Are you curious about the differences in Dynamics GP versus Dynamics 365 Business Central? In this blog series, we’re exploring new videos that take you through the differences and similarities in work processes. The first four topics were receivables transactions, paying vendors, payables transactions, and cash receipts. Today, we’re looking at segments and dimensions setup.
Stay tuned for the next video in this series that will compare the work process of creating dimension transactions and reports in Dynamics GP and Business Central.
If you need help with your Dynamics GP to Business Central migration, contact TrinSoft today.
Video transcript:
In this video, we’re going to talk about segments and accounts in GP, and then look at how that information can be migrated and used in Business Central.
An organization’s chart of accounts is made up of a list of natural accounts, sometimes called main accounts. Most companies want to be able to analyze transactions that are posted to their natural accounts.
Categorizing transactions can help to better understand a company’s expenses and revenues, primarily their profit and loss accounts. Companies may want to categorize revenue by region and market segment and expenses by department and projects. This can be done through the use of segments in GP and dimensions in Business Central.
First, let’s go to the account format in GP and see how segments and the main account are defined. The account format is created using a combination of segments and the main account. The account format will be used to build out the chart of accounts.
We currently have our format broken into three different segments, including Division, Account and Department. Each has a specific position and length in the format.
Next, let’s look at the segments and what the values are for those segments. If I select my Division segment, I can then click on the lookup to see all the various divisions that I’ve set up in my organization. Finally, if we go to the account window, we can see how the account format is used to build out the chart of accounts.
If we pull up our 300-6520-00 account, we can see that this is the travel expense account for our sales division. Now let’s look at how the main account and segments can be migrated to Business Central.
In the cloud migration setup wizard, you can indicate which segments you would like to be global dimensions. Similar to segments, dimensions in Business Central let you categorize and analyze transactions posted to the chart of accounts. Instead of creating separate ledger accounts for each division or department, dimensions can be used in combination with your main account to analyze information and reduce the need for a large and complex chart of accounts.
Business Central has two global dimensions. These should be the most common segments, as you can easily sort and filter on these dimensions. The remainder of your segments will be migrated as shortcut dimensions
In Business Central, let’s see where those global and shortcut dimensions are defined. To navigate to the General Ledger Setup, we will select the search icon and enter General Ledger Setup and choose that from the search results.
In this setup window, we can see that the division and department segments I selected in the cloud migration have been set up as global dimensions. If I had more than those segments in GP, the remaining segments would have come over as shortcut dimensions in Business Central.
Next, let’s navigate to the dimension window, where you can see these existing dimensions and create new ones later on should you want to start analyzing additional information in Business Central. If I select my division dimension and go to dimension values, I can see all my segment values from GP have been migrated over. I could also create additional ones in the future.
Finally, let’s see how the chart of accounts looks in Business Central now that it’s been migrated over. In my chart of accounts, all the main accounts that I defined in GP are now my chart of accounts, and I can still see all my transaction amounts by the various segments.
Let’s again look at that travel expense account that we had looked at in GP. If I want to drill back on the balance, I can see all my department and division segments with the amounts broken out for each, similar to how it looks in GP.
And that’s a quick look at segments and dimensions in GP and Business Central.
