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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics AX (Archived) / External purchasing sy...
Microsoft Dynamics AX (Archived)

External purchasing system integration with AX 2012

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Posted on by Paul Phillips 590

AX gurus,

I am leading an AX 2012 implementation, currently scoping the customization and integration effort. AX will be financials only (GL / AP / AR - no inventory or related).

What are your thoughts and experience on the possible options for the vendor invoice match process when the purchasing system is external?

As-Is process:

  1. We have systems that handle both master data and transactions for everything related to inventory, supply chain, and production
  2. We run SAP and duplicate all of the master data and transactions related to inventory including PO and receipts activity there, mainly for the purpose of getting the financial amounts
  3. This is not an efficient solution as the systems don't tend to agree and there is much reconciliation work. It is painful.

A primary AX goal is to avoid any inventory-related setup or data and have it receive the periodic, summarized financial effect of the external systems' activity, treating them as sub ledgers.

Options that I see for invoice matching:

  1. Build a custom form to do the vendor invoice entry and matching process (either in AX or outside it), then submit the complete and matched invoice into AX using business connector or AIF
    1. Is it feasible to send in the external PO and receipt reference numbers on the invoice such that they will be accepted by AX as-is without a corresponding referential record?
  2. Modify the existing x++ code in the vendor invoice (VendEditInvoice) form and related matching screens to load and substitute the external data instead of the AX internal PO and receipt data
    1. This seems like a big customization effort that would be infeasible and present a significant project risk

Our sister company has a similar system structure. Their solution was to set up AX inventory and bring in the PO and receipt from the external system at the point of first receipt, and thereafter use the matching in the standard way. For our needs this would not be ideal as it puts us back to a similar pain point with duplication of data, and our volume is many times theirs.

Any input or ideas is appreciated.

Thanks,
Paul

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I have the same question (0)
  • André Arnaud de Calavon Profile Picture
    André Arnaud de Cal... 301,053 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

    Hi Paul,

    After multiple implementations where to deal with external purchasing an/or invoice scanning and matching, I only believe in matching inside AX with Purchase orders known in AX.

    All setup and business rules are within AX. If you want to rebuild those, lots of problems occurred in the past. It is hardly possible to rebuild all logic. There are too many things to think about when integrating with other systems.

    Your questions:

    1) Not recommended. Besides how to deal with multiple receipts/orders on one invoice?

    2) This is related to your first question. You still have to add non existing references in AX. And it is a lot of work. Why not importing the purchase orders and receipts?

    In AX2012 it is possible to use categories or service items on your purchase orders. Then the inventory setup is minimized.

    Please note that i'm not familiar with your situation, but want to share my experiences and thoughts.

    On a current implementation we have to duplicate many sales orders and purchase orders as well (incomnig and outgoing). Numbers are over one million per month. The architecture was first firmed, before implementing it.

  • dolee Profile Picture
    dolee 11,279 on at

    Hi Paul,

    As you mention about not to deal with inventory-related stuff in AX, would using vendor invoice / payment journal be sufficient to your requirements?

    If that's ok and your matching process can be outside AX, then there is already a field in vendor invoice journal to record the invoice #. Use another existing field or create a custom one for the receipt #.

    Cheers.

  • Paul Phillips Profile Picture
    Paul Phillips 590 on at

    Thank you André for your informative response. Your suggested approach is the same that our sister company took and I believe it will serve as our default option for this project if there are no better alternatives since it uses the system as close to its 'out of the box' functionality as possible.

    As suggested in a later response one option may be to use custom fields to record the external PO and receipt numbers on an invoice line and treat them as non-PO purchased from an AX standpoint. While that removes the tie-in to existing business logic and associated customization issues it will still require report and UI changes.

    Also causing me to lean in that direction is that we will probably have to build a custom match process/form regardless of the path chosen. There is a strong desire for an automated program that will perform as much of the match as possible without user intervention (and then degrade gracefully by providing a default best-guess match to the user if there is doubt). We have technical competence to do it (our external procurement system was built in-house) so I'm not concerned there.

    Thanks again for your ideas and confirmation.

  • Paul Phillips Profile Picture
    Paul Phillips 590 on at

    Thanks Dominic. Yes, this is the direction we are leaning at this point. I spent some time digging deeper into the 2012 code and doing a proof of concept (POC) and André is correct to advise against the original options due to the scope and complexity involved to hook into the existing business logic.

    If this path doesn't work out we still have the common fallback of bringing in the PO and receipt detail.

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