Microsoft Great Plains GL: General Ledger – overview for consultant
 by: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is marketed for mid-size companies as well as Navision (which has very good positions in Europe and emerging markets where it can be easily localized). Great Plains Inventory control is pretty robust and here we would like to give you highlights on standard functionality as well as what could be added to its standard features.

Historically Great Plains Dynamics / eEnterprise was designed with modules structure with very clear ERP workflow – Inventory Control, Sales Order Processing (SOP), Purchase Order Processing (POP), Project Accounting (PA), US Payroll, etc. were posting transactions all the way to or through GL, creating double entry GL transactions with audit trail back to original records in corresponding modules

Features:

    * Account Segment Structure – Great Plains GL allows you to have up to two segments with maximum 60 characters account length. You use segments to sort by Account, Unit, Location, etc. You will find segment structure design useful when you design reports in FRx or ReportWriter

    * GL Multicurrency – was realized more than 10 years ago. All multicurrency transactions from modules are posted to GL as multicurrency GL transactions.

    * Unit and Variable Allocation Accounts – these are for tracking units – if you use just GP GL – you can have primitive count of your Fixed Assets as Unit accounts, for example

    * Quick Journal – you can create transaction template in Quick Journal and then use it to expedite transaction entry

    * Batch Posting – is useful when you want to post group of transaction upon the approval

    * Routines: Period Consolidation, Year End Closing, Multicurrency revaluation – we recommend backup prior to these routines

    * Summary and Detail current and historical inquiries – where you can restrict your inquiry by date, etc.

    * FRx financial reporting – this topic deserves special publication, you can have consolidated reports by multiple companies, when you use reporting tree, plus you can pull info from MS Excel

    * Clearing Transactions – these will allow you to reverse GL transaction

Good luck with implementation, customization and integration and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-630-961-5918 or 1-866-528-0577! [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving clients in Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is CMA, Great Plains Certified Master, Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. You can contact Andrew: [email protected]

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