Dynamics GP Bank Reconciliation Trivia and Some Advices

This procedure is pretty simple and doesn’t require the knowledge on how to originate transactions directly in BR.  We’ll review this scenario, plus we’ll try to come through various miscellaneous payments and receipts, where you would like to do them directly in the Bank Reconciliation.  Let’s begin with typical FAQ:

1. By whatever reason, when I am trying to reconcile my Statement I see only Payments and do not see receipts from our customers.  Imagine what happens in real life with the customer checks mailed to your office.  They arrive in mail and then you put them together, drive or walk to the bank branch and fill deposit slip, where each check is listed on a separate line.  The same should be done in Bank Reconciliation module.  You checks, cash or credit card (when CC is set as Bank Card, otherwise you get Vendor Invoice – no need to trace in details) customer payments are posted in Sales Order Processing (as Deposit against SOP Order or Invoice), or Receivable Management modules.  These receipts go all the way to or through GL (when through GL – they are automatically posted there, otherwise you post them in GL Batches).  They posted in BR and now you have to open Financials -> Bank Deposit in Transaction section, select Type as Deposit with Receipts and work with this document, marking receipts (as you would compile Deposit slip in your bank)

2. Deposit without Receipt.  This is popular document, when you are implementing Lockbox with your bank.  Your payments are arriving to the lockbox and you have all the reasons to update your checkbook balance, as you have report from the bank on the amount collected.  However the payments will be posted in AR module later one and update General Ledger Check Book Cash account.  And you keep one or multiple deposit without receipt saved until all the receipts are posted and matched against it

3. Deposit Type Clear Unused Receipts.  Might sound a bit confusing.  What you do here is this – you clear receipts, which are legitimate for being deposited from showing up in the future deposits.  If the idea is still too abstract, imagine the scenario.  You had BR module registered for several years, however you didn’t use it and now you decided to switch on Statement reconciliation routine with each monthly bank statement.  There is couple of options to do this.  First one would be to abandon old check books and create new ones with new IDs, but working with the same cash accounts.  If you have not done reconciliation for the checkbook yet, you can change the amount in Bank Statement Ending Balance field.  Another elegant option is to use Deposit with the type Clear Unused Receipts, where you clear all the historical receipts on the existing checkbook.  Then you create one lump sum receipt to cover current Checkbook balance (please uncheck posting to GL in Posting, where Series is Financial and Origin is Bank  Transaction Entry – don’t forget to switch it back, when you are done with first reconciliation), post it in BR module and match against Deposit with Receipts document

4. Documents in progress.  Traditionally in Dynamics GP or former Great Plains you work with transactions, saved into the batch.  This method allows you to review and if required modify and even approve the batch and its saved transactions.   In BR module, however, batch based logic is not available.  Let’s think about some exceptions.  First of all, when you are implementing Lockbox and using Deposit without receipt – it is natural assumption that you should have the option to record as many deposits as required (lockbox report might be seen via online banking and you may decide to record deposits every week or twice per week).  Posting payments from AR or SOP module could be done one the monthly basis – this scenario requires you to have at least four deposits without receipt saved and ready for future editing at the time (per one checkbook).  When we are looking at Deposit with Receipts – you can have only one worksheet open at the time and add the matching lines as time goes, when you are done – it should be posted to open the way for next saved deposit per checkbook, so only one is allowed to be saved per checkbook.  All the other documents (with exception of Bank Statement reconciliation in progress) must be posted as they are entered, or you have to delete them if you are by whatever reason not ready to post

5. Printing checks directly in Bank Reconciliation.  This is also possible, but please do not do it for the customers, where you are handling them in AR or SOP modules.  Consider check cutting from BR, when it is really something miscellaneous, for example expense report to your employee, where you do not want to have them as vendors and do not have US Payroll module implemented.  Do it in Miscellaneous Check form: Financials, in Transaction section find Miscellaneous check links and work from there (interface is pretty nice and you feel like you are writing check directly in your paper checkbook).  Here, when you really write check manually in your checkbook, do not do Print Check and Post, click on Post instead

6. Bank Transfer.  It is definitely possible to do transfer from one checking account to another.  However, the option with BR audit trail code might be preferred.  Plus if you do Bank Transfer in GL – you may have hard time to reconcile both checkbooks in BR.  Instead, we recommend you to do it via Bank Transfer Entry: in Financials open Bank Transfers link in Transactions section

7. Multicurrency.  It is supported in all the modules, including Bank Reconciliation.  So far we know that if you are transferring from US Dollar to Euro, it is supported in recent versions, including 2010/11.0.  However it is impossible to transfer from the check book in Canadian dollar to Euro directly, you have to do it via third party check book with US Dollar default currency

8. Deposit breakdown in Checks, Credit Card, Currency, Coins.  Look at the bottom of the deposit form, locate Deposit Amount and click on the expansion button, it should open Deposit Total form.  Here you see what is deposited as check, credit card (bank card type) and cash, where cash is split between currency (paper money) and coins.  If your currency shows $45.67, and you know that cash portion was deposited as $36 in paper money, just enter this amount in Currency field, and Coins section will be automatically updated to show nine dollars and sixty seven cents

9. Using Integration Manager.  If you would like to reconcile your statement automatically from the electronic version of your bank statement, please review sample integration with the name – Bank Reconciliation.  This is just the starting point for your homework, if you feel that you have reasonable programming and new tools discovery resources in your IT and Accounting departments

10. Customization Options.  Bank Rec is Dexterity programmed module, as the rest of the GP thick client (or user workstation).  If you would like to modify user interface, review such tools, as Great Plains Dexterity, Modifier with VBA (if you would like cross modules modification, review also Continuum), Extender.  Bank Reconciliation is also exposed via eConnect SDK, where you can call eConnect libraries directly via MS Visual Studio, or call them via Web Services for GP from third party platforms, such as Linix/PHP/MySQL, Oracle, Unix, Apple Mac and others.  It is also possible to feed in transactions into BR module via SQL Insert statements (typically incorporated into stored procedures) – be aware, however, that this method might lead to data corruption, it is only recommended to advanced GP coders.  If you are doing your discovery steps with Great Plains, consider to do SQL programming in test company, try to review what transaction created directly via user interface did and try to replicate the logic in your SQL scripts

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