Convergence 2012 in Houston Texas, saw the first public previews of Dynamics GP 2013, the next version of Microsoft Dynamics most popular ERP system. While some of us had had a few brief glimpses previously, at Convergence, Microsoft took the wraps off and really showed Dynamics GP 2013 to all in attendance.
Internally known as Version 12.0, Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 is the successor to Dynamics GP 2010, a very successful and popular offering. Being consistent with all of Microsoft’s renaming policies, the product will no longer be referred to by its sequential Version number. Breaking with previous releases, however, GP 2013 offers a truly revolutionary change in the user interface. Sure GP 2010 looked a lot like GP 10.0, and 10.0 looked a lot like 9.0, but no more! With GP 2013, Microsoft has jumped ahead in the way the product looks and feels.
Most of the focus on GP 2013 has been on the Web Client, and I think that is for a very good reasons. With the Web Client approach, Microsoft has split the Accounting Logic layer (the software code) from the Presentation layer (the display code), and allowing GP to take to the clouds. This marks a key departure from Dynamics GP prior software strategy and it addresses specific concerns with regards to scalability to mid- and large size organizations. Microsoft is thereby laying the foundation to possibly serve up the Dynamics GP product through its own Data Center as it currently does with the CRM and Office product lines in order to allow its customers to consume the software as a cloud-service rather than an on-premise solution.
Distribution\Wholesale and Manufacturing related new features include:
Prepayments on Purchase Orders. One word here: FINALLY! This has been a long wanted feature for GP. Create a Purchase Order AND apply a deposit or prepayment to it, and keep that link between them through receiving, matching and paying the Vendors.
Prevent PO Close prior to Invoice Match: Another sorely needed function which has been added to prevent accounting fraud is the ability to prevent a user from closing a PO once the PO has been partially or fully received.
Ship To Address has a Different Company Name. This is not an unusual occurrence for many distribution companies. Company A buys a product and needs it drop-shipped to a different location care of a different company. With GP 2013, you can now specify the name of the Ship To Company if it is different compared to the Company getting the invoice.
Ship-to Address Custom Fields: In the new release, you will have two additional CHARVAR, or more commonly known as text fields, which will give you the ability to store information specific to a ship-to address, not just the customer master. Important to note is that this is not an extender field, but rather a change to the core table which stores the ship-to address information (RM00102). You will be easily able to place the content of these fields onto Shipping Tickets or Packing Slips.
Multi-Currency Cash Receipt: You no longer have to post a cash receipt for multi-currency transactions before you can apply them. Just like single or home currency transactions, you can apply the MC cash receipts directly.
Reconciliation of the General Ledger to Sub-ledgers: In previous releases of Dynamics GP, you could reconcile the GL AR and AP accounts to the AR and AP sub-ledgers in order to identify transactions which could not be matched and led to permanent differences between the main and the sub-ledgers. In Dynamics GP 2013, you will have the ability to also reconcile the Inventory and Bank Reconciliation sub-ledgers, a greatly needed feature for all wholesalers and manufacturers.
Bin Transfer History: If you are using the multi-bin capabilities in Dynamics GP, you will be excited to hear about this addition of inner bin transfer history within GP.
Inventory Adjustment Reason Codes: Hurray ! it is here at last. The dreaded inventory adjustment can be handled much more efficiently in the latest Dynamics GP release with the ability to define a default Offset GL Account for the Inventory adjustment. This will give the management team the ability to review all inventory variances and adjustments in much greater detail.
Item Standard Cost adjustments: In this new version of Dynamics GP, the system will auto-generate the proper GL journal entry after adjusting the standard cost on an existing inventory item.
Although in previous Releases of Dynamics GP, it appeared that Microsoft was too busy to concern themselves with real new accounting feature functionality. I am looking forward to Dynamics GP 2013 as it is on track to provide my clients in the wholesale/distribution and manufacturing industries with some real useful and sometimes, sorely needed, features.
Also, before you get too excited, make sure your Microsoft Platform is inline with the System Requirements and your IT Department is on track to upgrade all related components.
Systems Requirements issues to consider for upcoming release:
Dynamics GP 2013 will no longer support Windows XP, Office 2007 or earlier, SQL Server 2005 or earlier and Windows Server 2005 or earlier
Dynamics GP 2013 will support Office 2010 or higher, Windows Vista and 7 (maybe 8), SQL Server 2008 (R2)
Stay tuned for more as it becomes officially available… (xcvqwm)
