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11/9/2010Most summary numbers that are displayed on reports (including the 941) are pulled from the individual employee summary windows (Inquiry | Payroll | Employee Summary). This data is summarized in ( Inquiry | Payroll | Company Payroll Summary). The employee summaries are also presented in the Employee Summary Smartlist, which is a great starting point for troubleshooting. Double-clicking a row in this smartlist drills back to the Employee Summary Inquiry. Gross Wages The gross wages number is the sum of all pay codes that do not have ‘Report As Wages’ unmarked. The only pay type that even allows access to unmark this box are pay codes with a pay type of Business Expense (red circles below) 
Taxable Wages Taxable Wages (Federal, Social Security, Medicare, State, Local, SUTA & FUTA) also exclude Business Expenses marked to not be reported as wages as described above. Additionally they can be altered by the following settings. - Excludes any pay code wages that have the appropriate box unchecked on the pay code maintenance window (blue circle above)
- Subtracts out deduction amounts for any deduction with the TSA Sheltered From box that is checked. Social Security and Medicare are always affected the same (controlled by the single FICA box). FUTA and SUTA wages can never be adjusted by deductions.
- Subtracts out benefit amounts for any benefit with the Subject to Taxes checkboxes left unchecked. The two branches of FICA can be managed independently, and FUTA & SUTA wages can also be controlled.
Smartlist Builder is a great tool that can be used to create smartlists of the pay, deduction and benefit code maintenance data. Once a smartlist is created, reminders can be established to monitor tax settings. Important Note: Once a record has had transactions posted against it, these checkboxes can not be changed via the window. Changes made to the company setup records will not roll down to records with data. 1/16/2010As most of you probably already know – clicking on a column header in Smartlist quickly sorts the data by that column in ascending order. A second click switches to descending order. But did you know that a smartlist can be sorted by more than just one column? First, click on the SEARCH button in the smartlist. Then click on the ORDER BY button in the lower left corner of the search window. Insert your sort columns in order and click OK. And don’t forget to save your choices as a FAVORITE!! 
12/2/2009Some things just have to be learned the hard way. In my case, it was creating the ODBC connection for a 64-bit install of Dynamics GP. With the latest versions of GP, a nice little feature has been added that automatically creates the ODBC connection for you. I’ve been using this feature with my GP 10 updates and installations. Once an ODBC connection is created, it really doesn’t require any more attention, so I was content seeing ‘Dynamics GP’ show up in the Server dropdown list when logging into GP. Imagine my surprise, when I went to check up on this connection and it wasn’t where I expected it to be (Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Data Sources (ODBC) | System DSN tab. There was absolutely nothing in the list! It seemed odd that GP was working at all! Not a biggie – I can create a connection in my sleep – so I created a new one, and gave it a name of GP, and then verify that it tested successfully. Surprise #2 – my new ODBC connection does not show in the Server drop-down when I launch GP! So here’s the punch line. Even though GP runs perfectly fine on a 64-bit machine, it still requires a 32-bit ODBC connection! What displays by default with a 64-machine is the 64-bit ODBC tool. It takes a few extra steps to get to the 32-bit version. - Use Windows Explorer to find C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Odbcad32.exe
- Right-click | Send To | Desktop (Create Shortcut)
At this point, you can rename the desktop shortcut and then even copy it to the Administrative folder to sit alongside its 64-bit brother. Once I launched the 32-bit ODBC Connections, I saw the connection created by the GP installation, and the world returned to its normal clarity. 11/20/2009A few years back, I accidentally dropped the maximum on an employee deduction below what had already been withheld. I can’t remember now why I did that (I think maybe I was trying to ‘get ahead’ for the next year) – but I do remember how surprised I was to see the difference between the (lower) maximum for the year and the (higher) total withheld for the year added back into the employee’s next check. I recently had the opportunity to take this one step further when I had a client present me with the question of how to handle the need to reimburse an employee part of their 401K deduction. With the whole tax-sheltered aspect thrown in, I decided to step through the process and test it to make sure it really did work. Rather than leveraging the maximums, I took a slightly different route that gave me better control of the reimbursement to the employee. Let’s start by looking at Sandra Martinez (Emp# MART0001) in the Fabrikam test company, and looking at her deduction summary. For our illustration, let’s assume that Sandra wanted her 401K deduction to stop at the end of Oct. In other words, she has had $32.31 too much deducted. 
For a starter reference, below is her starting Employee Summary information (always a good idea to know where you are starting, so you can verify you made it to the end result). Sandra is getting paid a nice easy number of $1000 per period, so that makes it easy on us. What we do want to change is a small setting on the 401K deduction card. For this next check, we want to require a transaction to be entered instead of allowing the deduction to calculate as it normally would. To do this, we mark the Transaction Required checkbox as shown below. Since we want to enter a dollar amount, we will also need to change the method to fixed amount – otherwise, our entry would have to be a percentage. 
For our transaction, we need to specify three things: (1) a transaction type of deduction, (2) the deduction code of 401K and (3) the adjustment amount as a negative number. 
Now we build the batch. I went ahead and used the default build ID of REGULAR, then added the restriction to process just the employee range of MART0001 to MART0001, and marked our batch with our deduction adjustment. To keep things simple, I unmarked all other deductions and benefits with the exception of the 401K. Notice the deduction reflects as a negative deduction on the build report, and the benefit follows thru to show as 5% of the deduction. 
We finish out by posting the check – making sure to change the date to Dec 2017. Now all we need to do is verify the results on the Deduction Summary and Employee Summary screens. Notice, December is showing a negative $30 total to offset Nov, reflecting a total $30 401K deduction for the fourth quarter. Also, while our gross and FICA wages increased by the $1000 of salary amount, our federal wages, which were sheltered from the 401K deduction we just reimbursed, have increased by $1032.31. 
Don’t forget to inactivate that 401K deduction record so we don’t have to do this again! 11/5/2009As with most transaction entry windows in GP, there are multiple dates involved with the entry of a Payables transaction that affect how that transaction updates the other modules. The first date we enter in the upper right corner controls both the following: (1) the date of the transaction as it is tracked in payables and used for payment terms and aging purposes (2) the date that is used to post to GL By default these will set to the same date, however, if the GL posting date needs to be different than the document date, it can be edited by clicking on the date expansion button. 
As many of you know, a payables invoice can be marked as paid on this same window by filling in the appropriate fields in the lower right corner. By entering an amount in the Cash, Check or Credit Card fields, another expansion window will open to gather information that will control the date that is used to post a transaction to the Bank Reconciliation module. 
Since the distributions that typically result from this entry affect both an expense of some type and a cash account in the same journal entry, this can complicate matters if the invoice needs to be booked with a different date than the payment to the General Ledger. It is possible to break the transaction out to reflect the pass-thru of the payables account (see Mark Poliano's blog from 10-26-2009), however all distributions are still sent to the GL as one journal entry and one GL posting date. 7/27/2009
In our June 2009 TASzine, we challenged you with a competition to list how many ways there were to open a Windows Explorer window.
Here are all the ways that I know. I've tried to identify differences between Vista and XP. Since this is my first ever blog, I welcome you to post your comment!
- Windows-E This is my personal favorite. First hold down the Windows key (that little waving flag looking key that sits between your right-Ctrl and right-Alt key), and then tap the E. This opens Explorer at My Computer.
- Use the Menu Navigation: Start | Programs | Accessories | Windows Explorer.
- Right-Click on the Start Button and choose Explorer from the pop-up menu. This will open Explorer at the All Users Start Menu in XP. In Vista, it will open on the Start Menu for the current user. To open it for all users, chose Explore All Users from the pop-up menu instead.
- Double-Click on My Computer. Of course, there are many ways to get to My Computer, which could be a blog by itself. If you're lucky, there is an icon on your desktop. Otherwise, look under your Start button.
- From Windows Search. Another option with multiple access points. The keyboard shortcut is Windows-F (think 'Find'). In XP, Start | Search, or Right-Clicking on the Start menu to pop-up a Search menu item. In Vista, there is a search bar at the bottom of your Start menu. Once in search, you will need to specify what to search (For XP, choose Files and Folders; Vista, by default, will search everywhere)
- From a Shortcut. As with any application in Windows, a shortcut can easily be added to your desktop, Start Menu or Quick Launch bar. The easiest way to create a new shortcut is from the listing under Start | Programs. Find the application in the menu, and right-click. From here, choose one of the following: (1) Pin to Start Menu, (2) Add to Quick Launch Bar or (3) Send To | Desktop (Create Shortcut).
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