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How to identify project adjustment transactions already posted?

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Posted on by howalker

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Using AX 2012 R2 CU7:

Question: Is there a way I can systematically identify project adjustment transactions that have already been posted?

Background: In certain situations I have to adjust a project invoice proposal before the final invoice is generated. I don't want my end customer to see on their invoice the negative line being corrected, and the positive line taking its place. I will exclude those lines from the final invoice. That means I will have left over positive and negative transaction lines sitting in AX I will have to deal with, else they will keep showing up every time I generate project invoice proposals. I am considering having a business process that I use either every month or quarter in which I identify all the project adjustments that have occurred, and then dump them in to a project invoice so I can clear them out, process them like AX is designed to process them, and prevent them from being included in future project invoice proposals. Is there a way to identify these project adjustments? I don't see any config that can influence the journal name or voucher number. I don't see any system flag or checkbox anywhere that I can reliably use for a report or a query. Is there one I haven't seen?

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David Massey on at

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RE: How to identify project adjustment transactions already posted?

As a short term solution, you can change the business process. Send out the document for verification after creation, but prior to submitting to workflow. This way the document should still be editable.
David Massey on at

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RE: How to identify project adjustment transactions already posted?

The remove button should be enabled after clicking edit. This may be a bug in the version you have. Please contact MS Support.
howalker 1,210 on at

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RE: How to identify project adjustment transactions already posted?

After the invoice proposal is rejected, the invoice proposal cannot be edited. The edit button is active and can be clicked, but the Remove button is grayed out. The offending line cannot be changed. You can view the details, but you cannot change them. As I posted above, once this invoice proposal is rejected, it cannot be changed. Clearly this is not what you expect, correct?
David Massey on at

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RE: How to identify project adjustment transactions already posted?

After rejecting the Invoice proposal workflow.

1. Edit the proposal so that the incorrect transaction is removed (remove button in the transaction grid).

2. Now go to the transaction and make the require adjustments to it.

3. Open the invoice proposal which was rejected.

4. Click the add button in the transactions grid. You should see the adjusted transactions and any other transactions valid to be added to this invoice proposal.

5. After adding the corrected transaction(s) to the invoice proposal.

6. Resubmit to workflow
howalker 1,210 on at

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RE: How to identify project adjustment transactions already posted?

I sat down this afternoon and went back through these recommendations. I did some experiments in the test system. In your bullet #2, I don't understand "Update the invoice proposal and resubmit to workflow." Once the project invoice proposal has been submitted to workflow, I can't change it, unless I use the adjust transaction function. Is your expectation that I can?

Detailed examples I performed:
(Example 1) In the project accounting parameters, in the general grouping, I turned on the Allow Adjustment of Transaction Status check boxes for Posted, and Invoiced. The Invoice Proposal, Estimated, and Eliminated check boxes were turned off. Given these settings, I created a timesheet for the project, submitted it to workflow, approved it, and posted it. I created a project invoice proposal for that timesheet transaction. I submitted it to workflow. I accepted the workflow in to my queue and then rejected it. I called up the invoice proposal. I was not able to adjust the invoice proposal in any way given these settings. Now this invoice proposal is stranded. I can't do anything with it. I cannot change it because all the fields are uneditable. I cannot resubmit it to workflow because the workflow button does not give me that option. If I go in to the workflow history and click resume, I just get a "workflow stopped (error)" message. Nothing else happens.

(Example 2) In the project accounting parameters, in the general grouping, I have the Allow Adjustment of Transaction Status check boxes turned on for Posted, Invoice Proposal, and Invoiced. The check boxes for Estimated and Eliminated were turned off. I created a second timesheet, submitted it, approved it, posted it. I created a project invoice proposal for that timesheet transaction. I submitted it to workflow. I accepted the workflow in to my queue and then rejected it. I called up the invoice proposal. The only way I could alter this invoice proposal was to use the Adjust Transactions function. None of the fields were editable unless I used the Adjust Transaction function.

In summary, these two examples leave me with orphaned, stranded project invoice proposals.
David Massey on at

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RE: How to identify project adjustment transactions already posted?

I agree with the statements you have provided and the business processes having been implemented.

Some additional things to consider would be:

1. It is not discussed here but, timesheet have their own workflows and project managers can be setup as part of the approval process. This may help catch the wrong categories being used earlier in the process.

2. Instead of adjusting the transaction while the workflow is active. Reject the workflow. Update the invoice proposal and resubmit to workflow. This will allow you to adjust the transaction without the impact of the negative transaction which needs to be include on an invoice. (This allow for the parameter adjust - invoice proposal to be turned off)

Adding project/category, worker/category or worker/project validations will slow the system down. If possible, I would suggest minimizing which set(s) of validation settings your use.

How you setup the validation in the parameters form has an impact on its behavior. Lookup - Will filter the lookup list in the forms, but allows for typing in a value not part of the validation list.

Mandatory - The lookup and data entry are forced to be one of the values in the validation list.
howalker 1,210 on at

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RE: How to identify project adjustment transactions already posted?

The go-live was this past November 1, 2015. The business is a consulting organization. Their AX timesheets provide the foundation for the project invoice proposals. Prior to migrating to AX, the business had a problem with incorrect choices being made on the time sheets, or incorrect rates being used. This resulted in incorrect invoices going to customers, and customers were justifiably irritated. Reviewing project invoice proposals for correct categories (and therefore rates) prior to final invoicing is now a mandatory part of the business process.

Summary of the process: Accounting generates project invoice proposals > Accounting submit them to workflow > workflow then emails the project invoice proposal PDFs to project managers for review > project manager reviews > project manager emails the invoice proposal to accounting and says "approved for final billing" or "Please fix 'X' and re-generate." Therefore by the time accounting gets the invoice proposals back from project managers, the use of workflow has locked the invoice proposal such that using the adjustment process is now required.

Given that this business is a consulting organization billable hours are important, as is minimizing non-billable hours. Therefore it is better (in my view) to reverse out a transaction that has the wrong category and/or wrong rate and replace it with a correct one rather than marking the wrong one as non-billable. That would impact the consultants' utilization/efficiency metrics. Many of these problem stem from consultants changing the project categories on timesheets in spite of them being told clearly, emphatically and repeatedly "Do not change the category with one exception." Now category validation is being considered, but that would interfere with one scenario where it would be necessary to change the category.
David Massey on at

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RE: How to identify project adjustment transactions already posted?

The parameters should only allow adjustments for posted transactions. Turn off adjustments for Estimated, Eliminated, Invoice Proposal or Invoice. Businesses which are using good auditing and workflow processes seldom would need to adjust a transaction in any of these states. Adjustments in these later state require special handling within the system. One of which is the negative transaction needing to be processed on the invoice to clear the original amount.

You are correct in that if you remove the transaction and do not make any changes to it, it will appear on the next invoice proposal. That is expected behavior as you may want to remove a transaction due to discussions with the customer about whether they will pay for the work performed. If it has been determine to be an uncollectable transaction, it will need to be adjusted to have a line property type of Non-Billable.

Not include in in the previous message was information on why the transaction is incorrect? If it is just the sales price, this can be edited in the invoice proposal. An exception to this ability is Fee transactions which can not be adjusted in the invoice proposal.
howalker 1,210 on at

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RE: How to identify project adjustment transactions already posted?

Thanks for your quick reply.

Regarding your first paragraph, I will need to test this recommendation. It seems to me that if I remove the erroneous transaction line from the project invoice proposal and do not include it on a posted invoice, the next time I create another project invoice proposal, that erroneous line will simply show up again.

Regarding your second paragraph, I don't quite follow. If I change a parameter setting to allow adjustments of ONLY posted transactions (meaning posted project invoices), then this sounds like I would have to push my project invoice proposal through the process all the way to posted status. Is this what you mean?
David Massey on at

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RE: How to identify project adjustment transactions already posted?

In this scenario, remove the transaction from the current invoice proposal before adjusting the transaction. Adjust the transaction and add the corrected transaction to the invoice proposal. The original and adjustment will not show up as transactions needing to be invoiced.

Unless you have a pressing business requirement, I would suggest changing the project management and accounting parameter settings to only allowing adjustment of posted transactions. This eliminates the need for clearing out the negative transactions as they are automatically handled by the system.