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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Archived) / Entities and Dimensions
Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Archived)

Entities and Dimensions

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Posted on by GaryHuggins66 95

I have 5 separate legal entities. Can I use Dimensions to account for Multi-Entities in a single data base, or do I need to set up separate environments? If so, what are the Pros and Cons in using Dimensions for a Multiple entity structure? --- gary

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    Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member on at

    You can setup multiple companies in a single database to account for the legal entities.

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    Community Member on at

    I asked the same question a while back, I got the following response:

    "In NAV there is the rule of Company = one legal entity. This can be a pain at times, for example when you need a balance (for tax reasons, for instance) by location / office. Most consultants would say "you can do this with dimensions", but that goes only so far. You don't have the balance checking and additional accounting rules with this. And this is where the problems really begin.

    Setting up one legal entity over several companies is even worse transaction-wise, since you need intercompany transactions then and those can't be posted automatically (intentionally). And you have the IC document overhead, mappings, master data problems and so on. Like I told: You can do it in NAV, but you change some base functionality with it, and you're adding complexity.

    And yes, there is no support for this in the base product, any version. AFAIK it is not on the list :(

    with best regards

    Jens (Jens Glathe)"

    More delving into this subject didn't make things look any more hopeful.  To do it right involves a LOT of customization.

    We have multiple companies, retail, distribution, and manufacturing. Should be getting some kind of demo after two years of programming from our 'partners' "soon".  Want to see how we can consolidate a range of companies, retail sector, manufacturing group, ... Haven't seen a lot of RANGE type filters in NAV, everything seems to be "IS", "add another filter?"... Nowhere have I seen selection criteria of the "FROM-TO, THIS" nature other than by adding filter after filter.

  • GaryHuggins66 Profile Picture
    GaryHuggins66 95 on at

    Thank you

  • GaryHuggins66 Profile Picture
    GaryHuggins66 95 on at

    Thank You Raokman

  • Verified answer
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    Community Member on at

    Hi Gary,

    For our NAV 2013 implementation we decided to use a single NAV company with Global Dim 1 as Company Code to segregate about 20 legal entities.  With our NAV partner we designed a set of customizations for it and overall it has worked quite well.  Some of the pros we based the decision on were:

    • Reduced data volume, less resources and effort needed from not having to maintain master data, configuration, etc. for 20+ separate NAV companies.
    • The G/L accounts, vendors, and customers are common to all companies, which makes reporting more efficient and streamlined.  And it's great for enabling centralized purchasing and payables.

    The major con would be just needing to customize NAV to get it to all work, which we did in a lot of areas of the system.  The key is building in posting rules which enforce the equality principal of double-entry accounting, so that each legal entity (Company Code) is always in balance.  Another challenge, depending on the business, is security - controlling who can see and post to which entities.  We use a really great NAV add-on for security that has helped us to manage access for a few hundred users.

    One final consideration, which is probably one of the biggest deciding factors between using a Dimension vs. NAV companies, is inventory.  We don't use inventory in NAV and don't plan on doing so in the future, and our Partner recognized that if we did, then a Dimension would probably not be the way to go.  Dimensions and inventory can get really complex even when used in a standard way (speaking from past experience).  So if you use inventory it's something to definitely consider when making your decision.

    Regards,

    Rob

  • GaryHuggins66 Profile Picture
    GaryHuggins66 95 on at

    Thank you Rob.

  • Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member on at

    who was your partner?

    Do they still have the same programming staff on-board?

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