MB-310 Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Journal names and Journal control

1. 14. Journal names

Welcome back everyone. Our discussion topic in this video is Journal Names. Firstly. Why journal names? So every time that we are creating the journals we are selecting the Journal name firstly and then we are going into the lines, right? Let us understand why do we need need the Journal names? Firstly, through Journal Names we can enable the approval process. So there are two approval processes that we can enable usually. So one is the workflow approval process and the other one is a normal approval process that I will show you, like what is the difference between both of them, but for now you can think about them as we enable the approval process for Journal names.

And typically in the business, what happens is some transactions that are posted through the journals might require the approval while some other transactions may not need any approval. So we can take an example like the travel expenses may need the approval and the business doesn’t need any approval for the purchase expenses. Then what we do is we create two Journal names, one for travel expenses and the other one for purchasing expenses and we enable the workflow approval for only travel expenses but not for the purchasing expenses.

So that way you will need the Journal Names to enable the approval process. Okay, so we look at the approval process as we go forward and secondly we use the Journal names to populate some default values. So what happens is that when the user selects the Journal name we can automatically populate some information on the Journal Voucher. So that way he doesn’t need to enter a lot of information and as the information that is entered by the user becomes less, the chances of data entry mistakes may also become less, right? And of course the process gets faster. Then you’ll also be able to control what account types and what dimensions to be used in the Journal name. So we already looked at the accounting structures, right? So through accounting structures we define what dimension values can be selected by the user.

So based on the business unit that is selected, we restrict or we control what departments or what cost centers should be available for the user, right? So on top of it, through Journal Names also we can control these dimension values. And next, typically in the business you will use different Journal names for different purposes. As I was mentioning, your travel expenses can be entered through one particular Journal name and your purchase expenses can be entered through another Journal name. So this way you will have even different Voucher sequence.

So with Voucher sequence you will be able to easily determine what the particular transaction is when you are looking at the trial balance and when you are looking at the particular transaction that is posted in your main accounts. Okay, so we are going to see all of them right now in the system so that you will be in a better position to create the journal names based on the business requirements.

Okay, so let us get back to the system. Now, to access the journal names, you will have to go to general ledger module here, general ledger. And you will have to go to this journal setup. Journal names. So as we are in the journal names form now, we are seeing all the journal names that are available in the USMF company in our demo data, right? So as I discussed in some other videos, you will be referring to your demo data USMF company. While you’re configuring a lot of things for your implementation, I will give you a live example in this video, like how can demo data help you in times where you are in a question? Like how do I create this particular data? Right? So let us keep it aside and let us start knowing the journal names in detail now, right? So firstly, let us examine the journal name that we have for our general journals, right? So I am duplicating this tab. So I want to go to that journals and if you remember, sorry, let me directly take you to the general journals so that we talk about them. So I’m trying to search for my general journals. I go here and this is the journal name that we have been using, right? So let us examine this particular journal name now. So I’m coming here and I’m trying to filter my journal name so I have here. Okay, so first and foremost, when you are creating the journal name, you have to select the journal type here.

So the journal type determines where exactly this journal name should be available. Okay? So if you select the journal type as dialy and that is where your journal name will come in the general journals, okay? Otherwise it doesn’t show up in your general journals. Fine? So based on the journal type that you select, the journal name will appear in that particular journal.

Fine? Now let us review what are the different settings that we have here. So not that we are reviewing everything right away, but the majority of the fields that we will be covering now, okay, let us look at this approval here. You see here, currently this is set to not activate it, right? So it is inactive. Now that means when users select this particular journal name, it doesn’t require any approval before they be able to post it, correct? In case if the business requires that the journal that users create that must get approved before that can be posted, then I will enable this particular flag here. So by enabling this flag, I will let the system know that, yes, this particular journal name requires approval, which means anybody who creates the transactions.

So firstly they will have to get it approved and only then they’ll be able to post it. All right? And similarly, as I was mentioning, when I was showing you the PPT, you can have some other fields defaulted and one of those fields is this offset account, right? So let us take one example. Now we will create a new journal name and see how these settings will affect us, right? So I will create a new journal name and I call that as TRV expense. So this is intended for travel expenses. So that is what we mean. And the important thing when you’re creating the journal name is your Voucher series. Voucher series is something that determines what should be your Voucher number. Okay, so let us create a Voucher number as well. By this time I believe that you already watched the number sequences video and you are comfortable with number sequence creation.

Okay, I’m creating a new watch or sequence and I call this as TRV sequence used for travel expenses and the scope should be company and what are the segments that we want? I just need one constant that says TRV and I don’t really need the company. This is good enough. And always you have to take the number sequence that has the continuous selected, okay? And it is telling me that the scope is not fully defined. So what does that actually mean? So it is talking about the scope, right? So scope, when it talks about the scope, let us go to the scope and you can see here we define the scope as company, but we did not choose which company it is.

So I will select USMF and that means this number sequence can be used by USMF company now, right? And we have this and you already know what is the difference between selecting this as continuous and leaving it without continuous, right? So this is good, save it and done. So take this number sequence now and go to your Roger series. You’ll be able to certainly look for your Roger series here. When you try type this TRV, you will see your sequence. Okay, so select it and save it. Okay? So sometimes you will be getting the errors right? And it is equally important that you know what this error is talking about, right? So what is that talking about? So it tells me you cannot create a record in name of journal in this particular table with this particular name TRVE EXP. So why is it? Let us take a look at it. I am duplicating this again. So the reason behind this error is that there is already the journal name available with this particular name that we are trying and that is the reason it is telling me that the record already exists. Okay? So not only in this place, many places if you try to create a record and that record is already available in that particular table, you will get that error because that might be set to be a primary index, right?

So let us just change our journal name here a little bit I just put it as travel expenses like this. Okay, so we created our new journal name and let us go to our journals and see if our newly created journal name is available here I clicked new and let me look for the journal name. Yeah, you see here, this was the one that was already available with demo data and this is the one that we created. Now. So I’m selecting this travel expense journal name and go to the lines.

So let us wait for it to get opened, right? So you see this, you have this Voucher number, right? So this Voucher number is coming based on the number sequence that we defined in our journal name, correct? So that is how you can get the Voucher sequence based on the journal name that you selected. Okay. Now let us look at some more things now. So let us take this fixed offset account or else let us remove this for now and let us take an officer account here. All the travel expenses are paid through the paid cash account in our business, in the condosource business.

So that is what we are assuming as our requirement here where the business wants this Pedicache account be defaulted as an offset account whenever users choose the travel expense as their account. Okay? So in this case, let us try to create a new journal. Now I create a new journal and take the travel expense journal name and then go to the lines. So let us see how that Pedicure account will get defaulted now. Okay, so I select here the travel expense as my account. So click this, lookup. Okay, so the moment that you select the travel expense, you can see here already the offset account is defaulted. So that way you can have your offset account defaulted on your journals based on the journal name that is selected. Okay, so let us notice one thing here.

Currently we are in a position to change it. So as an end user I will be able to change it if in case I’ll have to select a different account here, right? For example, I want that to be paid through a different account. Okay, so I have an option to choose a different account here. But there is one option in your journal name that is fixed offset account. So when we say a fixed offset account, then what happens is the offset account that gets defaulted, that will be fixed and nobody will be able to change it. So let us just see that. I close this and I will have to create a new journal. Now because the setting is based on the journal name that is selected. So that is the reason the settings will be coming up right when we select that particular journal name.

So I select this travel expense and save this go to lines. So come down here and you see the offset account is already there and I will not be even able to change it. Okay, so you see here, it is telling me that 110140 is not valid for the journal. So that is what it is telling me, right? So that is because of the offset account configuration that we did in the journal name, because we said this is a fixed offset account, at the moment that we disable this, we will be able to choose that different account there. Okay, so if you want, you can also enter your travel expense account, go to your travel expense and choose your main account. Then so it is set to pedigash account and you try to change this and take some other account. So no matter what the account that you’re choosing here, you’re getting that message here, right? So that way system will stop you. So if in case I disable this fixed offset account and try doing the same thing, go to the journal name and choose your name and go to lines. So this time, so my officer account is not defaulted and I select the account, then it gets defaulted, right? So the moment that I selected my account, that is when it’s getting defaulted. In this case, however, I come here and try changing my account and choose any other account that is available. So let us take this, I know that this account is not really relevant for this case, but yeah, let us just take something, right, so I’m not getting any error, right?

So that is the difference with the fixed offset account, okay? So that way sometimes you will get some requirements where you would want the accounts to be defaulted and sometimes the accounts must be fixed. So you do not want to allow the users to change the offset account within the journal. Okay? So that is one of the settings that you can control here. And let us talk about this approval here. So there are two approvals. So one is approval workflow. So workflow is something that you can configure for your complex approval requirements, where based on the limit of the approval or based on the value of your journal and based on the account that is selected in the journal, you want to route that particular journal to different approvals.

So in such complex cases, you will be using the workflows. So we will see the workflows in our next video, but for now we will look at only this approval here. So this is the simple approval that you have only for the journals. And workflow is broadly used across the system where your purchase orders may need approvals and your vendor invoices that you get from your vendors that might need an approval before they get posted, right? So workflows are broadly used across the system in many places. So we will review the workflow approvals in the next video, but for now we will look at this approval here. So we said the users who select this journal name, they will have to firstly get this approved and only then they’ll be able to post it because we enabled this approval active, right? So you will have to also choose this approving user group here, like which users in the system should approve this journal, correct? Only then system knows that it should be approved by which users. Right? So how do you actually configure these user groups?

So what we do is let us go to system administration. Under system administration you have these users under which you have user groups. So in the user groups I can create a new user group and say that this is for user travel expense approvers. Okay? And we will include all the users who should be able to approve this particular journals, right? Then for time being, what I do is I will include only admin into this users list because currently I am the admin for this particular environment and I am the one who is creating and only for understanding purpose, I will be the one who will also be approving it. But in general, in business, what happens is that Mr. X creates the journal and in the approvers list we’re going to put some other approvers other than Mr. X, right? So that could be Mr. Y, then it goes to the approval for Mr. Y. Okay?

So I have configured this and closed it. Go to the journal names and click on this. Lookup once again so that you will see your group of approvals. So select it and save it. So you’re done, right now I will go to the journals, create a new journal, select our journal name. So if you notice one thing here, the moment that I selected this journal name, right now my post button is disabled and approval button is enabled. Okay? So that is the first easy identification that you have. So let us go ahead and create the journal voucher. I select travel expense and I saved it. Still, I don’t see the post button here. So all these, all these days or throughout all these videos, we were able to post the journal immediately after creating it, right? But now I’m not able to post it. That is because of the fact that once after the journal is created, I will have to go to this approval button and say report as ready. Okay? So once you do this, this will be available for the approval only by the approvers who are part of the group that we selected. But in this case, what happens is that if I just close this and try refreshing it and even before I refresh it, let us take a note of this number. Six, four, five, right? So come here to the same six four five journal number that we were with and click on this approval. You see. So being part of that particular group, I got an option to approve or reject this particular journal. Okay? So I will go ahead and say approve and because of the reason this journal is approved, now, I will be able to post it. So even the person who created the journal, they will be able to go ahead and post this journal now. Okay, so that is the use of this approved.

And as I mentioned, this is used only for simple approving requirements. So only some small businesses, the medium enterprises that have some simple requirements with the journal approvals only they might need this approval, but a lot of customers in the implementations that I handled. So we enable the approval workflow. So approval workflow is quite extensive. You can configure a lot of conditions and you have the workflow framework which will allow you to request some change to the document that you are approving or reject with some comments and a lot of things that you can do with that, which we will check in the next lecture.

Coming lectures. Okay, so that is about some of the settings at journals. And let us close this with one last look at the financial dimensions. Okay, so for the journal name that I created, it becomes pretty difficult for the users to enter the financial dimensions, right? When you have multiple dimensions, I can fix the dimensions at the journal name level. So I can say that the majority of the travel expenses will be for the business unit home. So that is the reason I want this to be defaulted. And even the department I want that to be defaulted.

So the majority is sales and marketing. So I want that to be defaulted. So that is what we did here. Now go ahead and create a new journal name, sorry, new journal. And let us see how does that fetch the financial dimensions. Now. So I have this journal name go to lines. So select this account and you see here, both business unit and department are getting defaulted based on the general name. Okay, that is all for this video and we will be covering some more setups in the general names in the next video. So thank you so much for watching and see you in the next video. Thank you.

2. 15.Journal names(Continued)

Welcome back everyone. In the previous video, we looked at some of the fields in the journal names, right? So this is a continuation to the previous video where we will look at the remaining fields that are available in the journal names configuration. Okay, so let me take you back to the application now. So I go back to the journal names and look at the one that we created. So this is the one that we created, right? So we looked at how do you use this approval setting and define the approvers group here and this offset account, how do you fix a particular offset account for the general name that you selected right now? So let us look at some of the other ones here..

Let me edit this, and I will not be reviewing each and every field with you, but I am definitely covering majority of this and even out of the majority fields that we are looking at, looking at right now, perhaps only some of the fields that you will use in your implementation and support projects. Okay, so posting layers is something we don’t want to COVID right now and detail level. So you can choose to define whether your transactions should get posted in a detail level or summary level. So what does that actually mean? So let me just take my notepad. So in journal, let us assume that you created two lines. So line one, and that’s again, six, zero, fifteen, double zero account, and even line two, you have the same account. Okay? So instead of saying line one and line two, let us call them as voucher one and Voucher two. Okay, so here you have it as, let us say $300. And here you have this as $500. Okay, so when you post the journal, do you want this data to be summarized as one particular voucher or do you want them to be showing us two different Vouchers? One is for 500 and the other one is 300. Okay, so that’s what it actually means. And sometimes you can just focus on this tool tip that will give you more information regarding the selected field.

So that will be really helpful for you to understand what is the importance of this field. Okay, so fees posting, that is something that we’ll talk about later and currencies. So just like how did we get a ledger account defaulted, we can also get a currency defaulted. So in the currency field here, I can see that I always post the transactions in the, let’s say US. Dollars are probably Canadian dollars. Let me also explain this new Voucher parameter here and we will see how does that work. This one and even this currency. All right, so the default configuration usually is in connection with balance. So what happens is when you’re creating the Vouchers and a new Voucher number will be created only when your initial Voucher is balanced, okay? Or else when you set this to one Voucher number only, then each and every line that you are creating in the journal, you will see a different Voucher number. Or else you can also leave this to manual where the Voucher number can be manually entered by the user. But this is something that we never use because that is my experience basically. And even this one, we do not usually use this one.

So far in any implementation that I worked in, we always used this in connection with balance. Okay? So it is really better to know how does this work. So if in case you encountered a situation where you need to be able to use this one, you know what it is, right? And also the number allocation at posting. So sometimes you might use this one. So what happens is that the Voucher number can be allocated during the posting, okay? So currently when you click the new button, that is the time that the Voucher number gets generated. So instead if you set this to number allocation at posting, then the number will be allocated only during the posting. Okay? So let us go to this for now and let me close this. I go to the general journals and click new. Take this. So something that you should also look at here is a lot of settings that we are specifying in the journal names, they will be defaulted onto your header, okay? So on the journal header, if you look at different fields that you have here, you look at this one here, the detail level, right?

So whatever the setup that we have here, that will be defaulted. So what is the detail level? So you want it to be posting as a detail level or summary level. Okay. At the same time, the default currency. So you see here the default currency that we set up here, that got defaulted, isn’t it? So this is the default currency, right? And also look at this one here. Amounts include sales tax, right? So that is set to no. So this is that parameter here. So whatever the amounts that you are adding in your Vouchers, if those amounts include the sales tax, then yes, you should select this checkbox and system. Always consider that the value that you are entering is inclusive of sales tax. Okay? So we will learn about sales tax in one specific video. So for now, you don’t need to worry about sales tax, right?

And one thing that you should be knowing here is this blocking. So sometimes what happens is if user A created this journal and he’s looking at this particular journal and then he went into these lines, right? Then if I open up the same journal, then what happens is that system will not allow me to use that particular journal. I’ll not be able to open these lines because it is being entered by another user, right? So there is a possibility that I go and do some modifications and I will create some problem for that user, right. So that is the reason.

What happens is usually if that is being edited by one user, then you will see that it is in use. Being admin users, we will have the rights to be able to unblock this particular flag. So by default system will set this to blocked and when we want to go ahead and click on lines for some reason, then what we do is we will unblock this and we can get into these lines. Okay. So that is about some of the fields that you should be knowing here. And this is something that you might encounter quite often. Then let us get back to what we wanted to look at, right? We wanted to look at how the currency gets defaulted and how the new Voucher gets generated, right. I am going back to the journals again and already you looked at the currency that got defaulted. Okay.

So currently I’m seeing the currency as Canadian dollars, right. So that is based on the setup that we did here. Now let us look at this one in connection with balance. So firstly, let me go to the lines and this is the Voucher that we are talking about. So the moment that we create a new record in this particular journal, voucher system will allocate a number for me, okay. So what I’ll do is let me take the same account so my offset account also got defaulted and let’s debit our travel expense. So this is the Canadian dollars. So we will discuss about the exchange rates in the next videos. So don’t worry about the exchange rates for now. Right? So what I was telling you is this one, right?

We got the Voucher. If I create a new line here and I’m getting another Voucher number generated, you might think that system is creating a new Voucher number for every new line that we are creating, right. But that is not actually correct. Why? Let me do one thing. I will delete this particular line that is already created. Let us go to this one and I will remove this offset account now, because let us just assume that I want to post this journal a little differently.

So I believe that you looked at the different ways that we can enter the journal, right. So I can either put the offset account in the same line or else I can create a new line and then I can put the offset account. Okay. Because I want to distribute this travel expense to two different departments. So that is my intention. So in that case, I cannot do that here. I cannot put an offset account here because the entire cad6000 will go to the single offset account and whatever the dimensions that I provided, the same dimensions will be picked up. Correct. So that is the reason I want to distribute it to two different departments, then what happens now?

So if you notice one thing here, this is now a voucher that is not balanced yet. So what do I mean by not balanced? So let me just save this. So you look at this one here. So your balance usually should become a zero if it is a balanced voucher. So currently system knows that there is a debit of five, eight, seven, $0, because that is a conversion value for your Cad6000.

So as I mentioned, we will talk about the exchange rates later. So, I will create another line here. And you notice this one here. The system is still giving me the same voucher number because of the reason our setup is in connection with journal names. So you see here, here we set it to be in connection with balance, right? The new voucher number should be created in connection with balance. So there is a reason that system is not creating a new voucher for me. Until and unless this voucher is balanced, system will not create a new voucher number. Okay? So how will that get balanced now? So, let us say that I want to put it to petty cash account and yeah, let us take the same business unit and department here. So that is a credit of Cad3000. Usually your account and offset account cannot be saved. There is a message that system is giving and this offset account is coming because of our default setup that we have in the journal name. I hope you remember that, right? So here we asked the system to automatically default this offset account. So let me remove this one now and save this. So that error is gone and I’m creating this another voucher.

Now do you see this? So still system is giving me this number eight, because still it is not a balanced voucher. So here I’m going to say this one and I want to put it to the department 23, okay? And remove this one. Because our intention is we just want to create this medicaid account right now you see this one, this is now a balanced voucher, isn’t it? So if you look at this one here, my balance is zero. So this particular voucher that we selected, the balance is zero for this one and even for this journal, the balance is zero. So journal, it is like multiple vouchers can be there in one single journal, right? So that is the reason even for the journal, system will show you like the entire debit for this particular journal and entire credit for this particular journal.

So if you have same values in both debit and credit fields, then your balance becomes zero, right? Anytime this balance is not zero, that is when system will not allow you to post the journal, okay? That is when you get some errors like the journal does not balance. All right, let us quickly create another line here and you see here. Now it is creating a new virtual number, right? So this is in connection with the balance, correct? Now I go back to the journal names now and if in case we have set it to be like one voucher number only, then what happens is that every time that I create a new line system will create a new Voucher number.

Okay? So that is about it. And as I mentioned manually is for to allow users to be able to enter this voucher manually and we never do that a number allocation at posting. So as I mentioned, sometimes you will allocate the number at the time of posting. Okay? So let us work with this for now. So look at this warning message that you are getting here. Voucher number allocation at posting can be used only if the new voucher is not allocated manually, right? So I don’t want this and let us put it to in connection with balance. Close this and number allocation at posting. Okay? So what we do is let us create a new journal quickly. I will close this, create new journal and take the name. So I selected my journal name and let us go to the lines and you see here, this is a temporary number that is assigned by the system. So it is not following the real sequence that it’s supposed to follow, right? Because our sequence is something that starts with TRV, right? But we are not getting it.

So what happens is that when I am posting the transaction, that is the time that system will take a real number. So let’s click on this, look up and select this and keep going on. Sorry, so you have to debit your travel expense, right? Right. So this is saved and what we do is just look at this number here and let me approve this. Approve, sorry. Report as ready and approve this journal. As I mentioned in this case, I am acting like two users. The one who creates the journal and submits it for approval because the one who says that it is ready for approval, he’s like submitting it for approval. So he’s reporting this journal as ready and I’m approving it. So I approved it and I’m ready to post this journal. So when I post this journal so that is where you see a different Voucher number. You see here.

So system automatically created the voucher number here. Let us talk about this private for user group. So, this is something that you might use quite often in your projects where when you define like this journal name is private for certain user group, only the users who are part of that particular group will see this journal name. Okay? So if somebody goes to the journal creation and they want to choose that particular journal, they will not be able to look at that journal name. Okay? So currently we are looking at our travel expense, right? This one. So what we do now is let us do one thing. Let us say that this is private for this particular group. So that’s what we are telling system now. So I will do this and at the same time let us go to this user groups and I am in the configuration for that particular user groups go to the users. Currently you can see here, I being the administrator for this particular application. Now, I have my user ID already available here, so let me take it off from here, okay? And I close this. So, which means currently this journal name is private for all the users who are part of this group, correct? And I am not part of that group. In fact, currently there is no one in this group.

So I don’t want to confuse you. So let me do one thing at least, let us have somebody in this group. So, April is one of the users who is part of this group and this journal name should be available only for that user. So that is the intention to create this journal name. Okay? Then we said that this journal name should be available only for this group, right? Then what happens now is I go to the general journals and let me refresh the screen.

So what I do is I create a new journal and try to select my journal name. You see here, I am not seeing that journal name anymore because I’m not part of the group. I’m not part of this group for which this journal name is intended for, right? So that is the reason I’m not seeing this journal name anymore, correct? So that is about this one. And also remember when you say that this is private for a user group, this one and all the created journals which are already available in this general journal, even they’ll be gone, okay?

So when you do the implementation and you define that this is private for this particular user group and even the created journals, the other users will not be able to see them. But only in this case, currently I am able to see when the created journals, right? So I’m not able to look at the journal name in the lookup, this lookup, right? But I can see the journals that are already created, isn’t it? So that is only because of the reason that the setting is done just now, right? So because of the reason we told the system just now that this is private for user group, any new journals that are created by different users, those will not be available for other users to see. So that is about that private user group. So that is all for this session and thank you so much for.