New NAV2013 video reviewed: Clients First Finance New Features Dimensions
Posted: September 30, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: dimensions, NAV 2013, tips and tricks, video Leave a comment
Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 Finance New Features DIMENSIONS; Clients First (40:13) This is one of the only comprehensive videos I’ve seen to date that covers the redesigned NAV2013 dimensions. It’s geared toward finance super users as well as developers and discusses in detail why Microsoft made the design changes to dimensions in NAV2013 as well as how the new functionality works. Important new information include the use of SQL for transformation of dimensions from old to new databases instead of the upgrade toolkit, coding changes to the update analysis dimension as well as to the close income statement, and coverage of known issues and work arounds for dimension limitations. The video is presented by Alessandro Vannini, Microsoft Escalation Engineer. The overall pace is pretty slow, but hang in there, the information is worth it! The demo picks up at 22:10 and shows some nice examples of using Ctrl-Alt-F1 to view the dimension sets on the page while still maintaining the end-user view of individual dimensions.
There are a whole lot of very technical NAV2013 videos out there made for programmers and NAV developers. Videos geared toward the NAV end-user are a bit more difficult to find. I’ve added a new page to the blog so I can add videos I’ve found that I think are helpful. I’ll review each video I find personally and post some comments on each to make it easier for you to decide if you want to spend your time viewing it yourself.
Blogiversary Top 20 (#7) 15 days of NAV dimensions
Posted: April 19, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Account Schedules, Convergence, CustomerSource, dimensions, Dynamics, NAV, NAV 2013, tips and tricks Leave a commentWe’re celebrating our one year blogiversary by reposting the Top 20 Most Viewed in the last year, as determined by you, our readers! Follow this link to see the entire list. Enjoy!
March Madness may mean basketball for some folks, but for me it means Convergence! Getting a chance to participate as a speaker at Microsoft Dynamics Convergence is a great opportunity to meet new NAV users I haven’t met before. I’m always looking to expand my network of knowledgeable professionals, and one of the ways I do that is by sharing information.
I’m lucky enough to be giving a concurrent session this year called Tips & Tricks for Working with Dimensions in Microsoft Dynamics NAV and I thought I would put together a series for the blog on the same topic to get the information out to a wider audience. For the next 15 days, there will be a brand new post on one of these dimension topics. Enjoy!
Day 1 4 questions to ask when deciding how to use NAV dimensions in your business
Day 2 5 reasons you need to use NAV dimensions
Day 3 The finance professional’s perspective on NAV dimensions
Day 4 Why finance and IT need to work in partnership on a NAV dimension strategy
Day 5 Viewing NAV dimensions on postings: where can you see them?
Day 6 NAV default dimensions and value postings applied to master data
Day 7 NAV default dimensions and value postings on the chart of accounts
Day 8 NAV dimension combinations for additional accuracy
Day 9 NAV dimension priorities
Day 10 Resolving NAV dimension errors
Day 11 NAV dimensions in account schedules
Day 12 NAV dimensions in budgets and consolidations
Day 13 Communicating to IT about NAV dimensions and NAV2013 dimension sets
Day 14 Add NAV dimensions as your business changes
Day 15 Learning more about dimensions from Microsoft Dynamics Customer Source
BONUS View Convergence 2013 session on Microsoft Dynamics NAV dimensions here
This posting is one of the Top 20 Most Viewed in the last year! Follow this link to see the entire list.
Dynamics NAV Financials series on dimensions to be published in Spanish
Posted: April 18, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: blog, dimensions, Laura Nicolas, Spanish, TodoSobre 1 CommentI am pleased to announce that the recently published blog series 15 days of dimensions will be translated into Spanish and posted over the next few weeks on the blog TodoSobre Microsoft Dynamics NAV! As someone who believes strongly that NAV users need to help other NAV users by sharing our experiences in how to best use our ERP system of choice in our daily work lives, I could not be more excited at this international collaborative opportunity. Many thanks to Laura Nicolàs for reaching out and offering to do the work to translate the entries and make this material available on her blog.
Laura Nicolàs is a Dynamics NAV consultant with more than 9 years of experience. She has been very involved with the Spanish NAV community. She recently founded a new community focused on Dynamics NAV end users, named www.usuariosNAV.es . She also blogs regularly at http://todosobrenav.blogspot.com.es and at http://joinnav.wordpress.com. Laura is the author of the recently released book, Implementing Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013, available from Packt Publishing.
Blogiversary Top 20 (#11) Complete row setup options for NAV account schedules
Posted: April 15, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Account Schedules, balance at date, Classic Client, column layout, dimensions, Excel, export to excel, financial statement, general ledger, NAV, net change, posting accounts, row setup, RTC, set base for percent, setup options, show opposite sign, totaling type, trial balance Leave a commentWe’re celebrating our one year blogiversary by reposting the Top 20 Most Viewed in the last year, as determined by you, our readers! Follow this link to see the entire list. Enjoy!
About a month ago, I published a post called Basic row setup options for NAV account schedules. This is a great place to look if you’re just getting started. However, if you’re looking for what else you can do with Microsoft Dynamics NAV account schedules, then this is where you want to be. This post will go through each and every field available on the account schedule row setup and talk about the available options. The functionality of these fields are exactly the same between the Classic and Role Tailored Clients. The only difference is in how they look on the screen and how you navigate between screens. Take a look at the pictures below to find the look you’re familiar with, but then keep reading for the explanations of what these fields will do in your financial reporting.
Role Tailored Client
This is a view of what I recommend you start with for basic row setup options.
This is a view of all available row setup options.
Classic Client
This is a view of what I recommend you start with for basic row setup options.
This is a view of all available row setup options.
Row setup options – apply to both clients
Row No. is completely optional, but highly recommended. This simple element of the row setup will eventually be one of the key features of your account schedule, allowing you to calculate and organize with ease.
Description is the one place you have to communicate, in words, what you’re showing on each line of your report.
Totaling Type: 6 options to choose from
- Posting Accounts pull data from your accounts designated as posting accounts on the G/L Account Card Account Type field.
- Total Accounts pull data from your accounts designated as a total or as an end-total on the G/L Account Card Account Type field.
- Formula allows you to calculate a basic formula on this row.
- Underline places a single underline .
- Double Underline places a double underline.
- NOTE: This nifty addition showed up with NAV 2009 R2. If you are NAV 2009 SP1 or earlier, this won’t be available to you.
- Both of the underline functions are there to give folks who print account schedules directly out of NAV some formatting options. If you’re exporting to Excel you’ve got some better format options to work with than these.
- Set Base for Percent allows you to designate which row from your row setup will be used as the beginning point for a section to be included in a percent of total calculation. This feature showed up in version 5.0 and must be used together with a formula on another row to designate the end point of the section as well as some setup in the column layout. It’s a little fussy in the setup and inelegant in execution, but is still effective to get those vital comparative percentages onto your account schedules.
Totaling will be which general ledger accounts you want to pull or what formula you want to calculate, depending on what you selected in totaling type.
Row Type: 3 options to choose from
- Net Change should be used, generally, if you’re reporting on income statement accounts (revenue/expense).
- Balance at Date should be used, generally, if you’re reporting on balance sheet accounts (assets/liabilities).
- Beginning Balance will be sparingly used, but you’ll want this for your statement of cash flows at some point.
Amount Type gives you three options: Net Amount, Debit Amount and Credit Amount. You’re going to use Net Amount almost all the time, but I suppose if you were getting very granular in your account schedules and perhaps using them for detailed reconciling reports, this might be useful. If I’m getting down to this level of transactional detail, I’m usually going to the chart of accounts instead of account schedules.
Formatting Fields: Bold, Italic, and Underline These basic formatting fields are there to allow you to emphasize some of the rows of your account schedules. When you select these options on any row, the whole row is effected. You are not able to effect a single “cell” for formatting. What’s the difference between underline here and underline found in the Totaling Type options? You can get a more snug fit on your underline using this option since it appears in the same row of your data instead of in a row if its own.
New Page inserts a page break. This is commonly used when separating the pages of the balance sheet showing assets on the first page and liabilities and equity on the second page. I have also seen it used when folks build multi page account schedules.
Show Opposite Sign is the option you can select to change revenue credit balances or expense debit balances to the opposite sign for the purposes of presenting this data in a more non-finance friendly manner. No salesperson wants to see sales presented with a negative sign; use this to change that credit to a positive number on your reporting.
Show allows you to designate if a row will show (the default) or be hidden on the printed account schedule only. You can click this box as much as you want, but your rows will still show on-screen or when you export to Excel. If you print directly out of account schedules, this feature will work very well for you.
Dimension Totaling is the last option available and you might have noticed that I didn’t show them on pictures above. This is because they are unique for just about every user, and depending on your analysis view setup, may even be different from schedule to schedule. You can use just one, or you can use all four of the available dimension totaling fields, in whatever combination you like. These fields act very much like the Totaling field because this is where you will tell NAV what Dimensions you want shown and totaled from your general ledger accounts.
Spots still available in classes next week on Financial Setups and Dimensions
Posted: April 12, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: classes, dimensions, financial setups, NAVUG Academy Leave a comment
There are still spots available in the classes I’m teaching on Financial Setups and Dimensions next week, on Wednesday, April 17th. Full class descriptions, and registration links are found on the NAVUG Academy site, or at the links below. See you in class!
Financial Setups in NAV – 9:00am to 1:00pm ET
Get under the hood to understand the inner workings of Microsoft Dynamics NAV financial setups. The class covers all the basics you need to understand how the financial management area can be configured. Whether you’re new to NAV, a prospective customer deciding if NAV is the right fit for your company, a Controller or CFO who is new to a company already using NAV, or even an experienced NAV user who wants to know how to maximize your software, this class will get you the foundation you need to make important configuration decisions regarding your ERP software. This course is open to any NAV user.
Focus on financial considerations like understanding and using posting groups, choosing dimensions, set up of master records for customers, vendors, and items, why number series are important, and what the options are for financial reporting. Understand what options are available to you related to budgeting, intercompany transactions and consolidations, and month end close and get a tour of best practices related to journal entries, accounts payable, and accounts receivable.
Dimensions in Dynamics NAV – 2:00pm to 6:00pm ET
What are dimensions, and why do you want to use them? How can you use dimensions to gain control, consistency, accuracy, and efficiency in your financial postings? How can dimensions make your financial reporting not only flexible but powerful at the same time? This course is open to any NAV user.
Using hands-on exercises in an online NAV database, try out different dimension configurations in multiple scenarios to really understand how they behave. Get a chance to see how dimensions flow through your accounting system from beginning data entry to final financial statement production. This class is your opportunity to finally understand dimensions in Microsoft Dynamics NAV and how they can help you and your business.
Blogiversary Top 20 (#14) Video Demo: How to export NAV account schedules to Microsoft Excel
Posted: April 10, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Account Schedules, dimensions, Excel, export to excel, financial statement, learning, NAV, NAVUG, NAVUG Academy, training Leave a commentWe’re celebrating our one year blogiversary by reposting the Top 20 Most Viewed in the last year, as determined by you, our readers! Follow this link to see the entire list. Enjoy!
There are some quick and easy ways to publish NAV Account Schedules to Microsoft Excel but some of them end up with some pretty ugly formatting unless you know a few secrets on how to make them look better. This short demo video shows you how to create a nicely formatted NAV Account Schedule in Microsoft Excel that only requires formatting the first time you set it up. Each time you replicate the report after that, you can simply update the report with new numbers and the formatting will remain the same every time.
While this demo shows how to create a financial report with three monthly tabs, you can easily extend this technique in a couple of different ways. I use this same technique to produce my monthly financial statement package. I have eighteen pages in the package I produce each month, and each page is a different account schedule. When I start a new month, I copy the Excel workbook and rename it with the new month, then use exactly this same technique to produce the new month’s reports. By using this technique, the new copied workbook acts as a “shell” to receive my new numbers. From month to month, I am able to maintain consistent formatting in my reporting while producing my financial reports in the most efficient way possible. I can apply the same principles to my monthly team budget reports. In this case, I can produce the same actual versus budget report over and over with a new dimension filter applied for each team, one per each Excel worksheet in the workbook.
If you’d like to learn more about account schedules, please visit my 2013 Classes page. This short video demo comes from my Account Schedules Basics class which I teach through NAVUG Academy. This class offering is just one of many classes that are being offered by NAVUG Academy in 2013 to help you get more out of your use of NAV at your company.
DynamicsNAVFinancials blog celebrates one year with top 20 postings
Posted: April 1, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Account Schedules, budgets, Classic Client, Convergence, dimensions, Dynamics, Excel, export to excel, financial reporting, financial statement, general ledger, NAV, NAV 2013, NAVUG, payment terms, PowerPivot, tips and tricks, user group 2 Comments
It’s our blogiversary! I started this blog in April 0f 2012, inspired by the number of NAV end users I had met over the last year who had the same questions that just weren’t getting answered. What better way to get that information out to folks than a blog where I could write up the topic in an easy to understand way?
You’ve shown your support! Over that last year, we’ve had over 15,000 views, almost 100 followers via email, have people following us on our new Facebook page, and know that many of you follow postings through the RSS feed. People from more than 120 countries are reading DynamicsNAVFinancials! The blog has gotten enough attention to be picked up for syndication through Microsoft Dynamics Community and I was even asked to participate as one of the eleven official bloggers at Microsoft Dynamics Convergence 2013 last month.
Special thanks has got to go to the NAVUG. The user group has been especially supportive of me and of the blog, finding opportunities for me to speak to NAV users in person, in webinars, online classes, and through this blog. Without the support of the user group this would have been a much longer road and I am so grateful for the constant work they have done to get me in front of as many readers as possible.
Publishing over an entry a week in the last year, there’s a lot to choose from, but in the month of April, I’ll be re-running the top 20 postings determined by the most viewed entries. Enjoy, and thank you so much for reading! There would be no reason to do this without you!
19 The NAV accountant’s little helper: the reconciliation account check box
18 Learning about Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013: on demand learning from NAVUG is a fantastic resource!
17 Tis the (Budget) Season! Three handy NAV account schedule tips to get you through
16 Tips and tricks for a flawless budget load in NAV
15 Why NAV users should be using dual monitors
14 Video Demo: How to export NAV account schedules to Microsoft Excel
13 Basic row setup options for NAV Account Schedules
12 Aging methods in NAV – which buckets are you looking for?
11 Complete row setup options for NAV account schedules
10 Learning about Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013
9 Where can I learn more about NAV analysis reports and analysis by dimensions?
8 10 easy tips for payment terms success in Microsoft Dynamics NAV
6 Getting started with a new account schedule
4 Maximize your Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 Classic screen space with user level configuration options
3 Basic column layout options for NAV Account Schedules
2 NAV keyboard shortcuts – Classic to RTC
1 The Account Schedules Formulas Page
View Convergence 2013 session on Microsoft Dynamics NAV dimensions here
Posted: March 29, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Convergence, dimensions, Dynamics, Microsoft, NAV, tips and tricks, virtual convergence Leave a commentIf you’ve enjoyed this month’s 15 days of NAV dimensions series, and would like to hear me speaking about dimensions, there is now a recording out on the Convergence website as well as on the Virtual Convergence website.
If you were a registered Microsoft Dynamics Convergence 2013 attendee, log in to the Convergence site and bring up the Schedule Builder. From here you can view a recording of any session that was listed as a concurrent or deep dive session, and you can even re watch the keynote and general sessions! You can search by any number of methods for my session, which was called Tips & tricks for working with dimensions in Microsoft Dynamics NAV, and ran on Thursday, March 21st at 2:30. Click the link to watch the session video.
If you were not able to attend Convergence this year, there is a Virtual Convergence that is available to the public. You’ll need to log in to register, but once there, you’ll have the same access as Convergence attendees to concurrent, deep dive, keynote, and general sessions. In order to find my session, search under the sessions menu, then Microsoft Dynamics NAV, then scroll down until you see the box that contains Tips & tricks for working with dimensions in Micro . . .
There are a lot of great sessions out there available for one year past the close of Convergence 2013, so I bet these will only be out there until the end of February 2014. Take some time to explore what else is out there and share with your coworkers! This is a great way to get information into your company about the ERP you have all chosen to run your businesses.
Enjoy!
Learning about NAV dimensions from Microsoft Dynamics Customer Source and MSDN (part 15 of 15)
Posted: March 29, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: BREP, CustomerSource, dimensions, learning, manual, MSDN, training Leave a commentThere are some great resources out there to help you learn about dimensions in NAV. The first resource I always recommend to other NAV customers is CustomerSource!
Assuming you are already a Microsoft Dynamics NAV customer, and you’re current on your BREP (Business Ready Enhancement Plan), you need to go to CustomerSource to get access to e-learning modules and training manuals that are just waiting for you to find them. If you’ve never visited here before, start at this link for some simple instructions.
If you want to search on your own, here is the place to start. On the left hand navigation bar, choose Documentation=>User Guides and then look for one of these two:
- Overview of Training Manuals and Hands-On Labs for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009
- Overview of Training Manuals for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0
Once you get to these pages, you can search through a number of menus to get to exactly the topics you need without using the clunky CustomerSource user guide drop down choices, which are difficult to use at best.
Another good source are the Learning Plans for each version. On the left hand navigation bar, choose Training and Certification, then choose Learning Plans for Microsoft Dynamics from the main page. Choose your product and version, and you’ll have what you need. The Learning Plan for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 is particularly good, providing links from the page directly to what you need. You will find sources for E-Learning, Instructor Led Training, and Training Materials. The link to the Learning Plan for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 actually points to a PDF version of the NAV 2009 Learning Plan; it looks like the 5.0 plan has been removed.
If, because you’ve taken a look at the Learning Plans and you know the Course Number for the training materials you want to find; here’s another quick way to get at them. At the top of the left hand navigation bar, there is a search box. Simply type in the course number, for example, 80050, and you’ll be taken directly to those training materials which you can immediately download.
But wait just a darn minute, where’s the information for NAV2013? I can tell you I’m as disappointed as you are. CustomerSource has not updated an overview document or a learning plan on their site for NAV2013. There are many comprehensive manual like documents out there for NAV2013 but they are really hard to find, and can be difficult to tell the difference between a manual and a white paper, especially if you are a customer and don’t understand the structure of which manuals are available without a table of contents to work from. So, for you folks who are new to to NAV with NAV2013, I’m sending you to another source, the Microsoft Developers Network. Don’t be afraid, there’s plenty there that end users can use as well.
Follow this path in the library: Servers and Enterprise Development=>Microsoft Dynamics=>Microsoft Dynamics NAV=>Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013. There is lots of info here that will help you out, but if you need to get directly to dimensions, type this phrase into the search box: Set up dimensions to mark transactions. I’m using this source more and more often since I don’t have to mess around with any type of login or administration for my users, I can bookmark any page I want to get back to, and the search function is a world apart of improvement.
If you liked this post, check out the rest of our series, 15 Days of NAV Dimensions. Thanks for reading!
Add NAV dimensions as your business changes (part 14 of 15)
Posted: March 28, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: dimensions, financial reporting, financial statement, global, NAV, shortcut Leave a comment
Setting up dimensions should not be something we exclusively do when we implement NAV for the first time at our businesses. Change is the norm in business, and I would be genuinely surprised to hear from anyone at this point that their business has not changed significantly in the last five years. So for finance and IT professionals, what changes when the business changes? Reporting requirements!
For NAV, that means opportunity for using dimensions differently or to add new dimensions. Hopefully you are happy with your global dimensions, the two most important dimensions for your company, and you’re ready to add some shortcut dimensions so you can expand your reporting capabilities. There are four main things you should keep in mind when adding a shortcut dimension.
1) Keep in mind timing and financial cutoff. If you choose to start collecting data on a new dimension today and today falls in the middle of a fiscal period, you’re going to create a disconnect in your financial data where you have data with the new dimension value and data with the blank dimension value in the same period. Don’t do it. Find out when the end of the fiscal period is, and start gathering the new data starting with the start of the new fiscal period. This doesn’t have to be the year-end, it could be a month, or whatever period you have at your company, but do take the time to plan this out, your finance department will thank you later.
2) Know that collecting a new dimension will not magically attach to your historic data. Assigning dimension data to your item or customer or vendor only begins the collection of that data on any new transactions generated since you assigned the dimension data. There is nothing out there that will magically attach this new requirement to old historic data. There are ways to go back and change the historic data, but this is generally beyond what you want to do manually. Involve someone experienced in SQL or call your partner for some help with this. And for goodness sakes, try this in a test system first. It’s always good to do a practice run on this kind of change, and should be mandatory if you’re planning to change a large amount of data. Remember that in many cases, it is perfectly ok to collect new data without catching up the history. Only you can decide what you need for your reporting.
3) Don’t abandon your pending data. Don’t forget there are things out there you created prior to assigning that new shortcut dimension. Sales orders, purchase orders, transfer orders and any other type of form that may be in process at the time you defined that new dimension will need to be caught up to the new requirements. If you forget this, NAV will remind you by throwing a dimension error when you, or your colleagues, try to post those documents to the system.
4) Consistency is the key. Make sure you set up this new dimension with the same level of consistency you’ve used with your other dimensions. Start with your master data, but follow through by adding the safety net of the chart of accounts, and remember to incorporate your choice of value postings.
Keep reading this month as we continue our series, 15 Days of NAV Dimensions.
Dynamics NAV Financials 