Dynamics 365 Business Central

Dynamics 365 Business Central – How to use the “Recurring Requisition Worksheet” for Recurring Purchase Orders

Gavin WhittakerLeave a comment

Introduction

There might be times when you need to place Purchase Orders for the same items or services over several weeks or months in Business Central.

There’s a couple of ways you might achieve this, however in this post we’ll look at how the “Recurring Requisition Worksheet” can assist in the process.

First lets look at the Requisition Worksheet

Anyone who uses Business Central for planning will likely be well versed with the “Requisition Worksheet”.

The “Requisition Worksheet” is a fantastic planning tool that helps in managing and automating the purchasing process.

By running the “Calculate Plan” function in the Requisition Worksheet, Business Central will suggest items to order according to your item settings and other parameters.

You can then review and adjust these suggestions before clicking “Carry Out Action Message,” which generates the appropriate Purchase Orders and removes the items from the Requisition Worksheet.

However, it’s important to note that last part. The “Requisition Worksheet” removes the items once the Purchase Orders are generated.

If you wish to retain the lines for ongoing reordering, this is where the “Recurring Requisition Worksheet” proves to be particularly useful.

The Recurring Requisition Worksheet

So what is the “Recurring Requisition Worksheet”? Well its very similar to the “Requisition Worksheet” but when you click “Carry out action messages” to create the Purchase Order the worksheet lines remain.

Please note another difference is you can only use the “Replenishment System” of “Purchase” in the recurring requisition worksheet whereas in the “Requisition Worksheet” it can suggest other replenishment options such as transferring or assembling Items. However this is fine as this blog is focusing on Purchase Orders 😊.

Now, let’s take a close look at the “Recurring Requisition Worksheet”.

First, search for “Requisition Worksheet Template” to set up a “Recurring” requisition worksheet as shown below.

Next search “Recurring Requisition Worksheet” and you will open the “DEFAULT” worksheet in the Recurring Requisition Worksheet page.

Note, I could have clicked “Requisition Worksheet Names” in the Template page above and created multiple Worksheets in the RECURRING template rather than using the DEFAULT one

Now I can add my Purchase Order lines which I want to order regularly along with a “Recurring Method” and “Recurring Frequency” etc.

For example below I want to order 10 x Athens Desks every month from Vendor 30000.

I can now click “Carry Out Action Messages” to create the Purchase Order, and unlike the standard “Requisition Worksheet,” the lines remain in the worksheet. Additionally, the “Order Date” is updated according to the “Recurring Frequency,” which is set to one month in this instance.

I now have the following Purchase Order for my Athens Desks

And the lines have remaining the recurring requisition worksheet and “Order Date” on the line has been updated by one month.

Now, when I’m ready to order those desks again, I can just jump into the “Recurring Requisition Worksheet” and click “Carry out Action Message”.

I could have also set the “Recurring Method” to “Variable” so after creating my Purchase Order the quantity is changed to 0.

Conclusion

This blog shows how you can use the “Recurring Requisition Worksheet” to help with scenarios where the same items or services are ordered every month.

This can prove a real time saver if you make regular purchases for certain items or services each month.

Thanks for reading!

This is a great Inventory management tool, that potentially reduces stock-outs while ensuring you aren’t carrying too much stock.

Dynamics 365 Business Central – A Closer look at the Free “Internal Administrator” and “Dynamics 365 Administrator” Licences

Gavin WhittakerLeave a comment

Introduction

The most common Business Central licences are the Premium, Essentials and Team Member licences. These are the paid subscription licences that are manually assigned to users so they can work and process data in Business Central.

However there are also lots of other less common licences for Business Central which can be automatically assigned to users with certain roles in your Microsoft 365 tenant, two of which are the free “Internal Administrator” and “Dynamics 365 Administrator” licences.

In this post we’ll take a look at what these licence types are, how they are assigned, and why they are useful.

Licence Configuration

To view all the different licence types in Business Central you can go to the “Licence Configuration” page in Business Central. Below is a screen shot of this page showing all the different licence types.

Its unlikely you’ll see the majority of these in your Business Central environment, however I want to focus on a couple which are more common, and enable users who don’t have a paid subscription licence to Business Central to perform some very important tasks.

If you have a partner its likely you’ll see the “Delegated Admin agent – Partner” or “Delegated Helpdesk Agent – Partner” licence assigned to your partners users 😊

The “Internal Administrator” Licence

In the list of Licences above we can see the “Internal Administrator” licence. This is automatically assigned to anyone who is a “Global Administrator” in your Microsoft 365 Tenant when they click the URL to access Business Central.

For example here in my demo tenant I have a user called “Global Admin” who has been assigned the Role of “Global Administrator”

However they haven’t been assigned a Business Central licence

However when they have subsequently accessed the Business Central tenant via the URL they have been automatically created as a User in Business Central and assigned the “Internal Administrator” licence.

This is a free licence that gives the user the ability to do limited tasks such as manage users and create/assign permissions to users etc. (they also have read-only access to all areas of Business Central)

This is great as I don’t have to pay for a licence for an IT Administrator to do security related tasks in Business Central 😊

The Dynamics 365 Administrator Licence

The “Dynamics 365 Administrator” licence is automatically assigned to anyone who is a member of the “Dynamics 365 Administrator” role in your Microsoft tenant when they access Business Central.

For example in my demo tenant I have a user who has been assigned the “Dynamics 365 Administrator” role in my Microsoft tenant.

Again this user hasn’t been assigned a Business Central Licence:

However when they clicked the URL to access Business Central they were automatically created as User in Business Central and assigned the “Dynamics 365 Administrator” licence:

Again this gives them the ability to perform limited tasks such as managing users, assigning users permissions and creating new permission sets etc.

Its important to note that you clicking the option “Update users from Microsoft 365” on the “Users” page in Business Central won’t automatically pull these users in Business Central. Users with the roles “Global Administrator” and “Dynamics 365 Administrator” have to click the URL to access Business Central and they are then automatically created and granted the licence.

Conclusion

As we have seen administrators of the Microsoft tenant get some access to Business Central for administrative tasks. This is an amazing feature because it allows us to avoid paying for additional licenses for IT administrators while enabling them to take on administrative responsibilities for Business Central including assigning permissions and creating permissions sets.

As an additional bonus this also enhances the segregation of duties within our accounting system as we can remove administration permissions from all the day-to-day users of Business Central 😊 .

Thanks for reading!

Dynamics GP to Business Central – How to Control your General Ledger Code and Dimension Combinations using Allowed Values Filter

Gavin WhittakerLeave a comment

Introduction

Due to the design of the General Ledger Account structure in Dynamics GP, its easy to control the General Ledger and Dimension combinations you want to use in transactions.

This is because the General Ledger code itself includes the Segment and Nominal code. Therefore if you don’t want a certain segment to be used with a Nominal code, you simply don’t create that General Ledger Code.

However when you migrate to Business Central those segments become “Dimensions” and are by default available to select with any General Ledger code.

In this post I’ll go through how you can enable the same control in Business Central using the “Allowed Value Filter” option when creating your General Ledger accounts.

How it works in Dynamics GP

Let’s say we have a segment for “Cost Centre” in Dynamics GP, and one of those cost centres is 500 for “Research and Development”. If we want to ensure that only the relevant expense codes are used with that Cost Centre, we simply don’t create those General Ledger Code combinations.

For example, I have an expense code for “Office Supplies” of 31010, therefore I don’t create the General Ledger Code 500-31010 in my Chart of Accounts.

However, I also have other Cost Centres for Sales (100), HR (200), IT (300) etc which I would create the relevant General Ledger Codes. For example I’d create the General Ledger code 300-31010 to record my Office Supplies for the IT cost centre.

This is a nice easy way to control postings and ensure incorrect entries aren’t posted.

The Business Central Approach

When you migrate to Business Central, your General Ledger (GL) accounts are consolidated based on the nominal code. For example, General Ledger codes such as 100-31010, 200-31010 and 300-31010 are merged into a single GL code, 31010. The Cost Centre then becomes a Dimension.

In my opinion, this a much better way to manage the General Ledger accounts, as it consolidates my chart of accounts, and I no longer have to create multiple General Ledger accounts every time I introduce a new Cost Centre like I would have to Dynamics GP 😊

However the question now is, how can I control which Cost Centres I can use with my General Ledger Codes in Business Central?

Blocking Dimension Values by General Ledger code

The solution to this issue is the “Allowed Values Filter” to limit the Dimension Values allowed on your General Ledger Account Card.

To do this open your General Ledger Account card and click “Account > Dimensions”.

Next choose the relevant Dimension, in this case “Cost Centre”, and click to select the “Allowed Values Filter”.

This only works if you select “Code Mandatory” for the posting which is usually ok for Dynamics GP migrations

Now I can untick the Cost Centres I don’t want to be used with this General Ledger code.

Conclusion

In this post I’ve shown how by leveraging the “Allowed Values Filter” in Business Central, you can maintain the same level of control over General Ledger and Dimension combinations as in Dynamics GP, ensuring only valid Cost Centres are used with specific General Ledger codes 😊.

Thanks for reading!