Purchasing Tips and Inventory Tricks in Dynamics GP

Ohio Microsoft Dynamics GP consultants Jeff Smith and John DeHaven presented these basic and intermediate tips for improved purchasing and inventory management as part of their “Getting More out of Dynamics GP: 50 Tips in 50 Minutes” presentation at Aspire, Socius annual conference.

Prioritize your Vendors

Payables Management includes a 3 digit alphanumeric field used to prioritize vendors. A simple ABC is generally more effective than a bunch of 3 digit numbers. For example, A could be used for highest priority vendors.  Use this to actively decide which vendors are critical now, not when a crisis hits.  This field can be used to select vendors during the check selection process.

Track use Tax for P.O.’s

If you are not charged sales tax by a vendor and need to self-remit use tax for a P.O. use these steps:

• Let the system calculate Sales Tax.
• Offset the tax amount in the Trade Discount field.
• Point the trade discount field to an accrued use tax account.
• Point the sales tax field to the appropriate expense or tax account.
• Vendor gets paid properly because of the credit and tax gets recorded.
• Use SmartLists to track and report use tax data for later remittance.

Option 2

• Enter P.O., Receipt and Invoice.
• Make a payment on the Invoice form using a Taxing Authority credit card.
• Liability gets created in AP to Taxing Authority for future payment.
• Vendor record holds correct amount.

Track  Use Tax in AP

• Use tax can be tracked for purchases made via AP.
• Setup a Credit Card in GP for each Use Tax jurisdiction and link it to the vendor account for that taxing authority.
• Enter a voucher in AP and let GP calculate the tax.
• Pay just the tax amount using the Tax Authority credit card.
• This creates a liability in AP to the Taxing Authority for future payment.
• Vendor gets paid correct amount and correct amount shows on vendor record.

Use the new Historical Inventory Trial Balance report

The new Historical Inventory Trial Balance (HITB) report is designed to help balance inventory to the GL regardless of the inventory valuation method.  It is available with GP 10 Feature Pack 1.

Copy an Inventory Item

• Cards->Inventory->Item, Enter new item number and click copy.
• Select parts of an item to copy and press copy.

More info here.

Copy a Purchase Order

• Transactions->Purchasing->Purchase Order Entry, Actions->Create->Copy New PO
• Select parts/lines to copy and press Copy

More info here.

These tips were originally presented by Microsoft at Convergence 2009.  Get more tips and tricks for Microsoft Dynamics GP use and interact with thousands of GP users at Convergence 2010 in Atlanta, GA!