Topic: ‘Trade and Logistics’

While it is technically impossible to edit a closed invoice in DAX2009, there are a few options for crediting your customers.  One popular method (and one I don’t recommend) is to issue a free text invoice.  This will credit your customer, but it will not tie back to the original invoice, and it will create havoc if you are using commissions in any way.  Remember, FTI’s were created for service items, not item items.

Instead, try one of the following:

Process a credit note for the already invoiced line in question.  (Sales Order > Functions > Create Credit Note)  Once the credit is created, you can run an invoice (Post Qty > All if you do not wish to actually return) and then rerun the invoice (again, post Qty > All if you do not wish to actually return).

Create a new service type item for each Item Group.  This will not impact inventory, and then when you need to adjust, add a new SO line for the service item on it, use the correct sale price, and post the invoice.  Then enter a FTI credit against the originally posted amount.  A bit of a work around, but may meet your requirements.

Dynamics AX provides the ability to quote to prospective business relations or existing customers.  When quoting within Dynamics AX, you can easily create an activity or opportunity during the quotation process.   This functionality feeds back to the CRM module and allows an opportunity to be tracked using standard lead tracking criteria (i.e. anticipated close, probability % of close, etc.). 

Providing visibility to alternate quotations for the same opportunity is standard functionality within Dynamics AX through both CRM and Trade & Logistics quotations.  The basic use of this function is to create the original quotation, tied to the opportunity / lead.  The second quotation, or alternate quote, is then ‘linked’ to the original quotation using the Alternate Quote functionality.  The screen provides a list of existing quotes for the same business prospect or customer to select from.  Once selected, both quotations become very visible from the CRM opportunity. 

 The ability to manage multiple / alternate quotations for the same opportunity (despite the business relation or customer) is necessary to avoid inaccurate results when providing management analysis for open opportunities.  The standard Dynamics AX alternate quotation functionality cleanly provides this data. 

 But, what happens in the case where the alternate quotation can be a quote to a different business prospect or customer but for the same opportunity?  When using the standard functionality of an Alternate Quotation quotes, other than to the original quote business prospect or customer, will not be selectable in the drop down that appears (as stated above).  To work around this limitation, select the original quote, access the Alternate quotation function, and type the quotation number of the alternate quotation in the quotation field.  Two things occur when this process is completed. 

1. The opportunity ID is tied to the alternate quotation and,
2. All quotes, regardless of whether it is tied to the same business prospect or customer, will appear in the list of quotations for the opportunity / lead.  Note:  The original opportunity will carry the original business prospect or customer.

 When completed, regardless of the business relation or customer, multiple quotations for the same opportunity can be linked together to provide accurate management reporting.

It may be necessary sometimes to reverse a packing slip and a pick list on lines in an order.  This is possible as long as the order has not been completely invoiced.

• From the AR module  –>Sales Order Details.  Select the Sales Order you wish to modify.
• Next, on the line level, select the line you wish to modify.  Now click the Quantity tab.
• On the lines you wish to modify, set the Deliver Now field to a value that the negative of the quantity delivered.  For example, if the quantity is 5, set the Deliver Now value to -5.
• When all of the lines have a negative value, click Posting–>Packing slip menu button.
• In the Posting packing slip window, use the Quantity – Deliver Now.  Click OK.
• Now all inventory has been removed from Delivered status.  The next part of this process is to remove the output orders for these items.
• In the lines, select Inventory (2) –>Output orders.  Delete record using the ‘X’ in the top left.  A warning will appear saying ‘The output order is completed.  Delete it anyway?’. Click ‘Yes’ in the warning form.

The sales order can now be maintained and re-picked as necessary.

In Dynamics AX2009, the Global Address Book is a repository for every Person OR Organization that your organization comes into contact with.  When you create a customer, vendor, employee, business relation, contact or competitor, a record is automatically created in the global address book.  This is handy, as you have visibility of relations between all people and organizations.

However, when some important contact data does not synch up between, say, a business relation’s credit rating and the corresponding contact record, it can leave users scratching their heads and searching in vain through parameter settings.  The error lies in the limitation of synchronization in the Global Address Book.  Only certain common fields are shared:
•    Name
•    Address
•    Communicaitions (Telephone, fax, etc)
•    Number of employees
•    Organization number
•    Category

Other data will not be synchronized.

I was recently asked of a client to validate that the FIFO costing in Microsoft Dynamics AX works correctly for their auditors.  This was on a 4.0 environment so the 2009 validation processes weren’t an exact fit.  The process we came up with should be applicable to 2009 as well however.  The process is as follows (I would recommend to run this per item to keep it simple):

1. Run the Specify Inventory Value report (Inventory Management -> Reports -> Status -> Inventory Value -> Specify inventory value) as of the first date of a new period to attain beginning cost price (latest transaction cost / transaction quantity).
2. Run the Inventory Transactions report (Inventory Management -> Reports -> Transactions -> Inventory Transactions) as of the first of the period through the end of the period by Financial Date.  Sort this by Financial Date.
3. Match values from the beginning cost on your “Specify inventory value” report to the running issues on the “Inventory transactions” report.  As you run out of inventory for each receipt, match up against the next receipt by financial date.  These should all match out including adjustments.  The formula for determining your cost per quantity of the transaction will be the (financial cost amount + adjustment) / quantity of the transaction.

This process could obviously be modified to validate the other costing methods as well just by changing the criteria of how you match or average costs.  It will give you a simple way to validate costs per transaction.  One additional note on the process is that this will only be effective after the closing of the period.  Until then, Microsoft Dynamics AX will not adjust costs according to any costing model.

Microsoft last week released Lean Manufacturing for Microsoft Dynamics AX2009, which in Microsoft’s words will enable organizations to embark on the “Lean Journey”.

Partnersource: Lean Manufacturing for Microsoft Dynamics AX

Customersource: Lean Manufacturing for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009

Stephen Wilson of eBECS has also created the Lean Centre of Excellence website.
There you will find a series of short videos, free to watch, that will give you a feel for what Lean means.
http://www.leancentreofexcellence.com

They are delivered by Andrew Rumney, who is the Solutions Director for eBECS Ltd, and the original architect of the Lean Manufacturing module for AX2009.

Although Microsoft have released Lean Manufacturing for AX2009, it does come complete with some known issues – 51 in total, that may impact on a prospective implementation, depending on the solution chosen.  We should all familiarize ourselves with the issues document, which is available for download.
https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/deployment/resources/productreleases/ax2009leanmanufacturing.htm

The Lean Module provides easy-to-use graphical tools such as Kanban Stop/Go and Electronic Heijunka Board(below):

I had an interesting issue from a client recently.  They were importing Bill of Material data into AX and validating the data.  When they went to mass calculate all the Bills of Material however, they ran into an issue that none that had active Item dimensions worked.  What we discovered is that the item dimension combination need to be setup for the mass calculation to work for Bills of Material.  This can be accomplished via a set of code as follows:

AX 2009 has a lot of great upgrades in the CRM area, including the use of linked and alternative quotations.  Sometimes, a customer may request two or more quotations that may relate to mutually exclusive projects or purchases.  The first quotation is the parent quotation and the suceeding quotations are children.

To link the quotations:

CRM–>Quotations Details –> Functions –> Alternative Quotations.  This will open the competing quotations form.  From here you can select the quotes you would like to link.

Some important points to remember:

• When a linked quotation is won or lost, you must manually update the related quote to keep the integrity of the sales statistics.  But remember if the linked quotaion is lost, you should cancel the related quotes, not update as ‘lost’.  This would have a negative effect on sales statistics.
• Linked quotations are only available for quotes in the same business relations.  A client recently requested linked quotations for different contractors on the same project, but AX currently does not allow this.

Purpose:  To settle transactions between issues and receipts as items can be issued at one value and received at another value.  NOTE:  This does not apply to standard cost method.

Inventory close is no longer required when using the standard cost method.  Differences between the item’s standard cost (used for issues) and receipt transactions will post to variance accounts, as determined, resulting in inventory always valued at the standard cost.

The following points apply to all costing methods except standard costing:

• Inventory values are based on the running calculated average cost when financially posted.
• Prior to a receipt being invoiced (financially posted), there can be a difference between the actual (physical) receipt cost and the expected (financial) cost.  When this occurs, the receipt value is known as the floating value.
• Inventory close settles the initially posted average cost to an item cost based on the inventory model selected (i.e. FIFO, LIFO, Weighted average, etc.).  AX attempts to match issues to receipts based on the inventory model.  If a match cannot be made, an adjustment on the issue will occur to match the receipt cost.
• When not using the standard cost method, there can be a link made between the item receipt and item issue cost.  Marking is performed to create this link and is considered by inventory close when settling.  Transactions “marked” Inventory dimensions can control the settlement process within a specific dimension, i.e. an item issued in an inventory dimension cannot be settled against another inventory dimension.  To control within a specific dimension, the financial inventory parameter must be selected on the dimension.  This control does apply to the Marking functionality.

The following are some brief / informational points related to a month-end inventory close:

• Adjustments required to inventory and the general ledger can occur without completing a month-end inventory close.  An inventory recalculation can be run to make adjustments.  This process however does not settle the inventory transactions.
• Inventory close does settle issues to items, bill of materials and service item types.
• Inventory dimensions can control the settlement process within a specific dimension, i.e. an item issued in an inventory dimension cannot be settled against another inventory dimension.  To control within a specific dimension, the financial inventory parameter must be selected on the dimension.  This control does apply to the Marking functionality.
• Following inventory close, transactions can no longer be posted to the closed periods.  If required, the close would have to be cancelled, transactions posted, and the period closed again.  Any adjustments made, following the close, would also require cancellation.
• Manual adjustments can be made to transactions with a receipt status of “purchased” or to on hand quantities.  Both adjustments allow for the cost of a transaction to be adjusted based on the purchase price or to the value of the current on hand quantity.  A recalculation is required for the adjustment(s) to affect an inventory value.
• Manual adjustments to on hand inventory should be done immediately following an inventory close.
• Review steps in preparing for a month-end close:
• Run the Open quantity report to view a list of inventory transactions that will remain open after the close.  Use this report to clean up transactions which should have been posted or cancelled.
• Run the Check cost prices report to view the differences between the item’s cost price and the receipt price.  Adjustments should be made where required, prior to the close.  Note when running this report a maximum deviation percentage can be set to determine the differences to review.  This report can be re-run, following adjustments, until all required changes have been recorded.
• When satisfied with adjustments, run the Close procedure to complete the month-end inventory close.