GET ORGANIZED WITH GP 2018 WORKFLOWS!

Companies are looking for ways to leverage their ERP investment, find efficiencies, strengthen internal controls and MS Dynamics GP workflow does the job!  With the release of GP 2013, we got the first workflow functionality within GP windows and there were four workflows that were available. In later releases of GP, Microsoft continued to roll out additional workflows and added features such as document attachment, condition management, delegation and reassignment notification.  With GP 2018 releasing December 2017, there are even more workflows, but some great new features were added as well.

The workflow approvals can be completed within the GP system, but there is the option for using email notification with a link.  That feature alone allows the approval process to be managed outside of GP. The approvers never even have to log in to GP and could do this all through email!

Let’s talk about your approvers. All workflow users are based Active Directory.  So the email address for email notifications is based on the email address in Active Directory.  They do not need to be a GP user, so very nice feature (and easy on the budget)!

Documents images can also be attached to the transaction and this allows the approver to see the document (like an AP vendor invoice).  This is actually one of my favorite features and multiple documents can be scanned right into GP (see my earlier blog about Document Attachment).

This is one of the reasons that I see companies upgrading to the more current versions so that they can finally take advantage of workflow approval and go paperless!  One of the best example of this is the Payables Transaction approval – with document attachment of the vendor invoice – this is huge!

OUT-OF-THE-BOX WORKFLOWS AVAILABLE:

Here’s the current list of workflows available through MS Dynamics GP 2018:

• Purchase order approval
• Purchase requisition approval
• *Purchase Receiving workflow
• *Purchase enter/match invoice workflow
• Project timesheets approval
• Project expense report approval
• Payroll timecard approval
• Employee skills approval
• W4 approval
• *GL Account approval
• General Ledger batch approval
• Vendor approval
• *Additional EFT/Bank Details to Vendor approval
• Payables batch approval
• Payables Transaction approval
• Receivables batch approval

*GP2018 new workflows

NEW FEATURES IN GP 2018 WORKFLOWS:

With the release of GP2018, there are several new workflow capabilities as listed below:

Reminder emails for Workflow:

Using the reminder functionality, set up GP workflow to create a reminder email in the event that someone forgot to complete an approval.  You can reuse existing messages and modify with comments for the reminder.

Copy Workflow Step

Allows you to select and copy a workflow step to another workflow. This simplifies the messaging and approval process, allowing companies to avoid repetition in creating a workflow.  We have had some companies that had up to 30 workflow conditions within a single workflow, so this is great time saver!

Reporting for Workflow

Visibility into the workflow process with additional fields in workflow reporting including filters by workflow type, workflow approvers, workflow status and approval date. The reports also include the workflow comments as an option.   Great for tracking workflow and imagine the smile on your auditors face when you hand them the approval history report!

Additional fields in Payables Transaction Workflow

Five additional fields including: Vendor Account, Vendor Master Comment 1, Vendor Master Comment 2, Vendor Class ID, and Payment Priority.

Additional fields in PO Workflow

Add more detail to the automated messages for PO Requisition or PO approval and include relevant fields in the message like the account description.

There is many reasons to upgrade your system and our experienced team is waiting to help you plan your upgrade. Contact us today to find out about your upgrade path!

This article was written by Carol Livingston, GP Practice Director at InterDyn BMI