Microsoft Dynamics AX (Archived)

Totals of Main Accounts

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Posted on by lally

Hi All ,

What is the use of the totals functionality in main accounts form ?

What is the use of the totals functionality in the financial dimension values form ?

Could any pioneer explain with a business example that how to map this functionality and how best we can use this functionality in the real business world ?

Thanks in advance.

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Ludwig Reinhard Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi lally,

The totals functionality has - so to say - 'always been there' and was introduced in earlier AX versions.

Total accounts allow summarizing other accounts that are typically used for example to calculate the amounts that you find in your Balance Sheet and Income Statement.

As an example, companies often established total accounts for their total assets, for their total fixed assets, their total inventory, etc. that summarized the balances that were recorded on other accounts.

The same applies for financial dimensions where you can for example calculate the totals or subtotals of different cost centers that are controlled and managed by a single individual.

With the later AX Versions total accounts became less and less important as we have now Management Reporter that allows us summarizing the same that was previously done by those total accounts.

Yet, total accounts are not 'dead' as the Management Reporter can for example reference them and alleviate the setup of Management Reporter reports.

Over the last years, customers hardly use total accounts because of the other (new) reporting Tools that became available in the Standard of AX - not only the Management Reporter but also the BI cubes/Power BI, etc.

Hope this helps,

Ludwig

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lally 8 on at

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Thanks Ludwig for the reply ,

Can you give more light on the Total accounts , how to create and how it display in the standard AX reports like Balance sheet along with Dimensions total ?

Please give one practical example to implement in AX and to generate the generates from AX point of view.

Total Accounts functionality

Total Dimensions functionality

How to filter these values in the standard AX reporting level ?

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Ludwig Reinhard Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi lally,

Here is an example for the setup of a total account.

The account used here includes a number of different accounts that are summarized.

You can make use of those total accounts when using the Management Reporter. Example:

(Note: For the summary cost centers I have not even found an option to include them in the Management Reporter reports).

I also checked the SSRS Standard reports but have not found one that includes those accounts.

Yet, I remember that there were some. Probably the parameter has been removed or I have not searched detailed enough.

As I mentioned before, their use is currently quite limited and you have to think whether you want to use them or not as you either need Management Reporter or cubes to analyze them.

Hope this helps,

Ludwig

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lally 8 on at

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Thanks ,

What about the Total dimensions functionality and where the sum will show against the total dimensions in the reports ?

Can you give one example please ?

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Ludwig Reinhard Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi lally,

For the cost centers and other financial dimension the same applies what I mentioned for the total accounts.

That is, you can define 'summary' cost Centers...

That you can then use when you make use of Management Reporter.

To be honest, I have not seen many companies using that summary functionality in practice as it is easier to define the summary of different cost centers directly in Management Reporter for example by adding different columns that represent the different cost centers you have.

As an example, companies typically summarize various admin departments that are managed by an office manager into one group of cost centers. Sometimes companies group also different areas of the production work center together as they are supervised by a single management engineer, etc. This is something you will find quite often in practice.

Yet, also here, I have not found a standard SSRS report that allows analyzing the summary cost centers and you thus need to make use of Management reporter or the BI cubes/Power BI.

Hope this helps,

Ludwig

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lally 8 on at

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Thanks Ludwig for the reply,

Assume that user posted some financial transactions

1010101 - Cost 1 - $200

1010401 - Cost 2 - $500

The questions is if created the

total accounts ( 1010101 = 1010101 +1010102) and

total dimension ( 001= Cost 1 ...Cost 2 )

If i select the total dimension as 001 in the management reporter as shown then amount will be shown as $ 700 ..am i right ?

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Ludwig Reinhard Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi lally,

AX does not allow recording transactions on total accounts /dimensions.

So, if 1010101 is your total account you cannot record a transaction on this account.

I used a replicated a similar situation where I posted the following transactions

Note the following account setup

I also Setup some Cost Centers, where CC total summarizes the other two

Then I Setup the following MR Report where the yellow lines are the total accounts/dimensions

Outcome

The total Balance for the ledger account is shown but the one for the total cost Center not.

I am not sure whether this is a but in my system but it seems that the Setup of a total CC is pretty much useless unless you use the cubes.

When I say useless, please note the blue highlighted line where I simply added up the different cost Centers in the Management Reporter to get the total of the cost Centers. If I can do that in MR, I do not Need to do it in AX (irrespective of the fact that MR does not Show the Balance).

Hope this helps answering your questions about this issue and closing this thread :-)

Best regards,

Ludwig

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