The recurring free text invoice

This is the third (in the series of three) exciting new feature in the “Free text invoice” form in Accounts Receivable.  Here I want to talk about Monthly recurring billing

The steps are:

1. Create a free text invoice template
2. Assign it to one ore multiple customers
3. Generate recurring invoice
4. Post recurring invoice

• Go to Company –> Accounts receivable –> Set up –>Free text invoice templates

• In the “All customers” form assign the template to one or multiple customers.

On the Invoice tab page click on “Recurring invoices” and define the setup for the recurring invoice. Select the template you have created, fill in a billing start date and end date or choose the maximum cumulative amount you want to charge. Define the recurrence (daily, weekly, monthly or yearly) and how often in this period you want to charge the amount. Go back to the list page for all customers and repeat this step for other customers.

• Generate recurring invoice (Company –> Accounts receivable –> Periodic –> Recurring invoices –> Generate recurring invoices)

• Post the invoice (Company –> Accounts receivable –> Periodic –> Recurring invoices –> Post recurring invoices) Click “Lines”, the selected customer accounts will appear, post the invoice.

Keeping track and future billing cycles:

You can keep track of all the recurring invoices in the” All free text invoices” form. The invoices have different invoice numbers, but can be easily identified as the same recurring invoice batched by the Recurrence Id.

Any future recurring billing cycles will now only require the execution of the last two steps.

This is the second (out of three) exciting new features in the “free text invoice” form in Accounts Receivable I want to talk about.

If you want to adjust (correct) a free text invoice in AX2012, you have two options:

• Create a credit note for the incorrect amount of the invoice
• Create a credit note for the whole invoice and issue new invoice with the correct amount

In all other versions you would have to re-enter all the details like distributions, dimensions, ledger accounts into a credit note and then the subsequent correct invoice.  You don’t have to do that anymore because in AX 2012 you can use the “correct free text invoice” function instead which makes it really easy to correct mistakes in already posted free text invoices.

In the “All free text invoices” form choose the invoice you want to correct and click on the “Correct Invoice” button on the action pane, select a reason code and click “Create corrected invoice”.

This will bring up the same invoice out of memory and you can amend the quantity and/or amount.  Post the new invoice which creates the new invoice as well as a credit note auto-settling the previously issued invoice.

There is also a new column in the “All free text invoices” form called “Corrections” which shows you the history of such transactions.

In AX2012 Using “free text invoice” is much more efficient in AX2012 than in previous versions of AX.

Today I want to show the first (out of three) really helpful and easy to use functions in the “free text invoice” form in the accounts receivable module.

At first, this is not the new feature mentioned above, but worth pointing out, you can now enter Quantity and Unit price in the free text invoice form. But back to the new feature:

•  Distribute revenue to 4 different departments (you can use any dimension enabled in the account structure)

Create a free text invoice as known and click the “Distribute amounts” button.

This brings up another window:

3 options to distribute: percent, amount and quantity, use the split button or the down arrow and enter the percentage, amount or quantity. Choose the department you want to distribute to and close the form.  Post your invoice. AX distributes the invoice amount as well as the tax and tracks it.

To check your distributions click “View distribution” on the free text invoice form.

Inter-company Transactions are those that are made between two or more related internal legal entities.   The transactions are trigged by demand for an item that has been set up to be sourced by an inter-company vendor.  Inter-company vendors are related to inter-company customers in the sourcing entity.

When a purchase order for an inter-company vendor is firmed, the corresponding sales order in the sourcing company is automatically created by Dynamics AX.  Dynamics AX allows planned order demand to be reviewed all the way through to the bottom of the supply chain.  The requirement date for the associated planned order is determined by the lead time setup on the item in the company from which the demand originated.   In situations where a constraint of material or capacity is encountered and the required date cannot be met, it becomes necessary for the planners to have that knowledge.  Although planners cannot see the constraint of the upstream supply in the planned order screen of the demand company, Dynamics Ax does provide this information through the use of the “outbound planned inter-company demand” screen.

Consider the following scenario:

The illustrations below show the relationships for item “testplan2” in companies 60 and 91.

This screen shot shows the “net requirements” view from within company 60.  Here it can be seen that a planned purchase order has been created by the master planning system to fulfill the demand for pegged sales order 60SO0000237 in a quantity of 45,000.  In this view it cannot be seen that the planned purchase order date of 6/1/2012 will not be met until 6/21/2012.

This screen shot shows the “net requirements” view from within company 91.  Here it can be seen that a planned batch order has been created by the master planning system to fulfill the demand for pegged inter-company demand.  In this view it can be seen that the planned batch order date of 6/20/2012 will not meet the required demand date of 6/1/2012.

The planner in company 91 can review the action and futures messages that where created by the system and determine that the order will be twenty days late.

The operator cannot see the delay in the “net requirements screen” of company 60 and only in the “net requirements screen” of  company 91 can it be determined that the item will be delayed.

Dynamics AX does provide a solution so that the operator can see the delay from within company 60. The “outbound planned inter-company demand” screen has been developed for this purpose.  This screen is found in (Master planning > Inquires >  “outbound planned inter-company demand” ) .  For any item requiring inter-company supply the operator can review this screen.  As you can see below, this screen provides a clear view of the fact that the demand cannot be met by the supply company.

In short they replace the former blanket order but have beefed up functionality. So everything you know about blanket orders in former versions of AX still applies (e.g. no MRP impact, release orders are being created etc.) but we now have more control over the contract length, the terms and conditions as well as the commitment type and history.

Purchase agreements:

• Represent a contractual commitment
• Are period based
• Contain terms and conditions
• 4 different types of purchase agreements (details below)
• Keeps history of changes and releases

The available types of purchase agreements are:

• Product quantity commitment

Commit to purchase or sell a specific quantity of a product. The discount on this commitment can be a specific price and/or discount

• Product value commitment

Commit to purchase or sell a specific amount of a product. The discount is for a specific discount percent which will be applied to the order.

• Product value category commitment

Commit to Purchase or sell in a specific procurement or sales category for a specific amount. The discount is for a specific discount percent which will be applied to the order.

• Value commitment

Commit to Purchase or sell all products, procurement categories or sales category for a specific amount. The discount is for a specific discount percent which will be applied to the order.