Understanding Key Financial Terms in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations

For Functional Consultants and Financial Professionals

 

If you’re diving into the world of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations (D365 F&O), you’ll quickly encounter a variety of terms and concepts related to accounting and financial management.

 

 

Whether you’re a seasoned consultant or just getting started, it’s essential to have a solid understanding of key financial terms, like the General Ledger, Sub Ledger, General Journal, and Vouchers.

 

These are the building blocks that keep your financial data organized and transparent.

 

 

 

In this blog, we’ll break down these terms in a way that makes sense and helps you understand how they work together in D365 F&O.

 

General Ledger (GL): The Big Picture

 

The General Ledger is the heart of your financial system. Think of it as the primary record of your company’s financial health. It provides a high-level overview of all your company’s accounts, like Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Cash Management, and more.

 

In essence, the GL holds the total balances for all these accounts. It gives you the snapshot of where your business stands financially at any given moment.

 

Whether you’re reviewing your year-end financials or preparing a report for a client, the General Ledger is your go-to source of truth for the overall financial position of the company.

 

Sub Ledger (Subsidiary Ledger): The Details Behind the Numbers

 

While the General Ledger provides the big picture, the Sub Ledger offers the finer details. The sub ledger is where individual transactions are recorded, offering more granularity than what’s available in the GL.

 

For example, in the Accounts Receivable (AR) sub ledger, you’ll see all transactions related to individual customers, like invoices, payments, and credits. Similarly, the Accounts Payable (AP) sub ledger keeps track of every vendor-related transaction, from invoices to payments.

 

In D365 F&O, these sub ledgers play a crucial role in ensuring that every transaction is accurately captured and linked back to the General Ledger. This makes it easy to reconcile and verify the financial data.

 

General Journal: The First Step in Recording Transactions

 

The General Journal is where transactions begin their journey. Whenever a financial transaction occurs, it is first recorded in the general journal before being summarized and posted to the General Ledger.

 

This is typically where you’ll record low-volume, non-repetitive transactions, such as adjustments, accruals, and manual entries. For example, if you’re entering a one-time expense or a journal entry for a payroll adjustment, it will likely go into the General Journal first.

 

After being reviewed and approved, the entries in the general journal are transferred to the General Ledger, where they are grouped with similar transactions.

 

Vouchers: Linking the Dots

 

A Voucher is like a bridge between the sub ledger and the general ledger. When you post transactions from the sub ledger to the GL, they are recorded as vouchers.

 

Vouchers ensure that each transaction is accurately linked and traceable. They act as a reference for detailed transaction information, allowing you to trace the transaction back to its origin in the sub ledger.

 

For example, if you’re looking at an entry in the GL, the voucher allows you to see the original document and details from the AR or AP sub ledger.

 

This is incredibly helpful for tracking and auditing purposes, ensuring that all financial data can be traced back to its source for clarity and verification.

 

Putting It All Together

 

Now that we’ve broken down each term, it’s clear how these financial components work together in D365 F&O:

 

• The General Ledger (GL) gives you the overall financial position.
• The Sub Ledgers provide specific transaction details within each major account (AR, AP, etc.).
• The General Journal is the starting point for entering low-volume transactions.
• Vouchers tie everything together by linking sub ledger transactions to the General Ledger.

 

Each of these components plays a crucial role in maintaining an organized, accurate, and auditable financial system. Understanding how they interact will help you navigate the complexities of D365FO more effectively, ensuring that your financial data is always in order.

 

Final Thoughts

 

As a consultant or financial professional working with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, mastering these key financial terms will help you communicate more effectively with clients, navigate the system with ease, and ensure that financial records are always accurate and complete.

 

Whether you’re managing accounts, reviewing financial reports, or troubleshooting issues, having a solid grasp of the General Ledger, Sub Ledgers, General Journal, and Vouchers will set you up for success.

 

Location Blocking Causes Policy

Managing warehouse locations efficiently is crucial for smooth warehouse operations. Sometimes, the warehouse managers may decide that some of the locations must be temporarily blocked for inbound or outbound work operations.

 

The reasons can vary, ranging from maintenance and quality issues to utilization of the empty space.

 

In Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations (D365 F&O) versions prior to 10.0.40, there were multiple options for blocking locations, but none were straightforward or easy to use. The process often required a combination of multiple tools.

 

Starting from version 10.0.40, Microsoft introduced changes to the process. With the update, there’s a new policy feature that enhances how blocking causes are applied called Location blocking causes policy.

 

When using the blocking causes fields (Input blocked and Output blocked) on locations, a new Blocking cause policy needs to be assigned, one that determines if the blocking cause will be used when processing warehouse work or not. The policy not only visually informs the workers, but also blocks the location and prevents the system from processing work.

 

 

If the policy is set to Do not use for warehouse work, the locations blocked for this reason will not be blocked during warehouse work processing.

 

This means that the system will be able to assign this location when using the location directives and other rules from the setup.

 

However, if the policy is set to Also use for warehouse work, the associated locations for this blocking cause will also be blocked during warehouse work processing.

 

The second option is useful for preventing the system to create inbound put away work at the assigned location during the inbound receiving process.

 

A Big Step Forward for the Macedonian Food Giant: Vitaminka with a Successful Full Implementation of Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations

With the successful implementation of Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, the Macedonian food giant opened the doors to full technological improvement and digitalization of the business.

 

Founded more than 66 years ago, Vitaminka is synonymous with quality, a company that cares to always satisfy the taste of its consumers, known for its audacity in introducing innovations and following innovation trends.

 

To make a big step forward in its operational efficiency, modernization of its operations, management, and implementation of best practices, Vitaminka decided to invest in the latest technologies, and as its partner in this significant step towards complete technological transformation chose Axapta Masters.

 

 

By joining forces, after an intensive period of work and cooperation, in January 2024 the implementation of D365 F&O was successfully completed. Today, Vitaminka has a fully integrated platform that unites the warehouse, production, and financial aspects of their work.

 

D365 F&O offers a fully integrated system, which allows companies complete control and visibility of all aspects of business operations.

 

Benefits of the Implementation

 

• Increased Efficiency: The system enables a significant improvement in operational efficiency, which will lead to a reduction in the time required to carry out certain activities and a reduction in costs.

 

• Accurate and Fast Financial Reports: The implementation of D365 F&O allows the generation of accurate financial reports in real time, which significantly improves the management of finances.

 

• Improvement of Warehouse Operations and Production Process: The system provides efficient management of the warehouse operation and production processes, which enables better control and monitoring of the real situation in the warehouse and production.

 

• Better User Experience and Growth Opportunities: D365 F&O will improve and facilitate the work process of teams in the company. The system is designed to adapt to the needs of companies, making it an ideal choice for businesses that are constantly growing and investing in innovation.

 

Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations is much more than just a sophisticated system. D365 F&O is the key to successful operations management and business growth in today’s digital age.

 

Therefore, with the successful implementation, Vitaminka remains a leader in its industry with innovative and technologically advanced solutions. This significant transformation will provide the company with not only an economic advantage, but also financial stability in the long term.

 

With Axapta Masters on its side, Vitaminka opened the way to new successes and heights in its successful Macedonian business story.

Sending Multiple Attachments via Email Using Electronic Reporting

Sending multiple attachments that are linked with some entities in Dynamics 365 F&O, together with one main document has always been a hot topic for the clients.

 

This functionality is not available through standard SSRS reporting and a customization is needed so it can be performed. Many clients use external ISV solutions that also provide implementation for it. But there is also a standard possibility that the user can set up to use this functionality — using an electronic reporting framework.

 

We’ll provide detailed step-by-step guidance on how it can be achieved. For this purpose, we will be performing the setup on the sales invoice document.

 

1. Import Necessary Configurations from Global Repository

 

The first step is to import the necessary electronic reporting configurations from the global repository. If you have imported your configurations already and they are present in your local repository, skip this step.

 

Go to Electronic reporting workspace > Select Repositories from the Microsoft configuration provider > Open the Global repository. Here you will see a list of all predefined Microsoft reports and configurations. Find the one that you need, select the latest version, and import it.

 

In this scenario, we are importing the format Sales invoice (Excel).

 

 

Note that by importing the format, all necessary related configurations will be automatically imported as well, such as the model and the model mapping. So, you don’t need to worry about them.

 

2. Model Configuration Customization

 

The second step is to create a placeholder for the attachments in the model that is used by the format. Go to your local repository and find the model that is the parent of your format. In this scenario, that is the Invoice model.

 

Go to Create configuration > Derive from Name: Invoice model, Microsoft > Create configuration.

 

 

Select the newly created configuration > Go to Designer > Select the root node where you want to add the node for attachments.

 

In this scenario we want to send attachments linked to the invoice record, so we will choose InvoiceBase as a parent node. The node where you should add the attachments node in your scenario depends on the specified business goal you want to achieve.

 

Select InvoiceBase node > Go to New  > Set a name such as Attachments and item type equal to Record list. Inside of that node, create two more nodes: FileContent of type Container that will store the content of the attachments and FileName of type String that will be used for attachment names.

 

 

After you have completed this step, go back to the configuration repository > Select your derived model configuration > Change status to Complete.

 

3. Model Mapping Configuration Customization

 

In this step we will map the newly created attachments node with the data source where those attachments are being stored. Locate the standard model mapping configuration that is being used for the report, in this case that is Invoice model mapping.

 

Select the model mapping configuration > Create configuration > Derived from Name: Invoice model mapping, Microsoft > Select target model to be our newly created model (AXM Invoice model (Test)) > Create configuration.

 

 

Go to the Designer of the newly created derived model mapping. In the data sources pane, find the data source where your attachments are linked to. In this case, we go to the $SalesInvoiceTmp_First because this is our main data source. In the left pane we select Functions > Calculated field and then we select Add.

 

 

We create a new calculated field named $CustInvoiceJourAttachments with the following formula:

 

 

If you need additional filtering or attachments of another type, you can modify the formula accordingly. After the calculated field is mapped, we bind the nodes in the model that we have created with corresponding nodes in the calculated field.

 

 

After you have completed this step, go back to the configuration repository > Select your derived model mapping configuration > Change status to Complete.

 

4. Format Configuration Customization

 

On same principle, create a derived format configuration with corresponding parameters. In this case, we are using the Sales invoice (Excel) format configuration.

 

It is important to create the derived format based on our custom data model and the proper data model definition. Also set the latest data model version (in this case we only have one completed version of the model).

 

 

After the derived format has been successfully created, go to its Designer window. You can see only one root node. In this case, it’s named Sales invoice. Click Add root > Select Folder > Set the name parameter (e.g. Folder).

 

You will see that now the already existing Excel node was set as a child of the Folder node. Select the Folder node > Click Add > Select Common/File > Set name as Attachments. Select the new node > Click Add > Select Binary contents > Set name as Content. Bind the Attachments and Content nodes correspondingly with Attachments and FileContent nodes from the model. Select the Attachments node on the format and in the File name formula designer set the path to the FileName node of the model.

 

 NOTE: If you are not able to see the node type Common/File, in the action pane of the format designer change the type to All (in this case was predefined as Excel).

 

 

 

After you have completed this step, go back to the configuration repository > Select your derived format configuration > Change status to Complete.

 

5. Electronic Reporting Destination Setup

 

In order to send the invoice together with the related attachments on the invoice record, we need to do a proper setup in the Electronic Reporting Destination form. Go to Organization administration > Electronic reporting destination > Click New > In Reference select the customized format configuration, in this case AXM Sales Invoice (Excel).

 

In File destination, create two records for each component, Attachments and Sales invoice. Select both records and click on Group. Click on the Sales Invoice record and in Settings do a set up for the email template that will be generated. In the setup you can specify sender and recipient email address, subject and body.

 

 

With this setup, the whole procedure is completed, and you are ready to send multiple attachments via email to your desired destination.