Hello again after a long gap. I was planning this article on the new but very helpful financial period closure functionality that was added in the AX 7 (New AX) for quite some time now. But, I had to take a break as my grandfather expired recently. A great man he is indeed..93 years old. RIP Grandpa.
Coming back to this article, in AX 2012 we do not have a provision to chalk out the tasks involved in the closing procedure. Although closing is a periodic task, users need to create a physical manual for procedures and no laid out patterns. The closing depended on the user’s memory of the steps in closing rather than a system function.
To alleviate this weakness and provide a clear-cut step by step methodology that is pre-configurable by the organizations depending on the type of closing (Monthly, Yearly etc.,) the persons responsible for closing and the timeline for closing procedures to be completed.
Microsoft has also come up with a Workspace for Financial Period Close in the New AX (By now most of you must be familiar about the workspaces in the latest version of AX) that can be accessed by the users with a list of tasks that needs to be performed by the specific user.
AX allows multiple configurations for Closing such as Monthly closing, yearly closing, Inventory closing and all of these can be different sets and mutually independent of each other.
Configuring the Period close: Let us first create a configuration set for Month end closing in AX 7
Go to General ledger > Period Close > Financial period close configuration
The following configurations has to be made in order to initiate the closing.
1. Calendars: Calendars refer to the period when the closing exercise has to be initiated. For example for the month of March – 2016, the closing tasks will be done from 31st March until 5th April. The below screen shows how to create the calendars for closing tasks
a. Click on the Calendars, the calendars form is opened as below:
b. Click New to open the drop dialog.
c. In the Calendar field, type a value.
d. In the Name field, type a value.
e. In the Start date field, enter a date.
f. In the End date field, enter a date.
g. Click Create.
The calendar is created as highlighted below:
2. Closing Roles: The closing roles are used for assigning the tasks to resources (Workers). This is primarily used to group workers in according to the roles they perform during closing:
a. Click on the Closing roles, the Closing roles form is opened as below:
b. Click New to create a new Closing Role and enter the closing role ID
c. Enter the description
d. Click Save to save the role
3. Resources: Resources refer to the workers responsible for closing tasks. Add all the workers responsible for closing tasks and select the type of tasks he can view as below.
a.Click on the Resources, the resources form is opened as below:
b.Click New to create a new worker record
c.Select the worker responsible from the dropdown list
d. In the View the 2 options are available as “All tasks and status” and “Only assigned tasks”. Select as required.
e. Now assign the closing role, and choose the companies the user can perform the closing as below:
4. Task areas: Task areas are for logical grouping/categorization of the tasks to be performed for closing. For ex: Inventory tasks, AR tasks.
a. Click on the Task areas, the Task areas form is opened as below:
b. Click New to create a new Task area
c. Enter the description and save the record.
5.Templates: all the tasks pertaining to a closing process are defined here. We need to first create a template (For Ex: Monthly Closing) and select the task areas. We can assign the Resources (Workers) responsible for the task, the date and time by which the tasks must be completed (from the date of period end) and the actual link for the Task areas are for logical grouping/categorization of the tasks to be performed for closing. For ex: Inventory tasks, AR tasks.
a. Click on the Templates and the templates form is opened
b. In the Drop down Box at the top choose a Template (If you already have one) or Click on “+” button to add a new template.
c. After the Template is selected, Click on New to add Task areas and to assign tasks
d. In the “Area” field choose from the list of task areas
e. Enter the Task Description under “task” field
f. In the “Due Date relative to period end date” field, choose the number of days after the period close by which the task must be complete (For Ex: Bank Reconciliation must be completed in 2 days after period close, Enter “2”)
g. In the “Due Time” field enter the time of the day by which the task must be completed
h. In the “Resource” field choose the worker
i. In the “Company” Field, select the company for which the task must be performed
j. For the “Task Link”, you can either choose a URL (for Ex: Management Reporter or Power BI report website link) or a Menu Item of AX 7.
k. If there is a dependency for the task, in the “Dependency” column select the checkbox. After selecting the checkbox, user must click on the “Set Dependency” to choose all the tasks that are dependent on.
6.Closing Schedule: Closing Schedule is the final task in the configuration. In this we assign the start date and end date, template to be used and the relevant calendar applicable.
a. Click on the closing schedules, the form opens as below:
b. Click New and choose a Closing Schedule ID
c. Enter the Description of the closing Schedule
d. Enter the Period Start Date and End Date
e. Choose the relevant Template & Calendar
f. In the Company Field choose the Company for the closing schedule
In the part-2 of this article, We shall discuss Period close functionality to perform the closing tasks using the Financial Period Work Space
