How to Enter Beginning Bank Balance for Dynamics 365 Business Central v18 and Above

Overview

On Dynamics 365 Business Central release 18, Microsoft made significant changes to the bank reconciliation features. Most of the articles and videos on entering beginning bank balances are still based on the older versions Dynamics 365 Business Central or Dynamics NAV.

Just thought I would share with the community on setting up your beginning bank balances if you’re moving to Business Central from your legacy accounting /ERP software

The goal is to have your bank balance match your G/L account. Just posting whatever is in your G/L to your bank is not the way to go and you’ll run into trouble later in future reconciliations.

Do it right initially will save you tons of trouble later.

Here are the steps to enter the beginning balances of your bank when you’re migrating from your legacy ERP/accounting software to Dynamics 365 Business Central.

What You Need

As with anything, preparation is key. There are a few things you need before entering your beginning bank balance.

Assuming you’re going live with Business Central on December 1st, they are:

  1. Previous bank reconciliation before you go live. For example, if you plan to go live on December 1st, you’ll need the bank statement from November 30th.
  2. A list of outstanding checks and transactions not cleared by the bank up to November 30th
  3. Your reconciled G/L bank balance from your old legacy system. This means you need to do one last bank reconciliation from your legacy system up to November 30th

How do you know if you have everything put ready? Here’s a simple formula:

Your G/L balance for your cash/bank account as of November 30th
+/- Outstanding bank transactions that’s not been cleared
= Amount on the Bank Statement as of November 30th

For example:

G/L Balance as of 11/30 = 10,000
Outstanding uncleared checks and deposits as of 11/30 = 2,000
The bank statement that you got from the bank on 11/30 should be 12,000.

If the above formula is not true, do not proceed! Get it right so it can save you headaches down the road.

How This is Going to Work

Once you post the entries via General Journal (make sure the Account Type is Bank Account), run your first bank reconciliation as November 30th, or the period before you go live.

When you run your bank reconciliation for November 30th, manually enter the previous bank statement total in the Bank Statement Line section. DO NOT run the bank feed import for this period as nothing you import can be reconciled against.

Click on Matching -> Match Manually to match the entry that you’ve made for the Beginning Bank G/L Balance entry.

Once the matching is done for the beginning entry, you can post the reconciliation.

For your bank reconciliation for the following period, all of the unreconciled transactions will display for you to clear against.

Conclusion

Now you may be asking “But wait Alex, we won’t get your bank statement until a few days after we go live!”

That’s okay!

You don’t need your bank beginning balances as soon as you go live. We typically get the bank beginning balances (and other non-operation related balances) setup about a week after go live.

Different Flavors of Warehouse Management in Dynamics 365 Business Central

Overview

Dynamics 365 Business Central (formerly known as Dynamics NAV) is a comprehensive ERP system. As such, it has many features that caters the different needs of businesses, for example, manufacturing, service managment, CRM, distribution, etc. Each one of these functional areas can be configured a number of ways depending on the needs of the business. During my time working at AP Commerce, there are never any shortages of investigating different setups based on on the needs of a business.

What you think you need may not be what you need. Yes, I did write that in one stroke without flinching. One of the most common requests from potential and current users of Business Central (Dynamics NAV) is they want to effectively manage their warehouse using warehouse management system.

The question I’m always tempted to ask is: “What type of Warehouse Management are you looking for?” Of course I never ask that question because this will cause more confusion than I can handle.

So why am I tempted to ask that question? Again, in each functional area in Business Central (Dynamics NAV), there are a number of ways to set it up. Having said that, here are different ways to setup WHM for your business. Note that Warehouse Management can be defined per warehouse, so every warehouse that you have can be setup differently.

NOTICE! The purpose of this article is not to give you a complete step by step instruction on BC (NAV) warehouse management, the purpose is to give you some knowledge on different ways to go about implementing WHM so you can have some knowledge and input when you speak with your Dynamics NAV partner on it.

Considerations

One word of caution is when implement ANY warehouse management system, you have to make sure your warehouse is organized, efficient, and accurate. A lot of companies make the mistake of buying a warehouse management software because the warehouse is too messy.

DON’T DO IT!

Software, in general, is designed to streamline your operation and speeed up the processing. If your warehouse is disorganized, inefficient, and not accurate, any warehouse management software will make it worst. You will be disorganized, inefficient, and inaccurate at a faster rate. Garbage in, garbage out.

The Flavors

Here’s a picture of the Warehouse Mangement setup in Dynamics 365 Business Central (Dynamics NAV):

Bin Mandatory

From initial look, if you just want to keep track of the items on the bins, this is the option for you, right? Unfortunately, no… I’ve never been in an implementation where we just place a checkbox on this field without at least enabling Ship/Pick or Receive/Put-away.

Just checking this on enables you to keep track of items by bin, however, one of the main problem with just checking this on is that you specify bin on the purchase and sales order. So if you have an item that’s on 2 different bins, you have to split the sales/purchase lines. Not only that, if you want to move an item from one bin to another, you have to use the item reclass journal, which effectively creates Item Ledger, value entry, and the general ledger. Doing physical inventory may also create a lot of excessive entries that will bog you down when you use the Item Ledger to do any sales and purchase analysis.

Pros: Allows you to tag bin code to an inventory transaction

Cons: Have to split sales and purchase line so the quantity matches the bins on the item ledger Creates a lot of excessive entries to key ledger tables Makes life harder than it has to

You Typically See This Setup for: No one. You’re better off using the Shelf/Bin No. field on the item card. This is how NAV 2.0 handles bins. We’re in Business Central now, no sense in going backwards when there are better options.

Require Shipment/Receive

Just enabling these option allows you to use the Warehouse Ship/Receive function. The main purpose of the Warehouse Ship/Receive is to allow the user to batch the sales orders by a container or a trailer going out per carrier. This option is typically enabled for companies that ships and receives by containers. The warehouse shipment is typically used to generate your bill of lading for the trucker.

Without turning on Pick and Put-away, I would NOT recommend turning on Bin Mandatory. You would encounter the same problem that I’ve stated above. For smaller companies, spliting up the warehouse process may not be necessary.

Pros: Allows you to Ship and Receive by container or bill of lading Warehouse Manager can control what he/she wants to ship based on released orders instead of the order processor printing out a pick ticket The warehouse process is separated out from the order fulfillment process (so warehouse can do their own posting) More accurate inventory can be achieved since inventory can be relieved when it’s shipped

Cons: Not recommend to enable Bin Mandatory (same cons as above) Not necessary if you do not wish the warehouse people to be posting stuff

You Typically See This Setup For: Large item distributors or manufacturers that want split out their warehouse processing, but does not care of bin contents Companies that ship and receive by containers but do not want to split their items into bins in the warehouse.

Require Pick/Put-away (No Require Shipment/Receive)

This is an option is what I would like to call the mini-fullblown warehouse management. This options provides the flexibility for the warehouse staff to create warehouse put-away and warehouse picks as they see fit, they can also assign these warehouse documents to the appropriate people to do the processing. Another way to use this feature is to allow the order fulfillment people to create the pick request to the warehouse without actually printing a pick ticket.

The draw back of using this option is that you’re only allowed to have one sales/purchase order per put-away/pick. This means that you won’t be able to group the orders together in one warehouse shipment (as stated above) to generate a consolidated bill of lading. Same goes for the receiving side, you won’t be able to receive by container or by bill of lading.

This option works perfectly if you want to enable Bin Mandatory. The Inventory Pick/Put-away document generated will allow you to split lines at the warehouse document level so you can put the items away in their proper bin without having to modify the original purchase or sales order.

Pros: Allows you to easily process inventory transactions by Bin Warehouse Manager can control what he/she wants to ship based on released orders instead of the order processor printing out a pick ticket The warehouse process is separated out from the order fulfillment process (so warehouse can do their own posting) More accurate inventory can be achieved since inventory can be relieved when it’s shipped

Cons: Not able to group orders together into one shipment or receipt Not be able to use ADCS (wireless handheld)

You Typically See This Setup For: Companies that would like to organize their warehouse by bin, but does not have the manpower to go Directed Pick/Put-away.

Directed Pick and Put-away

This is the full deal. It has all of the benefits that I’ve listed above. Group order together by warehouse shipment and be able to pick and put away by bins. Not only that, this allows you to use ADCS (wireless handheld device) so your warehouse staff and record warheouse transactions using the handheld.

All good right?

Not exactly. It really depends on what your company needs. All these features sounds cool, but if your business does not need it, trying to shove it in may create more work and processes than necessary. There are a couple of steps where the user need to interface with a computer when you enable Directed Pick and Put-away:
1. Create the sales order
2. Create warehouse shipment
3. Create pick
4. Register pick
5. Post warehouse shipment
6. Post sales order

Whereas if you do not enable any of these, the steps would be:
1. Create the sales order
2. Post the sales order

Conclusion

It’s highly recommended that you get with your Dynamics 365 Business Central (Dynamics NAV) partner and discuss which setup is right for your business RIGHT NOW with consideration for future growth. If you try to implement everything without any consideration for your current operation, the operational efficiency will decrease. This is because of the increased overhead and maintenance that are required.

Make sure your company have the manpower and the infrastructure to absorb the overhead and maintenance required so the increase in efficiency and accuracy can be realized.

Do not implement some feature just because you like the feature. In most cases, it will be overkill. It’s like buying a size 10 top-of-the line Nike tennis shoes for your 3 year old son and forcing him to walk in it every day. Eventually, he will grow into it. But by the time he grows into it, he’ll develop some other major problems that will cost more money to fix.

Dynamics NAV (Navision) Can Solve All of Your Business Pains!

Dynamics NAV (Navision) can do anything for your business. Yep, you heard it right. Implementing Dynamics NAV (Navision) can solve all of the problems for your company. It’s true! Since working with Dynamics NAV (Navision) in 1999, I have never encountered a business problem that cannot be solved in Dynamics NAV.
Compliance? No problem.
Reporting? No problem.
Unique business processes? No problem.

AND! Implementing Dynamics NAV will solve your company’s problems within a reasonable budget!

But how is that possible? We all know every software has it’s limits. What if customers makes irrational requests? What if the salesperson over promised? What if the project will take 1000 hours to program?

You can probably think of a million more “what if”s. The bottom line is implementing NAV will resolve all of your client’s business problems. You absolutely need to keep this mentality or you won’t have a successful career in NAV.

First and foremost, you MUST believe this as well. All Navision programmers knows how quick it is to deliver on customer’s request and it’s unique ability to adapt to any environment. If you do not believe this is true, you’re working with the wrong software.

The first step in truly believing this is remove the word NO from your vocabulary.

By being closed minded and using the word “No” too often, not only are you diminishing the potential of NAV to your clients. You are training yourself to become close minded on finding clever ways to solve difficult problems.

Do not say no to customers, instead, find alternative solutions. You should have enough experience to know if the requirements does not make sense. And you should have enough understanding of business process to give alternative solutions to address the client’s pains.

Take for example the following scenerio:
Client: “I want to go to the moon”
You:    “Why do you want to go the moon?” (while at the back of the head thinking “Oh crap, the salesperson promised the moon”)
Client: “I want to see the surface closely”
You:    “If I can get close up pictures of the moon’s surface, would that be sufficient?”
Client: “Ok”

Or this scenerio:
Client: “I want to go to the moon”
You:    “Why do you want to go the moon?” (while at the back of the head thinking “Oh crap, the salesperson promised the moon”)
Client: “I want to feel the moon’s atmosphere”
You:    “At the Kennedy Space center, you can feel the moon’s atmosphere. Would that be ok?”
Client: “Ok”

Instead of:
Client: “I want to go to the moon”
You:    “No, you can’t go to the moon, it’s not possible with current technology”
Client: “The salesperson said I can.”
You:    “No. It’s not possible, your request is illogical”
Client: “Get your salesperson back here, I want a refund!”

I know this is a very, very simple example, but you get the point. Every problem is diffcult and easy depending on how to approach it.

In an implementation, much like in sales, you need to get as many people on your side as possible. By throwing the word “no” around too often, you will be seen as an enemy trying to make their daily lives miserable. Furthermore, the client will be convinced that they have bought the wrong solution.

It’s important to keep a positive attitude during an implementation. Instead of directing customers to dead ends and killing their dreams and hopes, show them the light at the end of the tunnel by addressing their problems and pains in a different way. Engage their illogical request and do the work to make it logical for them. Listen carefully to their request and dig into your experience and knowledge to provide the customer with a better way. If all else fails, ask your client to write their request logically on a piece of paper (this always works by the way).

Consider this: No business that can buy NAV operates on flawed or illogical business process. So you can safely eliminate the probability that the client request is flawed or illogical. So the solution must be on the implementor/developer. It’s your job to recommend:
1. A solution
2. An alternative solution
3. A better solution

No one in the world likes to pay for “No”. And removing “NO” from your vocabulary is the first step on becoming the best implementor and developer in the world.

I know there are experts in the community that feel very strong about this. All comments (flame or non-flame) welcome!