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[Michael Sedlock]

Hello Everyone,

I’m new to Microsoft NAV 2017 and need some assistance on a request from my Accounts Payable manager.
We create Purchase Invoices for Air Freight charges using Item Charges. The team wants to further break down those charges by an additional “dimension” for analysis. I suggested creating additional Item Charges by that would break down into the individual group. They didn’t like it because they want to see all Air Freight Charges then sub categories for each type.

For instance 
Air Freight (overall) 
   Air Freight – Quality Issue
   Air Freight – Vendor Delay

I was thinking of using a Dimension in NAV?

Any suggestions on how to do this in NAV 2017, preferably without any modifications?
But I’m flexible…

#NAV2017
#Finance

Thank you in advance,
Michael???

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Michael Sedlock
Dukal Corporation
Ronkonkoma NY
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[Patti Parrish]

How will your AP staff access this data requirement?  Do they want to see through a financial report where a dimension would give them the data?

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Patti Parrish
Finance Project Manager
EthosEnergy Power Plant Services
Alpharetta, Ga
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[Michael Sedlock]

Hi Patti
Thanks for responding. 

That is great question, so I asked. This is probably not the ideal method, but… they currently would navigate to Value Entries, filter on Item Charge No. = “AIR FRT” then export to Excel and create some pivot tables. 

Since posting I have found Purchase Analysis feature in #NAV2017 but not don’t fully understand how this would work for us yet. I would suspect there’s a better way.  Regarding Financials: Not sure it would extend to financials but possibly in a BI tool. 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

?

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Michael Sedlock
V.P. of IT
Dukal Corporation
Ronkonkoma NY
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[Jason Wilder]

If they are just using Value Entries as the source then I would go with the method of creating smart named Item Charges so you can roll them up to AIR FREIGHT or see the lower level of AIR FREIGHT QUALITY or AIR FREIGHT VENDOR DELAY.  So you would set up your Item Charges like this:
AF (you might not need this one, it is for if there is no lower lever and you just want to put it to Air Freight)
AF QUALITY
AF VENDOR DELAY

Then before you export to excel set a filter of AF* so you get everything related to Air Freight.  This way you can do a pivot table by Item Charge No. to get the total Air Freight or the specif Item Charge itself.  Keep it simple, no mods.

If you want to see this through G/L reporting then you would use dimensions (you can attach a dimension to an Item Charge) but sounds like you do not need to do that.

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Jason Wilder
Senior Application Developer
Stonewall Kitchen
York ME
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[Michael Sedlock]

Jason,
Thanks. I did propose that and it was not well received. I would be interested if it can be done using a dimension, if anyone can explain how.

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Michael Sedlock
V.P. of IT
Dukal Corporation
Ronkonkoma NY
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[Patti Parrish]

I would create a dimension called Item Charges as a shortcut dimension.   In the dimension values you would use AF Quality, AF Vendor Delay, etc .   In dimensions you can also set up Air Freight as a begin-total and Air Freight Total as an end-total and have the posting dimensions fall in-between.  You’ll have to play around with the best codes to use if you want to do beginning and ending totals.  I don’t ever use this feature in our dimensions but other users do.  

By using the dimension Item Charges, you’ll be able to use the dimension for other Item Charges you might use in the future and want to report on.

I would also set dimension Item Charges as Code Mandatory on the Item Charge itself.    On the Item Charge card, on the ribbon bar, you’ll find Dimensions and you can set your new dimension as Code Mandatory there.  That way it’s never missed when they enter a purchase.  When the AP staff enters a line in the PO or Invoice, they’ll enter the Item Charge dimension to go with it so be sure it’s available as a field on the PO/Invoice line.  

The last piece is reporting.  You can create an analysis view to capture the entries and report them out.   I would suggest looking through YouTube videos for some demonstrations on analysis views and options for account schedules.  These videos are very helpful.   Once you have analysis views, you can use a BI tool to pull out the analysis entries which are the entries related to the shortcut dimensions.

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Patti Parrish
Finance Project Manager
EthosEnergy Power Plant Services
Alpharetta, Ga
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