Microsoft Dynamics GP (Archived)

Using shipping modules for packing slips after invoicing!

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Posted on by Jason Chung

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Hi guys,

I've got quite a problem on my hands right now...

We run GP10 with manufacturing module. We create SO, generate MO, produce, fulfill SO and transform into invoices to bill the customer before shipping. Then, the customer will call us to pick up his finished goods.

We've had a few slip ups when manually completing the paper based packing slip and this has led to a project that aims at reducing these errors. We already have a WMS system that allows us to use the packing slip from the ORDER but since we invoice, we don't seem to have the possibility of using this option.

Any Ideas?

Jason

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

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Jason, why don't you print the Packing Slip at the same time the invoice is printed and direct the Packing Slip to a shipping department printer so they can enclose it with the package?

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Jason Chung 1,110 on at

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Hi Frank,

This is actually what we are doing at the moment. The idea is that this would seem to be insufficient to accurately fulfill the shipping process. What I would like to do is use my Order fulfillment module with my barcode system, but the thing is upper management want us to bill the customer before shipping.

This is why the order is fulfilled and transformed into an invoice so that we can immediately bill the customer. But because of this process, I cannot use my Order fulfillment module, since the order has been fulfilled prior to shipping.

;(

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

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I see. Well, not to get too technical, but unless you have authorization from your customers, billing them prior to shipping could create an ethical issue and it definitely goes against GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles). You have a business process issue at hand. However, you might be able to dump those invoice records into a table that your shipping system reads from for shipping purposes (sort of a dummy open orders table). What system are you using?

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Jason Chung 1,110 on at

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Ah yes, I understand what you are saying We are in a different situation than most and the customer allows us to do it this way. Since we are using his components to process them into a finished good and that he requests that we keep his finished goods for a certain period of time, this is a mutual understanding they have between both parties.

I understand the idea of copying data to a separate table, this could well be our final solution, but it will not be applicable to our WMS Intouch (Collect for GP from Accellos). They don't have much customization that can be built in, you kind of have to get them to build it for you... So I'll probably have to build an app that will give us this type of functionality, unless you know of a way to bill customers without fulfilling the ORDER or Invoice?

Thanks for your time Frank,

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

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Jason, I can't think of a viable way to do what you need to do without a customization of some sort, or some convoluted business process. How many transactions a day are we talking about?

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Jason Chung 1,110 on at

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Frank, We deal between 250-300 shipments per month. A customization is surely the route I will take on this one.

Thanks for your time,

Jason Chung

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davidf. on at

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I haven't thought this completely through, but in GP you have two types of Sales Transactions. Receivables Management Invoicing and the Sales Order Processing ( Quotes/Orders/Invoice/Returns ).

The RM Invoicing isn't tied to Inventory, it's basically charging the customer some money that you hope to collect. ( I'm speaking in REALLY BROAD generalities here... )

So, what if you "pre-bill" using a RM Invoice ( Transactions>Sales>Transaction Entry ) for the order total. This will set up the receivable on the Customers' account. The Customer can pay off this invoice. Then in Sales Order Processing, you can use the fulfillment process the way it's supposed to work and when you generate and post the actual SOP Invoice, you can just enter a RM Transaction to credit that back to the customer.

Yes, it's a little more work, but you wouldn't have to pay for a customization that would do essentially the same thing.

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Jason Chung 1,110 on at

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Hi David,

I am not familiar with the RM invoicing, nor am I certain of how the credit will work out on the customer's end. You seem to mention that this RM invoice will update the customer's account balance, so this is good.

I will have to test all of that out and see how it pans out. I will let you know.

Thanks for the help,

Jason

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davidf. on at

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J2308.sales-trx.jpg"/resized-image.ashx/__size/550x0/__key/CommunityServer-Discussions-Components-Files/32/8540.RM-Trx.jpg" border="0" />

And here's the Sales Transaction Entry ( SOP ) screen.

So the steps I would take are:

Create a SOP Order with the products your customer wants to purchase. Note the total dollar amount on that order and the Purchase Order number.

Create a RM Invoice to the customer and enter the dollar amount from the SOP Order and use the same Purchase Order number from the SOP Order. Send this Invoice to the Customer. When this Invoice is posted, it will show on the Customer's account balance.

When the SOP order is actually fulfilled and shipped, transfer it to a SOP Invoice and post that Invoice. This will also add to the Customer's account balance. But DON'T send this invoice to the customer.

Immediately after posting the SOP Invoice, go back to RM Transaction entry and create a Credit Memo to the Customer with the exact dollar amount from the SOP Invoice you just posted. At the bottom of the RM Transaction screen is an "Apply" button. Click that and apply the credit to the SOP Invoice you just posted. That way the Customer just owes the original RM invoice and your Accounts Receivables will stay clean.

Use the Purchase Order field to tie everything together for audit and reporting purposes.

Is that a little more clear? To me, this would be the cleanest, most cost effective way of accomplishing your goal. It uses native GP functionality and provides a good clear audit trail of what's happened. Depending on the number of transactions you do, you could get a little creative with Integration Manager and generate the RM Credit memos based on the SOP Invoices posted to cut down on manual entry.

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Dale Coulthard 3,055 on at

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I really apologize for jumping into this conversation with a question not pertaining to Jason's issue. My question is on packing slip and is directed towards Microsoft. The packing slip report is only available in SOP in an unposted status. Once you post the invoice, the packing slip is not available to be printed. We ship internationally, and for some reason, the packing slip is a document that gets lost in the shuffle by our customers and by the freight forwarders. This is a critical document for our customers to clear the goods. Is Microsoft working to add the packing slip so it can be printed from historical/open invoices (ie, Sales Transaction Inquiry Zoom window) that ran through SOP? We currently manually recreate them in Word since it is not available. At Convergence, a Microsoft rep at the GP Expo center was surprised when I asked her about this because she did not realize it was not available for printing, so my assumption is that Microsoft does not have this on the list of enhancements or additional reports (I added this request to Microsoft Connect a while back).

Again, sorry for hijacking this discussion. Back to Jason's issue...could the Extender product help here?

Best regards,

Dale

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