Summit Group Software Blog

Yes, the 941 form is changing AGAIN (and AGAIN after this).  If you print the 941 form out of Microsoft Dynamics GP (onto the pre-printed government form), you may notice that the form has changed, effective for the Q1 2010 filing (which is due the end of April, 2010).  If you have not done so already, you will need to load the latest Microsoft Dynamics GP service Pack in order to have these changes update the printing of the 941 form.   The links to the service pack and its instructions are listed below:

Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0:

https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersource/downloads/taxupdates/usgptu10.htm?printpage=false

  

Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0:

https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersource/downloads/taxupdates/usgptu9.htm?printpage=false

 

If you choose to install this service pack, IT WILL NEED TO BE INSTALLED ON EVERY SINGLE WORKSTATION RUNNING MICROSOFT DYNAMICS GP.  After installation, the version will read 10.00.1424 for version 10 or 9.00.0375  for version 9.

In addition to the changes to the 941 for Q1, there will be additional changes in Q2, 2010.  There are also a couple of employer credits that the system will need to track.  Microsoft will be releasing the Service Pack for the Q2 changes in mid June.  Again, this service pack will need to be installed on every single workstation running Microsoft Dynamics GP.

If you typically fill out the 941 form “manually” (and do not print it out from GP), you may be able to skip the installation of the Q1 service pack altogether.  For the Q2 changes, however, it may benefit you to apply this service pack, since it is actually tracking new information.  The information on the Q2 changes is listed below:

2010 U.S. Payroll Tax Update for Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0 and 10.0

Microsoft will release a mid-year tax update in June 2010 that will comply to the recent Hire Act changes required for Quarter 2 reporting.  This will be supported for the following versions: Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0, 10.0, GP 2010, and SBF 9.0.

The following items are anticipated changes:

1.  There will be a data model change on the Payroll Tax Information Master (UPR00300) to add a checkbox to mark an employee qualified.

2.  The 941 quarter end report will be modified to comply with the Q2 reporting and will include the changes needed to apply the payment for qualified employees from Q1.

3.  Another impact of this change is the W2 and W3 forms.  These changes will be released in the 2010 year end update later this fall.

Link to the IRS website regarding the changes:
http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=220326,00.html

I correspond with a gentleman from a company called Software Advice from time to time.  His company recently did a survey on strategies used in implementing ERP solutions.

This is a good blog article that highlights the different strategies available, and how many companies choose those strategies, along with their success ratings.

It’s worth a look if you are thinking of implementing or changing your Enterprise Resource Planning, or any sort of technical/software-based change.

http://www.softwareadvice.com/articles/manufacturing/erp-implementation-strategies-1031101/

*Note:  Before performing ANY of the following, please ensure you have a good Database Backup!

On occasion, we have had customers whose payroll print and post checks process bombs.  More often than not this is due to a corrupt Reports.dic.

From the front end of Microsoft Dynamics GP 10, it is difficult (if not impossible) to get the interrupted posting cleaned up, because there are so many things that may or may not have hit the various UPR tables.  Here is a way you can correct this from MS SQL:

1. Take a backup of the Company Database– take note of Vacation Information so that you may be able to return this to where it needed to be after performing all of these steps.

2.  Recreate the Reports.dic (if this is what appears to be causing the problem… you will know this if your Payroll Batch bombs every time it gets to the posting state and reports won’t print out of the system)

3.  Remove all of the Work information with the following delete statements:

Delete UPR10200

Delete UPR10201

Delete UPR10202

Delete UPR10203

Delete UPR10204

Delete UPR10205

Delete UPR10206

Delete UPR10207

Delete UPR10208

Delete UPR10209

Delete UPR10213

Delete UPR10301

Delete UPR19900

Delete UPR19901

(Note, our payroll batch was no longer in the “posting mode” but it also did nothing to print out the gl posting reports.) 

To correct all of the “jumbled mess” in the UPR tables and the Checkbook Register:

1.  Find the audit trails of the pay run that bombed  (In our example we’ll use the following:  UPRCC00001144).

 2.  Run the following MS SQL statements individually against the Dynamics GP company database (the select statement is there so you can see if there is data in that table that relates to the failed pay run):   

select * from dd30100 where auctrlcd=’UPRCC00001144′

delete dd30100 where auctrlcd=’UPRCC00001144′

select * from upr30100 where auctrlcd=’UPRCC00001144′

delete upr30100 where auctrlcd=’UPRCC00001144′

select * from upr30200 where auctrlcd=’UPRCC00001144′

delete upr30200 where auctrlcd=’UPRCC00001144′

select * from upr30300 where auctrlcd=’UPRCC00001144′

delete upr30300 where auctrlcd=’UPRCC00001144′

select * from upr30400 where auctrlcd=’UPRCC00001144′

delete upr30400 where auctrlcd=’UPRCC00001144′

select * from upr30401 where auctrlcd=’UPRCC00001144′

delete upr30401 where auctrlcd=’UPRCC00001144′

 

After running these scripts run Reconcile on all of the Employees with GP Tools>Utilities>Payroll>Reconcile

Check the Employee Summary to see if everything looks ok (as it would have been prior to running this pay run)

Rebuild the batch and going through check printing again. 

You will also need to take steps to correct any Checks that have hit the Bank Rec module.

 

For 2009, there have been very few form changes to the w-2.  This is great news for Dynamics GP users!

Below are the detail changes around 2009 year end for payroll.  If you are affected by these changes, then you should install the latest GP update.

• 1099-R - New Distribution Code U, for distributions under IRC 404(k), has been added
• 1099-R - Distribution Codes B and U are a valid combination. (not required to be used together)
  • Add country code Kosovo - KV
    • Add country code St Barthelemy - TB
    • Add country code St Martin – RN
      • Updated country code Serbia, changed from RB to RI

When creating Microsoft Dynamics GP users, there is an option to utilize Advanced SQL Server Options, which include:

• Enforce Password Policy
• Enforce Password Expiration
• Change Password Next Login

How does SQL know what Password Policy to set and Enforce Password Expiration? 

The Policy comes from the Local SQL Machine’s Windows Policy. 

How can you verify the settings of the Local Windows Policy?

Type secpol.msc from Start>Run.  This opens the Local Security Settings.  Go to Security Settings>Account Policies>Password Policy.  This is where you will find password policies that will be applied if utilizing Advanced SQL Server Options.

If you are having issues with Microsoft Dynamics GP user logins, KnowledgeBase article #919345 has some great information as well.

The question has been raised:

Does the Dynamics GP W-2 Electronic File format conform to individual State format requirements?

The answer:

The Dynamics GP W-2 Electronic File conforms to Federal filing requirements only.  BUT… if you check with your State, ask them if they will accept the Federal Filing Format.  If they will, then the answer is YES!

This may be somewhat technical, but for those of you who utilize Excel quite heavily and are adept at using Microsoft Query to create refreshable reports/lists, you may want to utilize a Stored Procedure that has already been created in Microsoft SQL.

A Stored Procedure is a group of SQL commands that runs to produce some valued output.  For instance there are Stored Procedures that can put information from the Payables Open Tables together with the Payables History Tables to give you a listing of all of the outstanding payables as of a certain point in time.  We routinely refer to this as a Payables Historical Aged Trial Balance.

There may be times where you want to utilize a Stored Procedure that has already been written and return that information to Excel.  Most times, there are also PARAMETERS that need to be included so that the Stored Procedure will return just the set of data you actually want.

In this example we have a Stored Procedure that compiles Payables info based upon a certain point in time– let’s call it SP_PM_AGED_HISTORY (and it already exists within our SQL database).  The trick is, we also need to be able to identify the DATE in for when we want the procedure to run, because without this important piece of data, the Stored Procedure will NOT run.  This is called a PARAMETER.

Utilizing Microsoft Query we can do the following:

1. Open the SQL View
2. {CALL <storedprocedurename>(?)}  In our example it would look like this: {CALL  SP_PM_AGED_HISTORY (?)}
3. Put the Date in the Parameter that pops up in the following format– MM/DD/YYYY
4. Save the Query and return the results to Excel
5. When you refresh the data, it will prompt you for the Parameter, and you can put in whatever you want for the date.

Have you heard?  Multidimensional Amalysis (MDA) is going away.  Well, this is only PARTIALLY true.

For Dynamics GP Customers that already own MDA, they will be able to continue using it even with future releases and upgrades!

However, NEW CUSTOMERS to Dynamics GP, starting with Version 10, will NOT have access to MDA.  They will utilize Analytical Accounting.

If you would like the simplicity that MDA offers, we can DEFINITELY create something with eXtender to mimic the MDA functionality!

What in the world is MDA?  In a nutshell, MDA gives the user the ability to post to GL accounts, but then to further categorize that posting. 

For example, let’s say you have a GL account called Vehicle Expense (5100).  Every time you post something to Vehicle Expense, you ALSO want to track for which specific vehicle in your fleet the expense was incurred.  Now instead of adding more GL accounts (5100-001 for Vehicle 1, 5100-002 for Vehicle 2, etc..), you can set up an MDA Analysis Group called “Vehicles”, and affiliate that group with the GL 5100 account.  Then, you can add all of your Vehicles as Analysis Codes under the Vehicle Analysis Group.  When you post to the GL 5100 account, you will then have the opportunity to open another window, and allocate that expense to a Vehicle or Vehicles.

Sometimes, the task of adding Master Records into Microsoft Dynamics GP may seem time-consuming.

There are numerous ways you can load data into GP but most are either time consuming (hand-keying it in) or require licensing a product such as Integration Manager or some other software tool.  A commonly overlooked option is using a pre-recorded Macro. 

The ability to record and play a Macro within Microsoft Dynamics GP costs nothing extra, and needs no additional installation of software.  If you know how to formulate a Mail Merge within Microsoft Word, you’ll definitely be able to accomplish this!

To summarize the task of integrating data via a Macro:

1.  Have the information/records you want to pull into Microsoft Dynamics GP placed in an Excel file (or some sort of delimited *.txt file).

2.  Record the steps of the Macro within Microsoft Dynamics GP (from the Tools>Macro>Record menu within the window you wish to populate data).  This will create a *.mac file.  Don’t forget to STOP the recording.

3.  Open the *.mac file and copy everything but the 1st 2 lines to Microsoft Word.

4.  Utilize Microsoft Word Mail Merge to create the master template.  Use the Excel file that contains your data as the Data Source for the Mail Merge.  Run the Mail Merge, and copy the text back into the Macro file and play it in Microsoft Dynamics GP.

**Since every Macro is potentially different (depending upon the info you want to bring into Microsoft Dynamics GP), feel free to email us for more details on your specific needs– support@summitgroupsoftware.com.

Think of other ways you can utilize Macros to speed data entry or repetitive tasks!

Have you ever wondered why Microsoft Dynamics GP is taking a long time to log in, or it takes forever for a particular window to come up, or your posting process appears to “hang”?

Well, there is a way that you can potentially find the answer through Microsoft SQL Server. 

1.  Log into Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio.

2.  Select either the Company Database or the Dynamics Database (you may need to check both).

3.  Select New Query.

4.  Type SP_WHO2 and run the query.

5.  Look for anything in the BlkBy column.  If you find a row that has something in this column, that is potentially where the problem lies.

6.  Note the Number that is in the BlkBy column, and look in the SPID column for that specific number you found in Step 5.  For instance, if the BlkBy column only has one row with something in it, and it is the number “20″, find “20″ in the SPID column. 

7.  Review the row of data that you found in step 6.  This is the process that could be causing the problem. 

8.  For further assistance in resolving these issues contact your Microsoft Dynamics Partner!