Recently a couple of clients have expressed interest in understanding how the General Ledger posting settings work in Dynamics GP. Here are a few common questions we hear…

• What does it mean to create a journal entry per transaction versus batch?
• What will my trial balance look like if I post in summary versus detail?
• If I post in summary, will I still be able to drill back to see the source transaction?

This is something we educate our power users about at the beginning of any GP implementation, and often times it is much more easily grasped by walking through specific examples with visuals versus simply providing an explanation. Here I attempt to describe the effects of the various posting setup options using several screenshots.

All of the posting options described here are set up in the following window:  Microsoft Dynamics GP >> Tools >> Setup >> Posting >> Posting

3 SETUP OPTIONS:

1. Create a Journal Entry Per Transaction
2. Create a Journal Entry Per Batch and set the account to detail level posting
3. Create a Journal Entry Per Batch and set the account to summary level posting

 The following example is specific to AP Invoice transactions.

SETUP OPTION #1:  One Journal Entry per Transaction (e.g. per invoice)

GL TRIAL BALANCE RESULTS FOR SETUP OPTION #1:  Two transactions were posted and each one was posted to the GL as a different journal entry number (#3,451 and #3,452). Here we see detail for both transactions for the 2100 account.

SETUP OPTION #2:  One Journal Entry per Batch (e.g. per invoice) AND detail account level posting

TRIAL BALANCE RESULTS FOR SETUP OPTION #2:  Two transactions in the same batch were posted to the GL as the same journal entry number (#3,457). We still see the detail for both transactions for the 2100 account.

SETUP OPTION #3:  One Journal Entry per Batch (e.g. per invoice) AND summary account level posting

TRIAL BALANCE RESULTS FOR SETUP OPTION #3:  Two transactions in the same batch were posted, however, the GL shows only a single line and single journal entry number (#3,458) for the entire batch posting. We do not see the detail, only the summary information.

DRILLDOWN ABILITY:  In the Journal Entry Inquiry screen, you can pull up the journal entry number as seen in the screenshot below. In this scenario, I pulled up journal entry #3,458 from the trial balance above…

Then, by clicking on the Source Document link (as seen above), you can drill into the Purchasing Zoom window, which shows the individual invoice detail for everything posted in the batch. In this scenario I posted a batch that contained 2 invoices. Those 2 invoices are shown below. The invoices total $650, which is the summary total we see in the GL trial balance above…

You can then drill down further to the actual invoice (screenshot below) by clicking on the Voucher/Payment Number link as seen above…

In summary, there is always a way to see the detail of a particular posting, regardless of the setup options. In options 1 and 2 above, we see the detail in the GL trial balance. In option 3 above, we see only the summary in the GL, and we are able to drill down to the detail via various inquiry screens.