If you are keeping past years open in Great Plains (current name Microsoft Dynamics GP) and do not close them in Financial Routines, you may feel a bit disappointed that Financial Trial Balance report doesn’t show beginning balance for the current year.
The same issue you may notice in Account Inquiry form. Situation is common, as you really do not have to close the year immediately in January, but rather keep it open for posting into the previous year, probably until early March (when you have to prepare Tax filing for the company), or even keep several years open (when you post customer payments or do correction transactions in the history). If you have degree in Accounting, you probably know what is going on when you close the year – that’s right – Profit And Loss accounts are folded into Retained Earning account and all Balance Sheet account year ending balances are brought to the new year. Double Entry principle (remember Italian mathematician Luca Pacioli? Who invented modern accounting back in 15-16th Centuries?), and there is no way to find the work around… However, we have the solutions for you, let’s move on to details:
1. Closing Year imitation in custom add-on application, Balances Brought Forward. Yes, it is possible to imitate year closing for the Open year (which is now in calendar or fiscal history) in specially created custom tables. Then, if you know how Dynamics GP and former Great Plains Security works – you can enable Alternative Dynamics GP forms and reports, only two reports are enabled for BBF (Balances Brought Forward): Trial Balance Detail and Trial Balance Summary
2. Open Account Inquiry. Here you do not even need to alter security, it will automatically show current year beginning balance in the Account Summary inquiry form
3. What happens when I close the year? It is very simple – BBF stops dealing with the year marked as Historical (a lot is going on behind the scenes, for example Historical year GL transactions are moved from the table GL20000 to GL30000 table, but you as company accountant or controller should not have any concerns about it)
4. Balances Brought Forward – what is it from the standpoint of the technology? This is Microsoft Dexterity programmed add-on. The installation is simple and requires three steps: integrating Great Plains Dexterity chunk, then second step is creating custom tables (this is normal procedure, when you are installing new Dynamics GP Dexterity add-ons); and the third step is enabling qualified users to print alternative Trial Balance reports
5. Compatibility with Dynamics GP versions. All the versions, currently supported by Microsoft are also supported in Balances Brought Forward: Dynamics GP 2010/11.0, 10.0, 9.0
6. Supporting historical versions. BBF is available for earlier versions of Great Plains Dynamics, we recommend you to be on Microsoft SQL Server platform. Dexterity is DB neutral programming platform, but with the Great Plains Software acquisition by Microsoft, such non-Microsoft DB platforms, as Pervasive SQL 2000/Btrieve and Ctree were abandoned
7. How about FRx Balance Sheet report? Well, we are giving you the maximum, but FRx is not Dynamics GP Dexterity application, it is fact based in Microsoft Access Database and we have no control over its Balance Sheet report GL link. So, the answer is no
8. To request further support, please call us 1-866-528-0577, help@albaspectrum.com We need to discuss your cards in order to recommend you the best solutions, which is not contingent to our preferences. We serve you USA/Canada nationwide via remote support (web sessions and phone/Skype conferences). Local service is available in Western Michigan, Chicagoland, Southern California (LA, Orange County, San Diego), Houston area of the state of Texas
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