New and Changed features of Project accounting module in Microsoft dynamics AX 2012

Friends,

We have been hearing a lot about AX 21012 since last couple of months and i just got a chance to get into few details of the functionality which are added , changed and deprecated under the Project management accounting module of AX 2012.

It promises to be giving us most if not all. Yes! Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is here with a very new face. In this post i will just put in the various features which have been added , removed and changed in AX 2012 and we will of course get into details of them when we have the product in hand.

New Features in dynamics AX 2012 under Project management accounting module: What is New ?

First and the most basic change is the module name itself. It is now called Project Management Accounting. Below are the list of new changes and add-on functionalities.

1. Project budgeting:

• Project budgeting is now possible at activity level.
• Original budget can be created to define a budget at various level in the project hierarchy and it can be submitted for approval. It can also be allocated over a period of time.
• Project budget revisions can be created at various levels of the project and they can be submitted for review and approval. These can also be allocated over a period of time.
• When budget revision is approved , it causes and immediate change to the over all project budget.
• A complete history or audit trial of the proposed, original, accepted(approved) and rejected budget is available for review at any point of time.
• The project financial inquiry and the project financial status reports now presents a details of the project budget also.
• If you are working on a multi-year project , you can carry forward project budget at the end of the year to the future year and make necessary change to the general ledger accounts associated with them

Well , now this is complete budgeting. Seems like massive enhancements in project budgeting has been done by MS.:)

2. Processing of item charges/costs in PO,SO and invoice lines:

• Item charges/costs in the PO,SO and invoice lines are now recognized in projects.
• Any taxes for the item charges will now be going to an expense account.
• Item charges will now be recorded in project budgets and commitments.

3. Project time sheets:

• Over all UI experience will now be more user-friendly.
• The way the time sheet comments and start and end dates are used are now much better.
• Most importantly , user can now create and manage favorites in Enter Portal to be able to create time sheets in  a much quicker fashion.

4. Advanced funding:

• Well, this seems interesting. Customers have been looking for this one. In AX 2009, we could invoice only one customer per project per contract. Now the funding for a project /project contract can be shared by any number of internal or external parties.
• User can configure a funding scheme which helps is setting up funding limits for one or more customers per category, category group or transaction type.

This enhancement will definitely gain attention.

5.Collaboration workspace:

Even though not a widely used feature , if used properly, it can prove to be very beneficial.

• You can create and add collaboration workspace in projects , campaigns and opportunities where project team members can quickly organize and share information within AX.
• MS dynamics options can be setup and default the collaboration work spaces for users.

6.Create and manage projects in EP:

• Unlike AX 2009 , where only time and expense entries were possible in EP for projects , project managers can now create and manage their projects in EP itself.
• Workers can enter daily working hours in a much improved manner and project managers can approve it on EP.

7.Beginning balances:

• This is another good feature. Users can now enter a beginning balance for a project which will help in transferring projects to Microsoft dynamics AX 2012 from legacy project management systems without affecting the general ledger.
• For e.g. , if you have been tracking a project in an outside application but managing costs and revenue in AX , you can transfer the project to AX , specify a beginning balance and then track all information at once place only.

8. Track project revenue from Free text invoice :

• Ax 2012 now makes it possible for tracking revenues which are billed though free text invoicing. Cool it is !

9. Transaction adjustments:

One more !!This feature will make correction of wrong project entries easier which will allow adjustments even after invoicing.

• Invoiced and estimated transactions can now be adjusted.
• Adjustment dates can be used as project dates for adjustment transactions. Earlier it used to be the transaction date only.
• The relationship between the original , reversed and the replacing transaction can be well traced now with information of what exactly the user adjusted.

10. Progress billing , estimates and revenue recognition:

• When migrating from one ERP system to another , the data migration is a big pain issue . Bringing in the existing data into the new system is most important where we face hurdles. This is to ensure that the revenue can continue to be recognized for the fixed price projects that are already underway.
• Since revenue recognition depends on the completion % of the project , the data must be migrated so that both % of work completed(actual cost) and the remaining work(cost to complete) are reflected in proper accounts.
• So the introduction of features such as beginning balance , progress billing and revenue recognition provide adequate support to these issues.

Well , apart from these bunch of significant functionality, AX 2012 also promises to give a significantly improved UI experience across the modules with the introduction of new form controls such as , action panes , Fact boxes , Fast tabs etc.

Fast tabs : The legacy tabs on the AX 2009 forms are getting replaced by fast tabs which the user can expand ans collapse to view and edit information.

Fact boxes : Every module will now have fact boxes in all the important forms such as Customers, vendors , Items , Projects etc. These fact boxes will display 5-10 facts about each of the entities. For example , in the Project details form we will have fact boxes that will show related information. Please refer to the screenshot below for few fact boxes in Project quotations form in AX 2012.

There are 3 Out of box fact boxes present in the project quotations form in AX 2012 as seen above. They are, Latest sales orders, Latest sales quotations and the Related information. These fact boxes displays important data related to the selected quotation record in the form. So user can have access to these critical data without having to navigate to the related forms.

With these , the user can have access to critical project data staying in a single form without having to navigate to related forms and calculating values. Moreover , user can also customize the information in the fact boxes. Is it not interesting !

We will realize all of these soon in the application.

Hope you all will find this information helpful.

Thanks, Keep DAXING 🙂