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Setting up all the posting accounts in GP and what all the default posting account and distribution fields mean and the best way to setup one’s company. When you bring up a new company the fields are there but are blank, you have to insert a GL account into the field.

For example when I look at the default sales posting accounts Tools >> Setup >> Posting >> Posting Accounts >> Sales I see an entry for Credit Memos. Fabrikam has it set to 000-4110-01 US Sales Retail Parts. If you look at that account it is set to P&L with a normal Credit balance. So when you set a GL account to whatever GP calls these default placeholder positions in their posting and distribution screens how is this account used?

Credit Memos are used to reduce a customer’s balance. So if Fabrikam has Credit Memos set to Sales, what does this mean? Is this account going to be credited or debited? And why sales? If I need to credit a customer for whatever reason, say they were not 100% satisfied so I’ll give them a credit, do I really want to increase/decrease Sales?

I would really like to see a book or booklet dedicated to getting the accounts setup correctly. What these fields on the posting account setup and distribution screens mean and how they are used so users can populate these fields correctly. I think this would solve lots of issues with posting and distributions. And send me the first copy!!

I’m trying to follow Fabrikam but I don’t think Fabrikam is a good model to follow. For example in Fabrikam the Purchase Discounts Taken account is set with a typical balance set to Debit and the category set to COGS. I think this should be a Credit balance. If COGS is a normal debit balance and Purchase Discounts Taken is a contra-account to COGS it should have a credit balance not a debit balance.

I’d be willing to pay for a good model to follow for a web retail business – fully setup but without any data of course.

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Beat Bucher GP Gee... 28,058 Moderator on at

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Hi Jimmy,

Have a look to Accolade's collection of book about Dynamics GP :

dynamicsgpbooks.com/index.php

Maybe you'll find your treasure in them...

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Frank Hamelly | MVP... 46,625 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Jimmy,

That's great advice Beat offers. Accolade has a book called Information Flow & Posting. It provides more info than you ever wanted to know about posting in GP.

Hope this helps,

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L Vail 65,271 on at

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Jimmy,

You are right! There is not a good reference.

I can tell you in no uncertain terms that Fabrikam is an absolutely horrible example for any setup in Dynamics. I know Fabrkam is all you've got - but it's horrible. In the end you are better of to engage an experienced consultant to advise you. I have some things written up and have plans of writing down 'best practices' which is defined as the way I like to do it - but you need something now.

You are right about the accounts, it confuses nearly everyone! In the 17 years I have been doing this I have never seen the posting accounts set up properly (properly for my judgement anyway). It takes a lot more than just being an accountant to do it right. Of course, being an accountant is handy.

You will be pleased to know that it doesn't really matter whether you have the Debit/Credit balance set up reight. It's only used on the financial reports - but you can override it by flipping the sign. The one that is REALLY important is whether you have the B/S or P&L selection right. The normal debit/credit is easy if you follow this:

ASSETS - normal debit. Yes, even accumulated depreciation

LIABILITIES - normal credit

EQUITY - normal credit - even treasury stock

INCOME - normal credit

EXPENSES - normal debit

Which modules are you implementing? As you might imagine there is quite a bit of interplay between accounts in certain modules.

Kind regards,

Leslie

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Community Member on at

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What I’m looking for is a mapping of all the account fields on the default Posting Accounts screen and the Cards accounts to a companies gl accounts. If you add them up there are about XXX fields which shouldn’t take be a couple of hours to go thru for an experienced GP consultant, CPA or bookkeeper.

Let me give a few examples of what I’m talking about. The “firm” represents the readers company.

On the Sales Default Posting Setup screen:

Debit Memo field: A debit memo increases a customer’s balance to the firm for many reasons other than a sale. This is revenue to the firm but we can’t credit Sales so normally this would be a credit to an account in Other Income say Misc. Income or Debit Memo Income. Assign an Other Income account here.

Cost of Goods Sold field: This is a bit tricky as it can vary depending on how your firm is setup. If you only use one COGS account you can assign that account here. But if you have multiple COGS accounts you can’t really use this generic COGS account so I would assign a dummy COGS account here then reassign any money posted to this account to the appropriate account at closing.

Terms Discount Taken: As a seller when we offer terms discounts and the buy opts to take the discount, that discount reduces our gross sales. Therefore this field should be set to a contra-revenue account. Fabrikam has a category called Sales Returns and Discounts that this account falls within.

There…I just did 3 off the Sales posting setup screen and it took me all of 5 minutes. If you add up all the fields on the default posting setup screen and the customer, vendor, item and FA cards there are about 115 fields. An experienced consultant can put together a small book in no time and offer it for sale. I know I would purchase it. I figure you have to pay one way or the other. Either you pay upfront to get your company setup correctly or you pay later to fix all the mistakes, but one way or the other you’re paying!

While searching for a COA I found a company that does just this for Quickbooks. They sell a COA for $20 and an explanation of the account for another $20.

www.web-bookkeeper.com/E-Books_c72.htm;jsessionid=EBF57088006965D54F331FCB47FAB010.qscstrfrnt02

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