, I told you it’s going to go to a GL account. Well, your customer posting group is where you establish that account. So let’s go ahead and take a look at that. Over here we have the interest account and the additional fee account. So mine, I’m going to the same GL account. You may want to break it up into different accounts and that’s fine. But that’s how it knows which GL account to hit and you’re going to need to know that because at the end of the year, most people don’t like to pay the finance charges and you’re going to have to write it off. So you’re going to be looking at that account in here.

All right. So once that’s done, we can go ahead and create our finance charges. So we do that by going to Financial Management and Periodic Activities and then we’re going to go ahead and go to Receivables and Finance Charge Memos. So what we’re going to do is first create them and we’re going to take a look at them and see if we want to use them. So you put in your posting date and your document date and this will be course the date that the finance charge hits their account and I click OK.

It generates them and let’s just take a look at one here. All right. So you can look at this and you can decide that you don’t want to issue it and you could just delete it and go to the next one or maybe you want to edit it. So this is just a suggestion and you will see here that all the header information came in with the customer’s information. All their different invoices are listed and that description that we’ve put in, that “percent for” was replaced with a 1.5 percent finance charge and of course that percent five was replaced with the amount.

So here we have the amount that’s remaining on the invoice and then here’s the finance charge that was created at 1.5 percent. We have an additional line down here to that GL account that we looked at and it’s for $7 and then we get a grand sum total here of everything that’s due. So once you’ve looked this over, and you’ve approved it, you issue it. So up here in my home ribbon, I click on Issue and you can email it. You can print it. I’m going to print it so that you can take a look at it and if these sat for a few days and you need to replace the posting date, you can certainly do that.

Once it’s – now there comes out of my printer. Once it has been issued, it moves off this list and you would go to the next one. So once you’re done, these live over in Issued Finance Charge Memos. Just click down here and this is the one that we just created and let’s just preview it for you.

So this is what it looks like. It has got the customer address. This is our return address and then it has got all those invoices on there, the additional fee, and the total. In addition to being located in the Issued Finance Charge Memo area, you can see it from the customer part.

Let’s go back to receivables and we will just take a look at this customer and if you need to reprint it for them because they claim they didn’t get it, you can go to Navigate, IssuedDocuments and Issued Finance Charges and that’s where it lives. You can also drill into their balance and you will see down here the finance charge that was created. So the document type for finance charge, although it is an invoice, it does flag it as a finance charge so that you can see the difference and that’s the total of the finance charges plus the – that additional fee. That concludes our lesson on creating finance charge memos.

NAV Coffee Break: Setting Up and Purchasing with Credit Cards in Dynamics NAV 2017

It is convenient to be able to purchase goods using a credit card in Dynamics NAV 2017. And while it is not difficult to do, here are a few necessary steps to the setup process that are critical before you can start making purchases. In this latest installment of our NAV Coffee Break video series, Gwen walks through each of these steps from creating a payment method to posting general ledger updates.

You can view this video and many other video tutorials for Dynamics NAV at ArcherPoint's YouTube Channel.

For your reference, a transcript of this video follows:

Welcome to today’s coffee break. Today’s coffee break is on setting up and purchasing with credit cards.

So there are a lot of people who want to know how do you set it up in the system so that we can easily purchase goods from let’s say – we’re going to use Staples today as our example and we automatically show that it was paid with a credit card. So it doesn’t show as like an open balance on account.

So there are a few set-ups you need to do ahead of time. But once you do them, it works great. So let’s go ahead and do those set-ups. I’ve actually done them ahead of time. But I will show them to you.

So we go to Financial Management, General Ledger, and we’re going to look at the Chart of Accounts. This is the first thing I did is I set up my different credit cards that I used for paying utilities, things like that. I set them up in the Chart of Accounts.

So I have one here for American Express. This is what we’re going to focus on today. I have a couple of others as well. Once you’ve created those accounts, you need to create a payment method that’s associated with that credit card.

So let’s just show our payment methods here. Here, I have one for American Express, MasterCard, Visa and what I want to show you is that those GL accounts that we just set up are associated here as the balancing account. All right?

So that’s where all this really works. So once you’ve got that set up, you’re going to want to go ahead and apply that new payment method to your vendor.

So let’s go to Payables and we look at our vendors. I’ve created Staples. So I go to my Staples account and over here, I have my payment method as American Express and remember that American Express payment method automatically defaults to a balancing account with that account we’ve set up in our balance sheet.

So let’s say that I want to go ahead and create a purchase invoice to Staples. We will go here and we will just go ahead and we will put our office expenses in here. There we go. Office supplies. Obviously you break this out in whatever detail is appropriate for you.

Once you’ve got that entered, I just want to show you here that on the invoice details down here, that payment method has defaulted from the vendor’s card and let’s go ahead and post this and let’s take a look at that posted invoice.

So here I am. I’m on that posted invoice and let’s navigate and see what it did. All right. So if I look at the vendor ledger entries associated with that transaction, I see the invoice that we created, plus the payment. It’s already done and they’ve been applied to each other. So on that vendor’s account card, they have a zero balance.

If we look at the general ledger, again we see our accounts payable for the vendor. We see our expense office supplies and then we see – I’m sorry. This is our accounts payable. This is that account that we set up for the balancing account. So now, what will happen is you’re going to get a bill in a few weeks from American Express.

You’ve already broken out the expense, the appropriate expense accounts. So all you’re doing is you’re going in. I’m going to just create a general journal entry here and basically you get the invoice from American Express and let’s see what I have set up for American Express. There we go.

You would put the total amount in the invoice and the balancing account will be that account that we created – our balance sheet account for the American Express.

All right. You would go ahead and post that. Looks like I’ve done this before. We post. OK. So let’s go take a look at that. So if we go to the Chart of Accounts, I see now that there’s no longer a balance on this account, right? Because we washed it out when we paid American Express. If we go to the American Express vendor account, I see here the invoice that we just posted for $100.

So now what will happen is when I go to do my check run, this will pop up. But the hard work of breaking out that American Express bill was already done when I created the purchase invoice. So it just simplifies things. It’s a different way of doing things and from an end user standpoint, once all the set-ups are done, it all works pretty cleanly.

Thank you very much. That concludes our lesson on setting up credit card payments.

Thanks for watching this ArcherPoint video. If you found it helpful, make sure to check out our website and blog at www.ArcherPoint.com. Additionally, if you have any questions regarding our products, services or information in this video, feel free to email us at info@archerpoint.com. Thanks.

Running Objects from Dynamics NAV Classic Client

In RTC (Role Tailored Client versions of Dynamics NAV (2013 and above), the Classic Client is still available, but, it is now called the Development Environment. It can be opened by running finsql.exe typically located here:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\90\RoleTailored Client\finsql.exe

Once opened, it will look similar to the old Classic Client; however, you do not open companies from here. You can only open databases. Once the DB is opened, you can view the objects using the Object Designer. Open the Object Designer just like the old Classic Client: Tools/Object Designer.

Figure 1 - Selecting the Object Designer

You can run reports, tables, pages and codeunits from here. But, it is best practice to run these from the RTC client. Anything you run from the Object Designer will actually run in the RTC client. Even the tables will open in a pseudo-temp list style page with all the fields displayed.

For more helpful hints on getting the most out of Dynamics NAV, please visit our website. Be sure to subscribe to our blog and newsletters, so as never to miss update. 

Dynamics NAV Coffee Break: How to Correct and Print 1099 Tax Forms

It happens all the time, you didn’t realize a customer was a 1099 vendor, or their vendor card wasn’t set up properly from the beginning; fortunately, it is fairly simple to correct and print a 1099 tax form in Dynamics NAV. This video provides an overview on correcting and printing 1099 tax forms in Dynamics NAV. Gwen demonstrates how to ensure a vendor has a 1099 code in their vendor card, how to update ledger entries, indicate if a vendor and/or transaction is 1099 liable, and how to print out the 1099 once complete.

You can view this video and many other video tutorials for Dynamics NAV at ArcherPoint's YouTube Channel. 

For your convenience, the video transcript for correcting and printing 1099 tax forms in Microsoft Dynamics NAV ERP follows:

All right. Today’s coffee break is on correcting and printing 1099s. As we all know, we get to the beginning of the year. We get ready to issue our 1099s and we realize that we have not been collecting 1099 information for a given vendor and we need to make some corrections, so that we can prevent the 1099.

It’s not uncommon. Either you didn’t know they were a 1099 vendor or that you weren’t set up properly. It doesn’t really matter. It fits this bill the same. So what you do is you go to the vendor card first. So I go to Departments and I’m going to go ahead and go to Purchases, Planning and open up my vendors.

So the first thing we want to do is look at the vendor’s card and make sure that there is an IRS 1099 code established. All right? So if there isn’t one, you can go ahead and put it in there or if there is one, great. Maybe the transactions just weren’t flagged as 1099 transactions.

So once that has been confirmed, you’re going to go to their ledger entries. So I’m going to go up here to History and click on the ledger entries and I have all the invoices and payments for this particular vendor and they are not showing up when I print my 1099s. So I need to edit these entries to show both of their 1099 – that they have a 1099 code and that there is the 1099 amount. So I’m going to right click and go to Choose Columns and I want to see two columns. One is the 1099 amount. I’m going to add that and the other is the 1099 code. So I will add that as well.

I’m going to go ahead and move these up, just to make it easier for us to work. All right. I click OK. And it’s just going to rebuild that screen, so that I can see those two columns. So as you see, all these invoices do not have a 1099 code and they don’t have a 1099 amount. So what we want to do is just go ahead and edit this list and what you do is you put in here the amounts.

Now remember, this is a vendor’s invoice. So the amount is going to be negative just like it was originally. So I just put in the original amount. One thing to note while I’m doing this is that the entire invoice may not have been 1099-liable. So in other words, maybe we got a service from this vendor and that is 1099-liable, but maybe there were some paths through cost that would not fall into that category and this 1099 amount doesn’t necessarily need to be the same nor should it be the same as the original amount of the invoice.

I just realized I made a mistake. Let me fix that. So in this case, I’m just going to go ahead and put in the same amount as the original invoice. But I want you to know there’s some flexibility there. So once that’s done, I just need to select the code that is appropriate for this vendor and I’m going to choose the non-employee compensation code and I’m just going to go down the list and do the same thing.

OK. One other thing that you need to know is that if an invoice has not yet been paid, it’s not going to show up in your – on your 1099 form. So you should still go ahead and put the amounts and the codes in here because it will make a difference in the future once this is paid.

But just know that you’re not expecting to see that amount on the actual 1099 form. So you will just go down the list and you will update each of the invoices. It’s a little tedious. But it’s not the end of the world. You usually don’t have that many. Make sure that you put in the code on each of them and lastly, we will go ahead and put this one in.

All right. So now that I’ve done that, I can go ahead and get out of the screen. I’m clicking OK and I can print my 1099 reports. So if I click up here on report for this vendor card and I go to 1099 – Vendor 1099 Miscellaneous and I put in my calendar year. I can go ahead and print them right from here, right?

So that’s it. It really is that easy and you can also – prior to printing the actual forms, you can go into Vendor 1099 Information and go ahead and preview that report and that will show you all the different forms and the amounts that you should expect to see when you print the 1099s. That’s it! That concludes our lesson on correcting and printing your 1099s.

Thanks for watching this ArcherPoint video. If you found it helpful, make sure to check out our website and blog at www.ArcherPoint.com. Additionally, if you have any questions regarding our products, services or information in this video, feel free to email us at info@archerpoint.com. Thanks.

NAV Coffee Break: New Feature of Dynamics NAV 2017 - Report Settings

Report Settings is a new feature of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017. This new technology allows you to create and save canned filters on reports, any report, within Dynamics NAV. Having the ability to create and save report filters can help save time and improve efficiency in your day-to-day NAV use. While this feature works for any report you use, in this video, Gwen demonstrates setting up filters for the trial balance report.

You can view this video and many other video tutorials for Dynamics NAV on ArcherPoint's YouTube Channel.

For your convenience, you may read the video transcript:

Welcome to today’s Coffee Break. Today’s lesson is on a new feature that’s available in NAV 2017 called Report Settings and what report settings do is they let you pre-filter – actually let you save filters on reports. So what I’m going to do is show you the trial balance and we’re going to set up some canned filters that we might want when we’re running our trial balance report.

So the first thing I do is I’m going to show you the trial balance and detail summary. So right now, it looks like your standard trial balance. I’m going to preview it. I’ve filtered out my inventory items or my inventory accounts. Let me just close this and I’m just going to run it again and I want to show you something that pops up. You may notice this when you get your 2017 out of the box.

You get this new box at the top that says “saved settings”. So right now, it says “last used options and filters,” and if I click on the dropdown, there are no other choices. So what it does is it’s just keeping track of the last information that I filtered on. In this case, my inventory accounts. What I can do though is I can create additional filters. So I’m just going to go up here to Report Settings and this is found in the – under administration, application set-ups, general and report settings or you can just do the search for report settings.

So what has happened is because I ran that report, it’s actually listed in these report settings with my last filter. What I want to do is create a new filtered, pre-filtered trial balance and just so you know, as you run each report in the system, this particular table will become more and more populated with those different report IDs.

So if you want to preview a report and then you decide you want to come in here, once you’ve previewed it, you will see it listed in here. So I’m going to go ahead and copy this number, the report ID, and I’m just going to do New and we will do one for accounts receivable, same report.

But now what I want to do is I want to click on Modify. So I’m going to change my accounts to be my accounts receivable accounts. We will do domestic and we will do foreign. There we go. For the date filter, I’m going to do from the beginning of time up until the last date in my test database here.

The other thing I like to do is I don’t like to see entries that were booked directly to the GL, usually because I’m comparing this to my accounts receivables reports. So I’m going to need to go ahead and put an additional filter here for my source code and say I don’t want to see anything that was booked directly to these accounts through the general journal. I just click OK.

So that’s preset. Now I’m going to do the same thing for accounts payable. Same report. Different filters. Again I modify and I’m going to put in my accounts receivable accounts. I’m going to do foreign and domestic. There we go. My same date filters. You don’t have to put in a date filter. You can leave as blank. I’m just showing you, you have different options here and again I will do my source type – sorry, my source code, not equal to general journal.

OK. So let’s go back to the trial balance, detail and summary, and now I have a list of options in my saved settings dropdown box. If I choose Accounts Payable, that information in the filter box gets updated according to the filters that I set in the report settings. Now when I preview it, I will see only my accounts payable accounts just like I wanted to see. That’s it. You can do that for any report in the system.

You can actually use permissions to assign it to different people. But I just wanted to sort of introduce this new technology to you that’s available in NAV 2017. A lot of people have been asking this for many, many years. So they will be very happy to see this. I hope you enjoyed this and take advantage of it. That concludes our lesson on setting up report settings.

Thanks for watching this ArcherPoint video. If you found it helpful, make sure to check out our website and blog at www.ArcherPoint.com. Additionally, if you have any questions regarding our products, services or information in this video, feel free to email us at info@archerpoint.com. Thanks.

How to Find Which Version of Dynamics NAV You Are Using

With imminent updates coming to credit card payment processing per the PCI Security Standards Council, the ArcherPoint team would like to share how you can find out what version of Dynamics NAV you are running. This information is important for your NAV partner to know when determining what the next steps are to ensure you will be able to continue processing credit card payments.

How to Find Your Version Number in Dynamics NAV 2009 or Lower Versions

Navigate to Help from any screen in the Dynamics NAV Classic Client and select the “About Microsoft Dynamics NAV Classic” option from the menu.

Figure 1: Selecting About Microsoft Dynamics NAV Classic from the Help menu

Once selected, you will see the version of Dynamics NAV you are running. In the screen below, it is NAV 6.0 R2 (6.00.32012). This is the information your partner is looking for if you are asked “What version of NAV are you on?”

Figure 2: Version information screen in Dynamics NAV Classic Client

How to Find Your Version Number in Dynamics NAV 2013 or Higher

Navigate to the Application menu as seen below:

Figure 3: Navigating to Dynamics NAV version information in the Role Tailored Client

Once selected, you will see the version of Dynamics NAV you are running:

Figure 4: Dynamics NAV version information screen in the Role Tailored Client

When you work every day in Dynamics NAV, you may forget (or not even realize) what version you are working in. But this information is very important to your partner when working to troubleshoot, give an upgrade estimate, or order new users for you. Please bookmark this blog for future reference.

Emailing Reports with a Custom Email Body in Dynamics NAV 2017

This article is an extended version of the article posted last year regarding emailing document reports in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016. With NAV 2017, Microsoft has enhanced the feature of emailing reports with a pre-defined body. It is now a configurable emailing feature in standard Dynamics NAV.

The pre-defined body is not a hard-coded message from Microsoft, but rather is configurable at the user level. Microsoft used the Word layout feature to generate an email body, which is auto-executed and added in email.

With Dynamics NAV 2017, Microsoft provides multiple Word layouts for commonly used reports in Dynamics NAV.

To choose the layout you want:

Open Report Selection Menu. Here you will see a new field added entitled “Email Body Layout Description.” Select the Word layout that you want to appear as the body of email as shown in the image below:

Figure 1 – Selecting a Word Template for Email Body Layout in NAV 2017

To email an invoice, open the Posted Sales Invoices page, and then select the invoice that you want to email. Then from the Action Tab, select the action Send by Email, as shown below:

Figure 2 – Email Document in NAV 2017 with Customer Email & Body Template

If you want to send a document without opening email in Outlook, then un-check the Edit in Outlook option,and you can specify the email address and other details in the same window. Once you click OK, and your SMTP server is configured for the NAV Company, then the system sends an email to the customer.

You can also attach a report in an email. To do so, you can select the Customer Card and email body from the Word layout selection in Report Selections.

Figure 3 – Email Send from Dynamics NAV 2017

Benefits of Using a Custom Email Body in Dynamics NAV 2017

With this feature, we as developers and users of Dynamics NAV can develop specific email body templates for our customers and internal purposes, saving time and effort.

The best part is there is no limit on number of Word layouts that a report can have. Plus, you do not need a developer license nor need to be a NAV developer to create a Word layout for a report. You can do this easily if you understand the mail merge feature of Microsoft Word.

If you have any questions about this function or other Dynamics NAV questions for any version, contact ArcherPoint.

Read more "How To" blogs from ArcherPoint for practical advice on using Microsoft Dynamics NAV. If you are interested in NAV development, check out our collection of NAV Development Blogs.

Read more Dynamics NAV blogs by Saurav Dhyani.

How To Create a Test Company in Microsoft Dynamics NAV

There are some very good reasons why you would want to have a test company setup for Dynamics NAV, including new employee training, exploring process changes, or before adding new, or updating existing, functionality. Having a test company allows you to examine the cause and effect of making changes to your master data (customers, items, vendors, etc.) without impacting your production data.

When creating a test company for Dynamics NAV, you need to make a couple of decisions first.

1. Where will it reside? Will the testing company be in the production database or in a test database?  Either way, it is good practice to create and update your test company monthly.
2. How will you copy your production data into the test company?

In this blog, we will create a test company and explore the options for the best location to place the test company. Let’s first walk through the differences between the options. These instructions are for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017.

Deciding Where to Setup the Testing Environment

When you think about how you want to setup your testing environment, you have two main choices: creating the test company in the production database or in a test database. The best practice is to create the test company in a test database. The main reason is to allow you to test different development changes and not affect your production environment. If you determine you don’t want to have changes or new development, ask yourself  the following questions to help facilitate your decision on where to place the test company:

• What will be easier for users to open and use?
• What will be easier for users to determine which company they are in?
• What is easier for the department that needs to create the test company?
• How long does it take to create?

Based on your answers, you will be able to make a decision on the best location for your test company. If in doubt, go with the decision of creating a test database where you can put the test company.

Making a Copy of Production Data

The next step is to make a copy of your production data. There are several ways to create the environment:

1. Backup your Database and Restore the Database in Test Environment

Make sure you understand the process first so that your production database is not accidentally changed.

2. Export Production Data and Import into Test Company

Do the objects/development customizations match between the two systems? If they do, follow the steps below. If they don’t match, you will need to get them in sync before you start.

3. Copy the Production Company

1. Open the NAV production database
2. Search “Companies”
3. Place your cursor on the line of the company you want to copy
4. In the ribbon select copy
5. Fill in the test company name
6. Once the process is complete, you will see the test company on the list

For option 2 above, export your production data into a test company, follow these steps:

Figure 1 – Database Search

5. From the list, select “Export to a data file”
6. Check which companies you want to export
7. Fill in the Description
8. Select which companies you would like to sync between test and production and pick the smallest company, so sync doesn’t take too much time
   
   Figure 2 – Export Data Field
9. Select OK
10. Save the file
11. Open Test while the data is exporting
12. Search Companies, You have two options
    1. Delete the company you want to replace
    2. Rename the company to a - old
13. When the export is done, from the test database
14. Search “Import from”
    
    Figure 3 – Import Data Field
15. Find where you saved the exported data
16. Select OK
17. After the import, you will want to verify the data came in and you have no issues.

Knowing how to create a test company in Dynamics NAV will give you a tool to grow and expand the use of the system.

If you would like to learn more about creating a test company, contact ArcherPoint.

Read more "How To" blogs from ArcherPoint for practical advice on using Microsoft Dynamics NAV.