Microsoft dynamics GP 2016 cookbook

He is also a certified Dynamics CRM consultant, specializing in the delivery of Microsoft Dynamics GP.. He is also the co-author of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Cookbook by Packt Publisih

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016 Cookbook

Table of Contents

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016 Cookbook

Credits

About the Authors

About the Reviewers

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Modifier with VBA

Further personalizing the home page by customizing the layout

Reports without options

Better dates in report options

Removed unused entries

Reducing the number of AutoComplete entries

Activating Horizontal Scroll Arrows for all users

Widening segments for better visibility

Streamlining payables processing by prioritizing vendorsGetting ready

Special User-Defined 1 features

Company Setup user-defined fields

Expanded user-defined fields

Remembering processes with an ad hoc workflow

Copying security from an existing user

Using Reminders to remember important events

Fiscal period versus month

Beyond the period

Speeding up entry by copying an inventory item

How to do it

How it works

Automating processes with macros

How to do it

How it works

There's more

Macros can be made faster

Macros and the shortcut bar

Macros can be run with a keystroke combination

Automatically post cash receipt deposits

Simplifying statement delivery with print remaining documents

Reversing Year-End Close

Fix cross-company mistakes by voiding intercompany transactions

Modifying a customer number

Import from spreadsheet

Other Combiner functions

Modifying Sales Order Ship To Address

Getting ready

How to do it

How it works

Mass depreciation reversal

Reset History in Detail

Copying a sales order

Getting control of printing with Named Printers

Balancing the year

When AP and AR aren't enough

Improving budget creation with Combine Budgets

Line item comments

Keeping the chart of accounts clean by reactivating Account Segment warningsHow to do it…

Popular Dex.ini resources

Preview the SmartList

Configuring default columns for new SmartLists

Creating a new SmartList from a SQL View

Excel Report Designer

SQL and ODC connections

Trust and security

See also

Delivering the goods with Excel-based dashboards

Getting ready

How to do it…

Which report to use?

User template creation

Making the change for all users

Service pack errors

Improving stability by managing dictionaries

How to do it…

How it works…

There's more…

The Dynamics.set file

Safeguarding data by backing everything up

Import from spreadsheet

Other Modifier functions

Using Customer Name Modifier

How to do it…

Import from spreadsheet

Other Name Modifiers

Set a minimum PO/receipt number

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016 Cookbook

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016

Cookbook

Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrievalsystem, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written

permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded incritical articles or reviews

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy ofthe information presented However, the information contained in this book is soldwithout warranty, either express or implied Neither the authors, nor Packt

Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damagescaused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of thecompanies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals.However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information

First published: August 2016

About the Authors

Ian Grieve is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for Microsoft Dynamics GP.

He is also a certified Dynamics CRM consultant, specializing in the delivery of

Microsoft Dynamics GP He is the ERP Practice Manager at Perfect Image Ltd., aMicrosoft partner, and VAR in the North-East of England, where he is responsible forthe delivery, by his team, of all Dynamics GP projects

Ian has worked with Microsoft Dynamics GP since 2003, and over the years, he hasdealt with all aspects of the product's life cycle, ranging from presales,

implementation, technical, and functional training post go-live support to subsequentupgrades and process reviews

Ian is the author of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Financial Management by Packt Publisihing and Microsoft Dynamics GP Workflow 2.0 and Implementing the

Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Client by azurecurve Publishing He is also the

co-author of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Cookbook by Packt Publisihing.

Additionally, he has produced the Microsoft Dynamics GP Techniques online

learning course and was the technical reviewer for several books on Microsoft

Dynamics CRM published by Packt Publishing, including Microsoft Dynamics CRM

2011 Cookbook.

In his spare time, Ian runs the azurecurve blog, Ramblings of a Dynamics GP

Consultant (http://www.azurecurve.co.uk), which is dedicated to Microsoft

Dynamics GP and related products

The most recent offshoot of running his blog is that Ian has started writing plugins toextend the functionality of the blogging platform, WordPress A new site, azurecurveDevelopment (http://development.azurecurve.co.uk), contains information about hisplugins

Thanks to my parents for their support through the years and to my employer, PerfectImage Ltd., for giving me the opportunity to work with clients in many different fieldsand, not least, for being open to me taking on outside projects such as this book andits predecessors

I also owe thanks to all the clients I have worked with over the years, whose needsand questions have prompted me to learn ever more about Microsoft Dynamics GP,thereby putting me in a position to write this book

Thanks to the technical reviewers, Leslie Vail and Jivtesh Singh, and fellow

Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, for their valuable feedback, which helpedmake this book better.

And finally, thanks to Mark Polino, my co-author on this book and the author of thefirst edition It was a pleasure working with him on this book

Mark Polino is a Microsoft MVP for Business Solutions, a certified public

accountant, and a Dynamics Credentials professional for Dynamics GP He runs the

premier Dynamics GP-related blog, DynamicAccounting.net Mark has worked with

Dynamics GP and its predecessor, Great Plains, for more than 15 years He has

worked as an author and co-author on five Dynamics GP-related books He works asthe Director of client services for Fastpath

About the Reviewers

Jivtesh Singh is a Microsoft Dynamics Certified Technology Specialist for

Dynamics GP, based in Sydney, Australia He has been awarded as the MicrosoftMVP for Dynamics by Microsoft for 6 years in a row (2011-2016) Through his blog,which is widely read in the Dynamics GP and CRM community, he covers tips andtricks and news on Dynamics GP

Over the last 15 years, Jivtesh has lead and managed successful product developmentand Dynamics implementations for multiple clients, including some of the Fortune

500 companies He is a Dynamics consultant and systems implementer, and he hasbeen associated with the Microsoft technologies since the launch of the Microsoft.NET framework He has over 10 years of experience in development and

maintenance of enterprise software using coding best practices, refactoring and usage

of design patterns, and test-driven development

Jivtesh recently built a Kinect interface to control the Microsoft Dynamics GP

Business Analyzer with gestures Later, he built a part of the GP future demo forConvergence GP Keynote

He has set up a custom search engine directory for the Dynamics GP blog

(www.gpwindow.com) to help with easier access of Dynamics GP resources for the

GP community With MVP Mark Polino, he has also set up a Dynamics GP product

directory (www.dynamicsgpproducts.com)

Jivtesh's blog on Dynamics GP is available at www.jivtesh.com

You can visit his custom search engine for GP blogs at www.gpwindow.com

You can reach him on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/jivtesh or contact him

on his e-mail id < jivtesh@gmail.com >

Leslie Vail is a CPA and is working as a Microsoft Dynamics GP consultant for

nearly 20 years She started off working on version 1.0 in 1993 During this period,she completed numerous implementations, conversions, and custom developmentprojects She is a session leader at many partner and customer technical conferencesand conducts training classes throughout North and Central America

Leslie has been a Microsoft Dynamics GP MVP since 2007 She is recognized

throughout the industry for her product expertise and contributions to the Dynamicscommunity She is the principal of ASCI, Inc., a consulting firm located in Dallas,TX

As a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), she serves as a subject matter expert

(SME) for the Microsoft Assessments and Certification Exams (ACE) team She is amember of the US MCT Advisory Council and has been listed as one of the

Microsoft Dynamics Top 100 Most Influential People by DynamicsWorld She is one

of the top contributors to the Microsoft Dynamics GP Newsgroup and Dynamics

Community forum Leslie maintains the popular Dynamics Confessions Blogspot

(http://dynamicsconfessions.blogspot.com/) site

She has reviewed and developed Microsoft Courseware, co-authored the book

Confessions of a Dynamics GP Consultant, Accolade Publications, and is the

Technical Editor of several books dedicated to Microsoft Dynamics GP

Leslie provides implementation and consulting services for companies ranging from

a family office to a multinational manufacturing firm She is a Microsoft Certified ITProfessional in Microsoft Dynamics GP Applications and Microsoft Dynamics GPInstallation & Configuration as well as a Microsoft Certified DBA (Database

Administrator)

She holds a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist certification in Dexterity,Modifier with VBA, Integration Manager, Report Writer, HR/Payroll, Financials,Inventory and Order Processing, FRx Report Designer, SQL Server 2000, SQL

Server 2008, and Microsoft XP Professional

A skilled developer, Leslie uses Dexterity, Modifier with VBA, Integration Manager,and eConnect to provide custom solutions to her clients She is a Certified IntegrationDeveloper (CID), a Dexterity CID, a Dynamics Tools CID, and a Dexterity CertifiedSystems Engineer

Her training proficiency spans the entire Microsoft Dynamics GP product line She is

an experienced trainer and teaches classes for Dexterity, Financials, Inventory andOrder Processing, HR/Payroll, Integration Manager, Modifier with VBA, FRx ReportDesigner, SQL Server Reporting Services, Report Writer, Crystal Reports, SmartListBuilder, Excel Report Builder, Integrated Excel Reports, Extender, and System

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Tens of thousands of Microsoft Dynamics GP users keep the accounting functions oftheir rms running day in and day out They ensure that vendors get paid, customerpayments are tracked, and the financial statements balance at the end of the month Inshort, they provide the information critical to corporate decision making

Of the many tens of thousands of people using Dynamics GP, the majority of themonly ever use a small subset of the available functionality They may get basic

training when Dynamics GP is implemented or when they join the company; theylearn enough to do their job but never look beyond this set of skills for ways to

improve processes and become more efficient

On top of this, many users start working with a particular version of Dynamics GPand continue to use the system in the same way as the years pass and upgrades areinstalled with many new features available

The work gets done but good employees are left with a nagging feeling, an itch, thatthere must be a better way This book is designed for those people who want to

scratch the itch and learn how to get more out of Dynamics GP

Many of the ways to get more from Dynamics GP do not require extensive knowledge

of the system, merely a desire to learn and to make Dynamics GP easier, faster, andsimpler These features, tips, and techniques have been compiled into a set of recipesdesigned to let Dynamics GP users cook up solutions to their problems

Like any good cookbook, the recipes are laid out into simple steps optimized forquick application and are easy to follow and get right in the first attempt This easygratification is designed to draw users deeper into the recipes with the goal of

improving efficiency, allowing the time saved to be put back into other finance

activities, or the simple pleasure of wrapping up the day and going home early

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Personalizing Dynamics GP, contains recipes designed to enhance theusefulness of Dynamics GP by personalizing the look and feel of the application

Chapter 2, Organizing Dynamics GP, contains recipes that are designed to helpadministrators get more out of Dynamics GP for their users by changing the wayDynamics GP is organized

Chapter 3, Automating Dynamics GP, contains recipes that focus on efficiency andautomation and are designed to be time savers across the system

Chapter 4, Leveraging New and Updated Features in Dynamics GP, containsrecipes demonstrating some of the key new and updated features in Dynamics GP

2016 from the Financial and Distribution series

Chapter 5, Exposing Hidden Features in Dynamics GP, contains recipes on

techniques that are often well known to consultants but missed by users It containshidden settings that can help save a lot of time

Chapter 6, Improving Dynamics GP with Hacks, contains recipes that are used tohack existing features in Dynamics GP so as to improve efficiency

Chapter 7, Preventing Errors in Dynamics GP, contains recipes for administratorsand users to help prevent errors in Dynamics GP It also includes ways to fix

erroneous transactions that managed to make it to the general ledger

Chapter 8, Harnessing the Power of SmartLists, contains recipes to harness thepower of Dynamics GP's ad hoc reporting tool and ways to leverage the reportingpower of SmartLists

Chapter 9, Extending SmartLists with SmartList Designer, contains recipes toextend SmartLists by building your own objects from tables or SQL Views usingSmartList Designer

Chapter 10, Connecting Dynamics GP to Microsoft Office, contains recipes thathelp connect Dynamics GP with Microsoft Office 2013 and discusses the ways inwhich Office can be used to improve processes in Dynamics GP

Chapter 11, Maintaining Dynamics GP, contains recipes for an administrator orpower user to help maintain Dynamics GP

Chapter 12, Extending Dynamics GP with Professional Services Tools Library,contains recipes which use the Professional Services Tools Library (PSTL) to easecompany and data setup and to modify data in an existing Dynamics GP

implementation

Chapter 13, Modern Business Intelligence for Dynamics GP, contains recipes based

on Microsoft's new BI tools, OData and PowerBI

What you need for this book

The following software is required for this book:

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016 with the Fabrikam, Inc sample companydeployed and a second company without any configuration createdMicrosoft SQL Server 2012 or later

Microsoft Office 2016 or later

Windows Server 2012 or later with a domain controller available

An Internet browser compatible with Power BI

Who this book is for

This book is for Dynamics GP users and Dynamics GP partners and is primarilyfocused on delivering time-proven application modifications This book assumes thatyou have a basic understanding of business management systems and basic

knowledge of Dynamics GP All of these recipes are real-world tested and designed

to be used immediately

Getting ready

This section tells you what to expect in the recipe, and describes how to set up anysoftware or any preliminary settings required for the recipe

How to do it…

This section contains the steps required to follow the recipe

How it works…

This section usually consists of a detailed explanation of what happened in theprevious section