General Journals

In this post I will be comparing MS Dynamics GP and Business Central General Journals, I will start with the following notes:

• Business Central General Journal does have way more functionality comparing to MS Dynamics GP.
• Business Central General Journal page has “2 modes”, simple and normal plus the ability to add/hide columns, in MS Dynamics GP, it is fixed (yes it is customizable with development and it is pain).
• Similar design can be found in MS Dynamics GP and Business Central in “Simple Mode” (Click on Pages -> Show Fewer Columns) and both support 1 transaction only.

• Multiple Journals can be created at once (not in simple mode), In MS Dynamics GP you need to post the journal first, so the system generates a new General Journal No. for you or you just save the journal and create a new one.
• Business Central General Journal page can cover the following transactions in MS Dynamics GP :
  • General Ledger Journal.
  • Bank Transfers.
  • Bank Transactions (Both Increase and Decrease Adjustments)
  • Account Receivables Transaction (All types).
  • Account Receivables Cash Receipt.
  • Accounts Payables Transaction (All types).
  • Accounts Payables Manual Payment.

Question 1: Could it be used to create Accounts Receivables and Accounts Payables Transactions?
Answer 1: Yes it could be used but I don’t recommend it, I do recommend the following mapping, and the reason is the source document and the Journal Template Code.

Question 2: Why I mentioned the above transactions in both systems in this post?
Answer 2: Simply the following pages in Business Central uses the same table (Gen. Journal Line (81)).

As you can see in the above images, both MS Dynamics GP & Business Central have a “Batch”, “Journal No.” , “Account No.”, “Description”, “Debit”, “Credit”…etc. nothing much to talk about. In fact they are similar.

The difference can immediately be noticed when “Normal Mode” in Business Central is used.

Marked in “Green” is a complete Journal, details are below:
Journal No. = G00001
Db. 10100 (G/L Account) 10
Cr. 40400 (G/L Account) 10
and for the second journal, marked in “Blue” is it exactly the same except the “Journal No. = G00002”

Notes:

• The “Amount” value will be assigned to the “Account No.”, so if it is “Debit – Greater than Zero” the “Account No.” will be debited and the “Balance Account No.” will be credited, and if it is “Credit – with (-) sign” the “Account No.” will be credited and the “Balance Account No.” will be debited.
• The “Account Type” is the reason to the huge flexibility, based in the “Account Type” you can select the “Account No.”, so if the “Account Type” is “Customer” the “Account No.” will be a lookup from the “Customer” list.
• Due to the “Account Type” flexibility, It is possible in Business Central to create a transaction to move the balance from “Vendor” 1 to “Vendor 2” directly, and Business Central will pick the correct “Accounts Payables G/L Account”, this feature does not exist in MS Dynamics GP, to that, 2 “Accounts Payables Transactions” are needed while using an intermediate account.
• Again, remember not to search for “Bank Transaction” or “Bank Transfer”, use the “General Journal” and select the “Bank Account” in the “Account Type” field.

Hope this help.