You, Me and Dynamics GP
Dynamics GP 10 has a number of options to deal with deferral transactions, there is the appropriately named Revenue/Expense Deferrals module and the Contracts portion of Field Service can also handle deferrals. But what if you don't need all that functionality. What if you just need need a consistent way to deal with spreading that annual insurance payment over 12 months?
One option is to use recurring batches. In our insurance example above, the initial transaction would be a credit to AP and a debit to accrued expenses via the the AP module. After that, setup a recurring GL batch with a monthly frequency and a duration of 12. The transaction in this batch would credit accrued expenses and debit insurance expense for 1/12th of the total. I find it useful to date these transactions for the 15th of the month since that works regardless of whether you are using a month based on the calendar, 4-4-5, 5-4-4, 4-5-4 or some other month definition.
Use 1 batch per transaction. It's just cleaner over the long run since sometimes these transactions change. For example, if you change insurance companies mid year, you'll need to delete the recurring batch and you'll have the remaining accrued expenses to offset any refund. If you mix multiple transactions in a batch it's harder to keep everything straight.
I like to use either an underscore (_) or a z at the front of the batch name. This puts all the recurring batches at the top or bottom of the batch list respectively, making them easy to find.
Then once a month, post all your recurring batches and you're done. When the last recurring transaction from the allocation is posted, the batch deletes itself so you can't post beyond the end point. We all end up with allocation transactions sooner or later and now you've got a process to deal with them that doesn't require a lot of work.
One option is to use recurring batches. In our insurance example above, the initial transaction would be a credit to AP and a debit to accrued expenses via the the AP module. After that, setup a recurring GL batch with a monthly frequency and a duration of 12. The transaction in this batch would credit accrued expenses and debit insurance expense for 1/12th of the total. I find it useful to date these transactions for the 15th of the month since that works regardless of whether you are using a month based on the calendar, 4-4-5, 5-4-4, 4-5-4 or some other month definition.
Use 1 batch per transaction. It's just cleaner over the long run since sometimes these transactions change. For example, if you change insurance companies mid year, you'll need to delete the recurring batch and you'll have the remaining accrued expenses to offset any refund. If you mix multiple transactions in a batch it's harder to keep everything straight.
I like to use either an underscore (_) or a z at the front of the batch name. This puts all the recurring batches at the top or bottom of the batch list respectively, making them easy to find.
Then once a month, post all your recurring batches and you're done. When the last recurring transaction from the allocation is posted, the batch deletes itself so you can't post beyond the end point. We all end up with allocation transactions sooner or later and now you've got a process to deal with them that doesn't require a lot of work.
