Depreciation profiles in Ax 2012

Depreciation profiles in Ax are used as a set of rules that govern the depreciation principles to be applied on the fixed assets. These profiles are generally used for tangible assets however, if required the depreciation profile can be used for intangible assets as well.

Ax supports the following depreciation methods:

1. Straight line Service life (SLM)

2. Reducing Balance

3. Manual

4. Factor

5. Consumption

6. Straight line life remaining

7. 200% reducing balance

8. 175% reducing balance

9. 150% reducing balance

10. 125% reducing balance

The use of the depreciation methods are generally governed by the requirements placed by the local laws. Generally the companies use the Straight line service life, Reducing balance or manual methods of depreciation.

Setup Depreciation profile

1. Fixed Assets –> Setup –> Depreciation –> Depreciation Profile

2. Click New to create a new depreciation profile

3. Select the depreciation method in the Method field; based on the method selected the system enables/disables different fields to be used.

Below table shows the combination of the method & the fields that are enabled/disabled by the system.

Depreciation Method/Field Visibility	Percentage	Depreciation Year	Period Frequency	Full depreciation	Factor	Interval
Straight line service life	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Reducing Balance	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Manual	No	No	No	Yes	No	No
Factor	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Consumption	No	No	No	No	No	No
Straight line Remaining life	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
200% Reducing balance	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
175% Reducing	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
150% Reducing	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
125% Reducing	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No

 

Percentage: Use this field to define the percentage to calculate the depreciation. The system calculates the depreciation by calculating value as % * Net Book Value of the asset.

Depreciation Year: Determines the depreciation year; Calendar or Fiscal.

When selected Calendar then the system considers the Calendar year starting from Jan. 1st

When selected Fiscal then the system considers the fiscal year setup

 

Period Frequency: Determines the accrual of the depreciation amounts. Following options are available depending on the depreciation year selected.

In case Calendar year is selected then:

Yearly

Monthly

Quarterly

Half-Yearly

In case Fiscal year is selected then:

         Yearly

         Fiscal Period

 

Full Depreciation: This field allows using the Net book value of the asset based on service life in the last period to calculate depreciation.

 

Factor: Derives value from the Percentage field on the overview tab.

 

Interval: Field determines how frequently the depreciation will be charged:

         Monthly

Quarterly

         Half-Yearly

Yearly

Add Default descriptions to General Ledger postings

A common complaint from AX2012 Users is that the description of the transaction, transferred through to the General Ledger, is often limited. This means that any nominal analysis is difficult, as you consistently need to refer back to AX to determine the original source of the transactions. For example, if I post Supplier Invoices relating to Advertising expenses and then run some General Ledger reports, the description only shows as Supplier Invoice :  

• Ledger Transaction report:

• Dimension Statement report:

• Transaction description in Management Reporter:

The origin of the description can be seen on the Voucher:

The good news is that AX does have the ability to add more relevant descriptions to the accounting entries which are automatically posted to the General Ledger (such as SO/PO Receipts and Invoices).

• Go to Organisation administration -> Setup -> Default descriptions. By default, only one entry is normally setup for Expense report transaction types:

• Create a New record and select from the list of available transaction types. In my example, I have added Purchase Order - Invoice (Ledger and Supplier):

• Next, in the Language field, select the language that this description will apply to. I have selected EN-GB.
   
• Finally, in the Text field, type the description which you want to appear automatically on the transaction (this can be a mixture of free text and fixed variables). Note that the fixed variables relate to AX fields relevant to the different transaction types, for example, the variables for a Purchase Invoice would be:
  • %1: Adds the posting date
  • %2: Adds the Supplier Invoice number
  • %3: Adds the transaction Voucher number
  • %4: Adds the Purchase Order Number
  • %5: Adds the Supplier account Number
  • %6: Adds the Supplier group
• As an example only, I have entered Sup Invoice %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6. However, in reality this would be overkill and it would be more realistic to just capture the PO number (%4), Supplier number (%5), and Supplier Invoice number (% 2):  

• To test this new setup, I create a new Purchase Order for Advertising expenses:

• I then post a Purchase Invoice against this Purchase Order: 

• This time, when I view the description on the Invoice Voucher, it shows Sup Invoice 11-May-15 Inv12330 PIV-110000556 000638 US-110 40. 

Invoice Number = Inv12330, PO number = 000638, and Supplier Number = US-110

• Now when I run my General Ledger reports for Advertising Expenses, this extended description is more meaningful to the User (as the PO and Supplier number is shown):

• Management Reporter (transaction level):

(Note that Attribute Columns can also be used in MR to pull through additional information, such as Supplier and Transaction description. However, using Default Descriptions would improve the information in standard AX reports).  

There is no definitive list of recommended transaction types to create, so it would be advisable to carry out some testing in a non production AX environment. However, other logical transaction types would be: 

Customer - Invoice Ledger
Customer - Invoice Customer
Sales Order - Delivery note, Ledger
Purchase Order - Product receipt, Ledger
Stock - journal - Adjustment
Stock - Journal - Move
Stock - Journal - Counting

Advance Bank Reconciliation in AX2012 R2

Overview  

Advanced bank reconciliation is a new feature of AX2012, available from R2 onwards.

This new feature allows for the import of bank statements that can be automatically reconciled from within AX2012. This blog shows how to perform an advanced bank reconciliation and assumes that AX has been setup correctly.

Import The Bank Statement

Once a bank account has been set up to allow bank statement imports, the “Reconcile” group becomes available in the action pane.

Click the “Bank statements” button to open the bank statements list page.

The following form will be opened, click the “Import statement” button to continue.

Select the following :

• Bank account – Select the bank account that the statement will be imported into.
• Statement format - Select the appropriate bank statement format.
• File folder – Set the inbound folder where the files to be processed are held.
• Import all files in this folder – Tick this is all files in the folder are to be imported.
• Select file – Use this option to manually select a specific file. Reconcile after import – Select this to perform automatic reconciliation (Only if the rules have been set against the bank account).

Click Ok to continue.

When opened, the following will be displayed.

The “Net amount” and the “Total lines” fields will automatically populate when the “Validate” button has been clicked.

The bank statements must be validated before a reconciliation can be performed.

Bank Reconciliation

After an electronic bank statement has been imported and validated in the Bank statements form, the bank statement can now be reconciled using the Bank reconciliation worksheet form.

Note : The Bank reconciliation option is only available if the Advanced bank reconciliation check box is selected in the Bank accounts form on the Reconciliation FastTab. 

This can be performed in one of two ways :

Click Cash and bank management > Journals > Bank reconciliation

Or

Click Cash and bank management > Common > Bank accounts. On the Action pane, in the Reconcile group, click Bank reconciliation.

Click New to create a new bank reconciliation record

Select the appropriate bank account, this will select the bank statements that have not yet been reconciled.

Note : Any previous un-reconciled balances will be added in to this bank reconciliation journal.

Click the “Lines” button

The reconciliation worksheet will be displayed, this worksheet is split into four distinct grids :

• Top left – Open statement lines – Imported un-reconciled bank statement lines
• Top right – Open bank documents – Un-reconciled AX bank transactions
• Bottom left – Matched statement lines – Matched bank statement lines Bottom right Matched bank documents – Matched AX bank transactions

 

The Line details FastTab will show additional line details for the selected statement line.

To match using the matching rules that have been set up, click the “Run matching rules” button.

Select either to run individual rules, or to run a set of rules.

Once run these match all transactions that meet the criteria set on the rules.

There is a one-to-many relationship between the “Matched statement lines” and the “Matched bank documents”.

Transactions can be manually matched by selecting the appropriate line(s) in both the Open statement lines grid and the Open bank documents grid, then clicking the “Match” button.

If there is a new transaction on the bank statement that does not yet exist in AX (eg bank charges), then mark the transaction and click “Mark as new”.

Once you have completed your matching process, click “Reconcile” to perform the reconciliation process.

 

If there are any transactions that you have marked as new, these will need to be posted.

Browse to : Cash and bank management > Common > Bank statements, then edit the appropriate statement.

Select the line marked as “New”

On the line details FastTab, enter the appropriate financial details and financial dimension values

 

Then click “Post” to post the transaction.

The transaction will now have been posted and reconciled.

Cancel A Reconciled Transaction

 Individual “reconciled” bank transactions can have the reconciliation status set back to un-reconciled.

To do this browse to : Cash and bank management > Common > Bank document list 

Select the reconciled transaction, then click “Reconciliation relations”

From the Reconciliation details form, click the “Cancel reconciliation” button

Click OK to continue

The transactions will appear on the next reconciliation as un-reconciled items

The bank statement will have been fully reconciled now.