The controller was glaring at me with something close to hatred in her eyes, as if I was dangling one of her children over the lip of a volcano. I guess for her in a way I was. “We can't let the warehouse guys post their own transactions because they don't know what they're doing and they'll hit the wrong GL accounts and screw up all of our reporting.” This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this argument…not even the first time people got mad at me for suggesting we trust other people to do their own jobs correctly. However, I firmly believe that no good ever comes from mistrusting your Dynamics GP users . Just because they’re not accountants doesn’t mean they’re not capable. Besides, your warehouse guys shouldn’t need to know the GL accounts. Assigning transactions to the GL is not their job. Your Dynamics GP system should be set up in such a way that they can still do their jobs and be trusted not to hit the GL incorrectly. Every single master record type in Dynamics GP allows you to set up defaults that get assigned to transactions. Master records include customers, sites, items, vendors, taxes, and so many other things. Even the classes that you assign master records to should be set up to default data onto the master records themselves. You can have an entire company of non-accountants hitting your GL the right way every time without having them try to think like accountants! Imagine that Jim from the finance team goes into the warehouse and drives a forklift into a crate full of goods. (Turns out Jim can’t be trusted to know how to do something that is not his job either). Bob, the warehouse manager, needs to enter an inventory adjustment to write it off. Bob has been trained on how to enter an inventory adjustment into Dynamics GP and obviously knows the item number and the quantity that is being adjusted. The transaction needs to be posted right away so that the inventory is up to date and the sales team doesn’t try to sell that product. Assuming that Jim set up the item and site defaults correctly in GP, the accounts will get assigned correctly to the transaction and Bob need never concern himself with that accounting mumbo jumbo. Have a much simpler way of assigning accounts that doesn’t need to be at the level of every master record? Set them up at the company level then! That takes about 10 minutes and saves scads of time frustration downstream. Assuming that I can get the controller to concede that we can trust the users to process transactions on their own, the next level of mistrust tends to be the setups themselves. "Oh, well that's okay then if it'll flow through we'll just leave it unposted in the GL and I'll change it there if I have to." That is a patently bad idea. Never mind that you have actual work of your own to do so no time to review everyone else’s. You should always let transactions post all the way through because you want your subledger to match your general ledger. Even if it hits the general ledger and one transaction out of 100 is in the wrong account, it's easy enough to reclass it with a journal entry. At least there is an auditable trail of the mistake and the correction that way. When we work with Dynamics GP users we teach them how to effectively set up defaults in Dynamics GP. We teach them how those defaults flow down through the rest of the system and when/how to override defaults if needed. As mentioned, defaults can be set up anywhere where a GL account is required. Everyone has a job to do and most people do their jobs well. Setting up defaults in Dynamics GP is an easy way to let users do their jobs quickly and effectively while ensuring that you aren’t spending hours recording their work in the GL! If you are interested in learning how make effective use of defaults in Dynamics GP and other time-saving tips, contact Briware Solutions. by Briware Solutions Related Posts Making It Easier with Dynamics GP – Quickly Modify Your Chart of Accounts 5 New Enhancements That Make Life Easier for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Users Improving Finances Is Easier Said and Easier Done
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