We’ve all seen it (and probably done it but we won’t talk about that) a transposed transaction/document date. And, of course, we rarely catch the transposition before we post. Thus begins the long, arduous process of correcting a lousy posting for 2081 instead of 2018. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to prevent that?
The good news is that thanks to Professional Services Tools’ Library (PSTL), there is! The answer to our 2081 problem is a function within PSTL called Doc Date Verify. This function prevents a user from entering a transaction date that does not exist in the company’s fiscal period set up.
PSTL is now available free to all supported versions of GP (Click here for a list of supported versions and life cycle information). PSTL should be installed on all workstations/servers to ensure that PSTL’s processes can run and validate all users’ data entry, validation, etc. Additionally, some tools within PSTL do include the modification of data so we strongly encourage users to coordinate with their internal GP administrator or contact Leaf with questions before making any changes with those particular tools and when in doubt, backup the database!
Once PSTL is installed, configuring Doc Date Verify is a simple process
1.) Navigate to PSTL in your Navigation Pane.
2.) Click on “PSTL Main Setup” if this is the first time entering, it may take a few minutes to open.
3.) Under the”Misc. Tools” column on the far right, there is an option for Doc Date Verify. To enable, select the radio button and check the box next to Doc Date Verify. Once checked, you can click the “X” in the upper right corner to close the screen. Doc Date Verify is officially enabled.
Now assuming you’ve read through the post and ensured all workstations and remote servers, have PSTL installed, users won’t be able to enter transaction dates where the corresponding fiscal period is not set up. Here is the Payables Transaction Entry screen to demonstrate.
You’ll see below that my Doc. Date is set to 04/21/2220 which isn’t set up on my system (and hopefully isn’t on yours either!).
As soon as I attempt to move away from the Doc Date field to the next data entry, I receive the error message below.
Though the button option says “Continue,” all it does is revert me to the Doc Date entry. I cannot continue with data entry until I put in a valid date (i.e., a date that is set up in your company’s fiscal period set up).
Entering a valid date does not prevent a user from keying a document date as 8/1/2018 instead of 7/1/2018 if both periods exist and are open in GP, but it is a great tool to capture those transpositions of numbers that put dates in nonexistent fiscal periods which are much harder to correct!
For much more information on Doc Date Verify, other PSTL tools or Microsoft Dynamics GP, please contact Leaf Software Solutions:
317.814.8000 or info@leafsoftwaresolutions.com