Vendor invoice recording (Part 9)

01 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by Ludwig Reinhard in Accounts Payable

Tags

invoice, invoice recording, purchase requisition, signing limits, workflow

The purchase requisition and invoice workflows used in the previous post assigned the approval tasks to the cost center manager of the person that requested the goods or services irrespective of the singing limit of that manager.

To incorporate the signing limits into the purchase requisition workflow approval step, I tried to modify this step in a way that it refers to a hierarchy. Unfortunately, this hierarchy selection did not allow me starting the workflow from the requester, as illustrated in the next screen print.

Applied to the example that was used in the previous post, the available ‘start from’ selection options do not allow assigning the approval task to Susan’s cost center manager unless Susan would submit the purchase requisition herself.

Setup Modification A:
To get this issue resolved, the purchase requisition workflow has been setup as a purchase requisition line review workflow, because this line-workflow type allows to be started from the requester. For details, please see the next screen prints.

In prior versions, the standard purchase requisition workflow could be started from the requester. This option has, however, been removed and as a result, a purchase requisition line-item workflow needs to be used to achieve the same.

To get the line-item workflow running, it must be incorporated into the ordinary purchase requisition workflow. This is achieved through the following setup.

Example:
In the following, a purchase requisition for a training course with a total value of $10000 is submitted to the workflow. Because of the changes that have been implemented, the approval task is now assigned to the marketing executive Julia because she has a sufficiently large signing limit. For details, please have a look at the following screen prints.

Setup Modification B:
In line with the changes that have been made to the purchase requisition approval step, also the invoice review & approval matching step has been modified in a way that it starts from the workflow owner.

Similar to what has been shown in the previous posts; Phyllis the accountant has been setup as the workflow owner and has been incorporated into the position hierarchy. For that reason, the correct person that is required for approving the invoice deviations can be identified.

Example:
If we continue the example and record a vendor invoice for $10900, that is an invoice with a price deviation of >5%, the review & approval task is directly assigned to Charlie, the president, as he has a sufficiently large signing limit.

Summary Expense Related Invoice Workflows:
This post ends the series on expense related vendor invoices. Based on what has been shown in the previous posts, it can be summarized that Dynamics AX/365 for Operations ships with a powerful and flexible workflow engine that can handle various invoice review and approval scenarios.

Setting up the different workflow steps might not always be as easy and straightforward as one can find this in specialized workflow add-on’s to Dynamics AX/365 for Operations. In addition, the previous posts showed that the pending vendor invoice form needs some modifications in order to allow users identifying the current workflow step and responsible at a glance.

Against the background of those ‘disadvantages’, the reader should be able to assess whether those enhancements can be built into Dynamics AX/365 for Operations oneself for the same or a cheaper price than a specialized invoice workflow add-on.

Vendor invoice recording (Part 6)

06 Tuesday Jun 2017

Posted by Ludwig Reinhard in Accounts Payable

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Tags

invoice, invoice recording, project expense invoice, signing limits, workflow

This post extends the previous one in a way that a project related expense invoice is recorded, which requires an explicit review of the project manager. To realize this, an additional project manager review step (PM review) is included in the invoice workflow. For details, please see the next illustration.

Please note that the expenditure reviewer group ‘approver’ has been assigned to the PM review step…

… which refers to the project manager as the one that has to review the invoice.

To ensure that the workflow can also handle ordinary vendor invoices, the PM review workflow step is setup with an automatic action that completes the PM review step if no project number is provided. In other words, the PM review step is skipped for ordinary invoices.

For the illustration of the next example, it is important to note that Susan Burk has been assigned as project manager for the project that is addressed in the vendor invoice.

With the project number specified in the invoice, the workflow is consequently assigned to the project manager (Susan Burk) after the orderer (Nicole holiday) has reviewed the invoice in a first step.

If a project number is not specified, the additional review step is skipped and identical to what has been shown in the previous post.

This post ends the section on manually entered expense invoices that need to be reviewed and approved by two or more people.

At this point it can preliminary summarized that the standard Dynamics AX/365 for Operations workflow functionalities appear able to handle a wide variety of expense invoice scenarios. From the author’s perspective, the only thing missing is an overview form that provides more information about the status, the current assignee, etc. of a workflow. That is mainly because the standard workflow history form does – from a finance and accounting perspective – not provide users with sufficient information that can be accessed at a glance.

The next posts will continue this series by showing how to integrate purchase requisitions for expense related invoices, which is also a common scenario in many companies. Till then.

Vendor invoice recording (Part 5)

01 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by Ludwig Reinhard in Accounts Payable

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Tags

invoice, invoice recording, signing limits, workflow

This post builds upon the previous one in a way that Michael Redmond, the account manager, now orders the marketing materials and that the invoice needs to be approved by his line manager Kevin Cook, as exemplified in the following organizational chart.

To realize this, another position hierarchy (LRE Signing 2) has been specified, which includes Kevin Cook as one of the responsible approvers.

This newly setup position hierarchy is then linked to a newly created invoice workflow…

… that is setup in the very same way as the previously used one except for the activation of the workflow, which is based on the condition that employee 000050 (Michael Redmond) is entered in the financial dimension worker field.

After making those modifications, two invoices are recorded. The first one that has Nicole Holiday specified in the financial dimension worker field and a second one that has Martin Redmond specified.

In line with the setup of the position hierarchies and the workers assigned, the correct line managers are always identified as the ones that need to approve those invoices. For details, please have a look at the following screen prints.

From what has been shown in this and the previous post, it can be summarized that the standard application can handle even complex multi-branch signing limit structures even though this requires the setup of separate position hierarchies and invoice workflows.

Another issue that has not been discussed so far is the fact that typically numerous accountants record and initiate the invoice workflow. This results in different workflow originators that are not incorporated into the position hierarchy shown above. To avoid that one has to setup numerous position hierarchies and invoice workflows, one single accountant – in the example Phyllis – can be setup in the position hierarchies. If the very same person is specified as the workflow owner…

…from which the workflow starts, this issue can be overcome.

The next post continues this one by investigating how project related invoices can be incorporated into invoice workflows that make use of signing limits. Till then.