Microsoft’s concept of how 2019 will look like
Posted: September 21, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Dynamics, Kinect, Microsoft, NAV, video demo 1 CommentMicrosoft Dynamics NAV users have already gotten the chance to see Jesper Lachance Raebild’s video demo using Microsoft Kinect in a NAV manufacturing environment. If you missed it, find the link to the video here.
What else does Microsoft have in store for us? Take a five minute break to see what 2019 could look like.
10 easy tips for payment terms success in Microsoft Dynamics NAV
Posted: September 13, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: accounts payable, accounts receivable, aging, customer, discounts, document date, due date, Dynamics, immediate, invoices, Microsoft, NAV, payment terms, suggest vendor payments, tips and tricks, vendor Leave a comment1. 
Know that the Document Date is what controls the calculation of payment terms. This is true for both vendor invoices as well as customer invoices.
2. The vendor and customer areas share the same Payment Terms setup. Make sure the folks who maintain these tables know they’ll need to share the codes that are set up here.
3. Basic terms use very basic setup. Payment terms of Net 30 simply require a Due Date Calculation of 30D in order to work.
4. Immediate payment terms can be accomplished in two ways. The first way is to leave the payment terms field blank on the vendor or customer card. When this occurs, NAV makes the assumption that the payment terms are immediate. The second way is to populate the Due Date Calculation with 0D. By putting in zero days, you can still define a payment term and name it as immediate. I don’t like to see blank fields in any of my data, so I recommend using this method.
5. 
Discounted terms follow a specific combination in the payment terms table. For discounted terms like 1/10 Net 30 (one percent discount if paid in ten days, otherwise due at thirty days), use this setup.
6. You may have some things you always pay on the first of the month, like rents. How do you get invoices to show up on your payables aging on the first day of the month regardless of whether the month has 31, 30, or 28 days? In the due date calculation, use this simple formula: CM+1D.
7. If you send checks, and you need for that first of the month payment to get in the mail in time to be received on the first, get a little fancier with the formula and use CM-3D. This will calculate the due date as the third to last day of the month, no matter how many days are in the month.
8. If you need to date something as always due the last day of the month, set up the Due Date Calculation as D31. This will always calculate the due date on the last day of the month, regardless of how many days the month has.
9. When running the suggest vendor payment process for payables, the last payment date corresponds to the due dates calculated by the payment terms. The date you put in this field will suggest payments to be made with due dates up to and including the date listed.
10. If any invoice gets posted with incorrect payment terms and you need to correct the due date in order for it to show up properly on your aging, you can go in and correct the due date on the already posted invoice. This can be done from the end-user level and does not require use of the object designer. Drill down to the correct invoice record from the Balance ($) field found on the general tab of the vendor card. Use a triple-click with your mouse on the due date field to change the date quickly and easily. The same steps can be accomplished from the customer card.
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End users talk about why Microsoft Dynamics NAV is simple and easy to learn and use
Posted: August 10, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Dynamics, end user, Microsoft, NAV, training 2 CommentsI love to hear why other end users have chosen Microsoft Dynamics NAV for their companies and what their experiences have been.
Christopher Patten, CTO with CyraCom International says that Microsoft Dynamics NAV “cuts down on the number of clicks” for end users and “delivers simplified interfaces but also allows us to have back end integration flexibility”. Marc Allman, Executive Vice President of AMS Controls says that Microsoft Dynamics NAV “works in the same fashion that our Outlook and our Excel work; there is a similar look and feel and that has made our users training much much easier”. He says, “our users are comfortable with it and are trained very very quickly”.
See this short video where real end users talk about their experiences with Microsoft Dynamics NAV.
Take your business to awesome – Lighten your day with some funniness from Microsoft Dynamics
Posted: August 3, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Dynamics, Microsoft Leave a comment“Making productive people even productive-er-er.” Take two minutes out of your day for a fun look at how Microsoft Dynamics can take your business to awesome.
Where can I learn more about account schedules?
Posted: April 22, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Account Schedules, Analysis Reports, BREP, CustomerSource, Dynamics, e-learning, manuals, NAV, training, user guide Leave a commentIf you’re reading this, you are probably looking for answers now, as in “my implementation goes live in a month and I don’t have my financial statements figured out yet”. This is by far the most common question I get from people looking for answers about account schedules.
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 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.
If you simply don’t have time to look through the Learning Plans and expansive Overview pages, take my word for it and look up the following courses using the search box to get to more information now:
If you are brand new customer, using NAV2009 with the RTC (Role Tailored client), here’s your best bet: Course 80050 Business Intelligence for Information Workers. You may also try Course 80258 Trade in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 to expand into the topics of analysis reports and analysis by dimensions.
If you are an existing customer, using NAV 5.0 or below with the Classic client, these resources will be more right for you, since they are shown using the Classic client. If you’re not yet using the RTC, you don’t need to struggle through documentation shown in an interface that you’re not using yet. I’ll maintain that the basic functionality of account schedules is the same (so far), and the major difference between the Classic client and the RTC is navigation, as well as look and feel, of the new matrix. Look for Course 8875 Business Intelligence for Information Workers in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0, Course 8939 Trade in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0, and Course 8713 What’s New in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 Part I (chapter 8 talks about some of the improvements that were made to account schedules between version 4.0 and 5.0).
Find the link to this wealth of information here or under the Blogroll as Microsoft Dynamics CustomerSource.
What is there to talk about regarding NAV financial reporting?
Posted: April 21, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Account Schedules, add-on, Analysis Reports, BREP, C/SIDE, Dynamics, ERP, Excel, general ledger, ISV, JET, Management Reporter, Microsoft, NAV, NAVUG, NAVUG Academy, Object Designer, PowerPivot, SQL, SSRS Leave a commentIf you’re a Microsoft Dynamics NAV user, like I am, there are a whole ton of choices to make regarding financial reporting.
- Account Schedules, the native financial reporting package that reports on general ledger transactions.
- Analysis Reports, also a native NAV reporting option, that extends reporting to item ledger entries from the sales and purchasing tables.
- Object Designer, the native C/SIDE development tool used for the NAV application, which includes a report writer.
- SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services), a Microsoft reporting tool package that uses the SQL programming language.
- PowerPivot, the free Microsoft Excel add-on that became available with Microsoft Office 2010, allowing data to load from NAV (and other data sources) through a direct connection to Excel.
- JET Express, a former ISV (Independent Software Vendor) reporting solution, released for NAV 2009 in September 2011 as available for NAV users, and included with the Microsoft BREP (Business Ready Enhancement Plan), instead of as a separately purchased add-on solution.
- Management Reporter, recently released by Microsoft on March 31, 2012 as a free add-on for all Microsoft Dynamics ERPs with the caveat that, for NAV users, it is only available if you already had the licensing for FRx.
- Any large number of additional ISV solutions, sold as separately purchased add-ons to NAV.
As the Controller for my company, it’s my job to stay informed on what’s available and determine which choices are the best possible given the available skills sets of the employees who use them and the overall cost. It’s also my job to make sure I know what the future direction of the ERP software is, so I can advise on decisions we make as a company with that knowledge in hand.
Take note, that from the list above, two major options have been launched in the last seven months. My feeling, as a NAV end-user, is that Microsoft has not delivered a clear direction for their financial reporting strategy for the NAV product, and has left the onus of choice on the user.
I have to admit, I’m the kind of person who likes choices, and I’ve sampled every single option on the list above in one way or another. The reporting strategy for my company is based on three principles: 1) the report must balance to the general ledger, 2) it must be consistently replicated in future periods, 3) it must be able to be maintained by someone in the company with the right skill set.
So yeah, we’ve got a lot to talk about.
I’ve used account schedules as my primary financial reporting solution, at two different companies, since 2004. I have the opportunity to teach about this reporting tool through NAVUG, doing webinars throughout the year, speaking at the annual conference, and even teaching classes for NAVUG Academy. For a while, I’m going to talk about account schedules here, but you’ll occasionally come across other topics as we learn more about the NAV financial reporting landscape, and where it will take us next.
Financial reporting and why we need more information from people who actually do it
Posted: April 18, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Dynamics, ERP, Microsoft, NAV, NAVUG, tribe Leave a commentThere are lots of folks out there who want to sell you something. There are endless solutions, for a price, for the problem you or your business may have. All of these solutions have merit for one reason or another, or they wouldn’t exist in a competitive capitalist society.
But I’ll tell you a secret. The best solutions I have gotten have been from other people who do the same type of thing I do every day.
I have the great privilege to belong to an amazing tribe of professionals who use Microsoft Dynamics NAV as the ERP software of choice for their businesses. These folks come together at conferences and during webinars throughout the year and even reach out to each other informally through emails and quick phone calls. And do you know what they’re doing? They’re helping each other solve problems.
I’ve learned a lot from Microsoft training sessions, from reading the manual, and from plain old experimentation. But the best learning I continue to get comes from my tribe at NAVUG (NAV User Group).
I’m a Controller at a small company. There is one other person there who has an accounting degree, and two people in the IT department. Without reaching out through NAVUG, it’s easy to get out of date, out of practice, out of touch, and out of synch with what best practices are out there in the rest of the world.
I’ve found that by sharing what I know, I build new relationships through my network who share what they know with me, and you know what? We all win.
Dynamics NAV Financials 