Useful new features under Project accounting module of Dynamics 365 Finance that you must checkout

Posted on July 10, 2020 by Sandeep Chaudhury • Posted in Blog posts, Dynamics 365 Finance, Dynamics AX 2012, Project Accounting • 1 Comment

Hope everyone out there is keeping safe and healthy. We are living in unprecedented times and navigating this phase of the our lives certainly has been teaching us new thing every day!

I finally took some time out from the schedule to review some of the new features under Project Accounting module in the most recent releases of Dynamics 365 Finance. These features range from version 10.0.9 through 10.0.12. Let’s get to the point and review the features.

Show Vendor ID and vendor name on the Posted projects list page:

So this one is probably one of the most common asks I have heard from customers in all projects. Seeing the vendor name and account number certainly makes the life of the project accountants and billing analysts easier. We have been addressing this using a customization till now. These 2 additional data fields will make it easy for users to slice and dice project expenses by vendor and produce invoice supporting documents for customers when billing those expenses.

When you enable this feature and post a vendor invoice to the project, you will see the Vendor ID and name on the posted transactions list page.

You can also Personalize to the the Vendor ID and name fields to the Expense transactions inquiry page.

Adjust accounting on a posted project transaction:

This one is very interesting. Before this functionality, the only option to adjust accounting was to process a transaction adjustment. But that also required you to change data on the subledger transaction.

With this new feature, accountign team will find it easier to adjust accoutning posting for posted transactions.

It will basically reserve the original posting and recreate new ones.

For example, I have an expense transaction posted on one of my T&M projects. Let us say it posted to the wrong main account 500130 and wrong Business Unit dimension “004. I want it to post to 500120 and business unit 003.

Select the Posted project transaction and click Adjust accounting under Process tab.

System will open up a dialog that will allow you to see the current accounting entry and will also let you select the new account and dimensions.

You can also preview the new voucher to make sure everything is correct.

When you post this adjustment, it will reverse the original voucher and create the new one. Pretty cool and damn good flexibility!!

Note: I believe there might be a known issue here with the voucher, but when it is fixed, this feature is going to be extremely useful.

Enable default accounting setup for project:

This is again one of the most common asks from customers. We have actually customized the Projects and contract screen on many instances to view the financial dimensions and other associated data such as Project manager, Sales manager, Sales tax group and so on. With this new feature, you will see a new button named “Show default accounting” on the Projects and Project contracts list page.

You can not only see the data, but you can edit then directly on the list pages under the fact boxes. Really neat!

Enable project invoice proposal creation specific to selected project:

This one is small yet useful feature. Prior to this feature, when you have a Project setup heirarchy where there is a parent project and a bunch of sub projects underneath, then when you create the invoice for a sub project, system will always default to the parent project and try to create the invoice at the parent level.

With this new feature enabled, you can create the invoices at each sub project levels directly.

Enable sorting by resource during project invoice proposal creation:

When Billing analysts or finance managers create invoices for projects (Especially for Time and Material Projects), it is often desired to be able to sort the invoice line items by Resource, so that they can easily create the invoice. This is small usability enhancement, but has significant positive impact on the end users.

Below screenshot shows the Resource column on the Create invoice proposal screen without this new feature.

Below screenshot shows the Resource column on the Create invoice proposal screen with the new feature.

Project contract committed amount detail:

This has been released for a few months now, but I see a lot of value in this little feature. Under the Funding limit area of a project contract, there is no details available for any amount that is shown under the Committed or Spent amount columns. Being able to see the details under these will surely save significant amount of time for end users. I wish Microsoft will add the same functionality to see “Spent details” under the funding limits soon. (Candidate for an Idea in Ideas portal!!!)

There are a few more new country/region specific features available. You might want to check those out if applicable to you.

Till then….

The Export to excel feature in Project Management and Accounting module of Microsoft Dynamics AX

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Sandeep Chaudhury • Posted in AX Quick Tips, Blog posts, Project Accounting • Tagged AX 2012, Export to excel, Project statements • Leave a comment

Friends,

Here is a quick post about another simple yet powerful functionality of Microsoft dynamics AX for service industries.

Most of us must be aware but I just thought I will bring it on here for those who may not be knowing this yet.

The Export to excel feature allows project managers and other stakeholders of the project to export the project P&L and WIP statements into a pivot excel format without having the need of any manual intervention. This also allows to select data/fields from a range of various options to be presented in the excel workbook.

Let us take an example project 10004 in the CONTOSO data and analyze.

Choose from several data field options to be presented in the excel workbook. Also arrange the column sequence by moving up or down the fields.

Click Ok button and that’s it !!

System makes it all for you. This is greatly different than the regular export to excel feature of AX as it directly presents the user all the data well formatted and arranged in pivot format. Please take a look at the excel workbook below which is generated by the system.

Now you can utilize this workbook to prepare any kind of pie charts or bar graphs to analyze and present your project performances.

Simple in few clicks !!!! Smile

Till next time…….Keep DAXING..

Invoice frequency of a project contract and the general buffer days for sales payment in a project in dynamics AX 2012

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Sandeep Chaudhury • Posted in AX Quick Tips, Blog posts, Project Accounting • Leave a comment

Hi Folks,

Did you all know about the Invoice frequency option in project contracts and the buffer days for sales payment for time & material projects. Here is a quick post to get to know these.

Invoice frequency of a project contract is a factor which decides the sales payment date on a project forecast line along with the buffer days for sales payment which is specified on the project parameters. The invoice frequency for a project contract is setup under General fast tab of the project contract details form and it can be one of the options as shown below.

Invoice frequency	Invoice date/day of project forecast
Daily	Same as the project date
Weekly	First Sunday after project date
Monthly	End of current month as per project date
Quarterly	End of current quarter as per project date
yearly	End of current year as per project date
End of project	End date of project

Buffer days for sales payment : Indicates how many days are allowed as a grace period before a sales payment is due on a project. This can only be specified on a T&M project. This field can be found at Project Parameters > Forecast tab > General buffer days field.

An Example:

Let us say that the Invoice frequency for the project contract is set to Monthly and the project date is set to 10th OCT, 2011. Now the invoice date will be set to 31st OCT, 2011 as the frequency is monthly and it is the end of current month.

Let us say 6 is entered in the General buffer days field in project parameters form.

So, the payment now is due on 6th Nov, 2011 which is nothing but 31st OCT + 6 days.

Easyyy right !!!! 🙂

Thanks

Keep DAXING 🙂

Use combination cost price option in microsoft dynamics AX : BOM calcluation for all available item dimension combinations

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Sandeep Chaudhury • Posted in AX Quick Tips, Blog posts • Leave a comment

Hello,

Here is just a very quick information which i thought might be useful for people.

When doing BOM calculations for a BOM item with multiple configurations , if you want to calculate and maintain separate prices for the different configurations in the item , then you can “Check” the “Use combination cost price” check box under General tab of the Item master.

If you do periodic BOM calculations for items for which this check box is not marked , system will not calculate the prices for all the configurations.

Thanks, Keep DAXING 🙂

How to cancel a Project Invoice in dynamics AX ?- Project Accounting

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Sandeep Chaudhury • Posted in AX Quick Tips, Blog posts, Project Accounting • 2 Comments

Hello,

I have been seeing questions in different blogs where people question about cancelling invoices for Projects in dynamics AX.

Well, there exist a functionality for creating credit notes for posted invoices in dynamics AX Projects. I will explain the basic steps to cancel a posted invoice and to update the credit note for it.

Steps for cancelling a Project Invoice :

Go to Project Accounting > Select the project for which you want to cancel the invoice.
Click the Invoice > Invoice button.
This will show all the invoices that are posted for the project.
Filter the invoice you want to cancel/create the credit note for.
Click Functions > Select for credit note.
On the Select for credit note form , click select all button, and then click OK button.
Now , go to the project transactions and you can see that the transaction status for the project transactions will be “Selected for credit note”.

Post the Credit note proposal:

Go to Projects > Invoice > Invoice Proposal.
Click the Create Invoice button and select Credit notes for the Invoicing method field.
Also select the transactions (Check boxes)you want to include in the Credit note proposal.
Click OK.
This will create the credit note proposal line. See the info log message below.

Now , post the credit note proposal by clicking the Post Invoice button.

I will be happy to discuss questions on this if any.

Thanks, Keep DAXING 🙂

No Ledger and Never ledger posting setup in Project Groups – Dynamics AX

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Sandeep Chaudhury • Posted in AX Quick Tips, Blog posts, Project Accounting • Leave a comment

Hello,

Going forward, I will start putting in contents under the AX Quick tips category also which basically will be quick/short references to some of the AX facts.

Below are few of them for today’s post.

When we specify “No Ledger” for the Post hourly costs field under the ledger tab of the project group form , the hour costs are not posted to the ledger during posting of the journal. When the project is invoiced , the project cost account gets debited and the payroll allocation account gets credited. This kind of setup can be used in business requirements where the hour cost still needs to be charged in the project and will be used basically for time tracking purpose.
When we specify “Never ledger” for the Post hourly costs field under the ledger tab of the project group form, the hour costs are never posted to a ledger account and no ledger transactions are created both during journal posting and project invoicing. This kind of setup are needed in “Time” projects and is a mandatory setup in it.
However, there is a control under the statements tab of the Project parameter form which is the No/Never ledger – Hour cost/Hour Qty. check box which when checked, allows the posted hourly cost to be shown in Profit & loss and the project statistic reports.