Microsoft Great Plains Implementation for Midsize & Large Corporation: Lockbox
Processing
By Andrew Karasev
Alba Spectrum Technologies
1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918
help@albaspectrum.com
Microsoft Great Plains
is now targeting large and midsize businesses and being matured ERP has
advanced, but still very simple in use modules and features: Lockbox Processing
for Accounts Receivables, Customer/Vendor Consolidation, Multicurrency etc.
We’ll try to cover these features in the series of small articles to help
decision maker and end user understand the feature and how does it work to make
a decision to purchase additional nice modules. In our opinion large
corporation, which had to use ERP with rich functionality in the past, doesn’t
have to do it in our new time. There are few reasons to switch to cheaper ERP,
the most important are: database platform reliability improvement – nowadays MS
SQL Server does excellent job and has most of the former instability and
maintenance issues resolved. The second reason – MS Windows server is now close
to be considered as a solid rock and you do not have to reboot it on the regular
basis to fix all the types of “memory leaks”, etc. OK, lets review Lockbox
processing:
- Customer Matching.
This is rather the question about generic lockbox application – which
basically imports text file, received from your bank and matches them with
customer invoices, debit memos and miscellaneous charges. The question
typically sounds like this – in our Great Plains CustomerID is different from
bank customer ID. This is right, but each check has Bank Account Number and
Bank Routine Number, identifying the customer, all you need to do is –
carefully review first processing and enter this customer info, or open it
here: Cards>>Sales>>Lockbox Bank Details – and next time you get check from
this customer – lockbox will catch and identify it. This is true even in the
case of hand written check.
- Invoice Number
Matching. This is a bit tricky
question, and you can’t catch invoice number from hand written check. However
when we are talking about large businesses – these checks have invoices
printed. If you bank has so-called Automatic Clearinghouse (ACH) lockbox file
format – it can provide invoice number line if the check is issued by
corporate or midsize established business. In the case of ACH header will
have prefix 6 and line prefix 4.
- No Invoice Number
Matching. This is still OK if
you have a lot of small customers with one or few outstanding invoices. In
this case – use autoapply method. You can have variety of apply criteria:
None, Document Number (when you have ACH), Due Date/Oldest Document, Due
Date/Oldest Invoice (other than invoices you apply manually), Document Date,
Specific Invoices (and you specify them in the list)
- Additional
Considerations. Virtually if
you have corporate account in any bank – lockbox processing module does the
job – because you map lockbox file at your will in Lockbox Maintenance screen:
Cards>>Sales>>Lockbox
- Customization
Options. Lockbox is Dexterity
piece, so it is in the hand of Dexterity Developer, if you need to improve it
for your corporation. VBA Modifier and Continuum are also available.
Also feel free to use new tools, such as Extender or eConnect.
Good luck and you can
always seek our help in customization, implementation, integration and support.
Call us: 1-866-528-0577 or 1-630-961-5918,
help@albaspectrum.com
Andrew Karasev is Chief
Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains,
Microsoft CRM customization company, serving Chicago, California, Arizona,
Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York, Australia, UK, Canada, Continental Europe,
Russia and having locations in multiple states and internationally (
http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports
and Microsoft CRM SDK developer