1099 for Dynamics GP

I've been really impressed with a lot of our clients this year. I usually don't start the 1099 rush until January 30th but I have been getting a lot of calls already about the 1099 process. I did a blog last year about 1099's found here. This is a good overview of the 1099 process.

A couple of comments about the 1099 process that I've come across this year are listed below.

1. I find it easiest to look at the yearly summary (still under Cards>>purchasing>>summary>>yearly tab>>change to calendar year view) and see how much was paid during the year versus the 1099 amount
2. To edit the 1099 amount it will have to be done in the 1099 detail window
3. If you only see zero's on your edit list you need to install SP2 or higher for 10.0
4. If you have a vendor listed as 1099 and it shouldn't be, delete the amounts in the 1099 window before changing the status to be "Not a 1099 Vendor". It will still show up on your 1099's otherwise
5. If you have a vendor listed as dividend and not the usuall miscellaneous you will have to zero out all dividend amounts and replace it in the miscellaneous window in the 1099 detail window
6. If you haven't listed the vendor as a 1099 vendor you will have to edit the amounts in the 1099 detail window as it doesn't go back and calculate for anything previous to the change
7. The minimum amount setting is under payables setup (Microsoft Dyanmics GP>>tools>>setup>>purchasing>>payables>>1099 setup). This used to be in the print 1099 window.
8. If you have a vendor that was paid $600, change the minimum in payables setup to be $599.99 or no 1099 will be printed for that vendor.
9. For 9.0 and before you edit 1099 details in the period view (cards>>purchasing>>summary>>period tab)
10. GP does not produce the 1096 summary form. Go figure.

Anyone else come across 1099 process issues not listed above?

No beginning balances in FRx balance sheet

I should have included this in my last post about the most common technical support questions. Usually around this time of year I get a rash of calls about how Dynamics is broken. Seems like all the balance sheet accounts don't have beginning balances even though their P and L have correct numbers.

Dynamics has been this way since the beginning of time. You will not have beginning balances until you close out the previous year (P and L accounts start with $0 each year so they are not effected). I know what you're thinking. "I'm not ready to close out the year yet". I usually have 2 responses to that objection.

1. You can still post entries to the GL to the most recent historical year. So even if you close out the year you can still make your audit adjustments etc. If you do choose this option be aware that the entry will freak you out. It will look like it posted the entry twice. The first is the original entry, the second is the system automatically adjusting the beginning balances for the open year. The second entry is always on the last day of the fiscal year (say 12/31/20xx). If you made your entry in the historical year on 12/31/20xx it will look like it's duplicating. No worries. That's what the system is supposed to do.


2. Do some fancy formatting in FRx. I would recommend a column layout similar to the below screen shot (click on picture for a closer look). The first 2 GL columns would be non printing columns. The first GL column give you YTD numbers for the 12th period of the previous year. The second column gives you YTD numbers for the current year. Column D adds both together.

You would probably want to save this as a seperate column layout so you can adjust back the original layout after you close out the year.

Tricky way to allow you to get a BS and procrastinate your year end close.

Dynamics GP 1099 printing for 9.0 and 10.0

Significant improvements/changes have been made to Great Plains 1099 printing process for version 10.0 versus previous releases of Dynamics (basically any version before 10.0). I've had several calls over the past week about printing 1099's so I thought I'd shed some light on the subject here.

First off there is a new setup window in Payables for 1099's. On the purchasing homepage look under setup and choose payables (tools>>setup>>purchasing>>payables). See screen shot below (click on picture to see better detail). You can now set the minimum 1099 amount in the 1099 setup window for each tax type and box number desired. (In 9.0 you would choose the minimum amount right on the print 1099 screen.)

Another change is the 1099 box added to the vendor options window. (cards>>purchasing>>vendor>>options). When you change the tax type to be a 1099 type you now can identify where the 1099 box will default to for the vendor. Nice little addition.

One of the biggest changes to this process is previous to 10.0 you could not split the 1099 amount between any needed boxes. You basically had to print out seperate 1099's for each box needed per vendor, updating the 1099 amount previous to each printing (or use a type writer, ha). In 10.0 you have the 1099 detail window as shown below. This window is a new place you can update the 1099 amounts as well and is found on the purchasing homepage under cards (instead of going to Cards>>purchasing>>summary>>period, in 9.0).

The 1099 detail window could also be used to correct the 1099 amount in 10.0. (Note that you need to choose the monthly view instead of yearly view to update any numbers.) In 10.0 you can still go in the old way which is Cards>>purchasing>>summary>>period (for homepage non users) but the 1099 detail window looks like that may be where I do this from now on. However, in 9.0 I usually tell people to see what the yearly number is (Cards>>purchasing>>summary>>yearly) and then update one of the periods with the amount desired so not sure how easy this will be in 10.0 with this new window. (Anyone have any thoughts on this???) Alternately you can go through each period and put the appropriate amount...but that's a pain and the 1099's will just use a summary total anyways.

You still print the 1099 edit list on the print 1099 window by choosing the printer icon in the upper right hand corner of the screen. The print 1099 window looks a little different as the payables setup area is where you change the 1099 minimum amounts now.

There is really no changes made to the 1099 form this year other than some 1099-R Distribution code changes. Not significant. So no year end update is really required. Still recommend being on the most recent SP but as I said, not really critical. One note on SP's, if you are not on SP 2 or beyond for 10.0 your edit list will print all zero's. So either update your SP version or print the 1099's to screen and browse numbers that way. May have 50 pages with 2 vendors on a page but at least you can see numbers etc.

I always get asked about forms and alignment. You can purchase forms from a store like Office Depot.

If the 1099 doesn't align correctly (sometimes off depending on the printer etc.), use these guidelines to make adjustments in the Print Dialog Box (tech doc #870140):

Horizontal: If you enter a positive number, the information on the paper will move to the right. If you enter a negative number, it will move to the left.

Vertical: If you enter a positive number, the information on the paper will move down. If you enter a negative number, it will move up.

Very rarely do I see you having to adjust the actual report writer report but have had to do it on occasion.

Last bit of advice. January 30th is fast approaching and the heat is usually on to get these done. Don't wait until January 29th to do your 1099's. It's a simple process but Murphy's Law definitely applies here.

Good Luck.

2008 Payroll year end close update Dynamics 10.0

Bear with me a moment while I grumble and I'll get to YEC for 10.0.

Great Plains isn't what it used to be. That's both good and bad I suppose.

It is good that all workstations should be on the same SP version to be able to log into a company. This saves many significant issues popping up as most are well aware. Workstations used to always be out of sync and a lot of the time the resolution would be "Apply this patch like all the rest of the workstations. etc."

However it is frustrating when you only need to apply the year end update for payroll. In times past you could put the cnk file only on the payroll persons workstation and they'd be good to go. It's a major effort now to apply any service pack. It almost feels like people are being pushed into a Citrix/Hosted or Terminal Server model. There are major advantages of only having to apply SP's once at a central location. I know you can have the SP automatically apply the next time a user logs into the system but that is mostly just a huge pain none the less.

Ok, 10.0 year end update. Here are a few things I've come across while going through the year end update. Most are pretty user specific but here they are none the less.

1. All people must be out of the system. Sounds like a no brainer but we spent several mins troubleshooting why the system tables wouldn't update then found some people had snuck into the system. (Hopefully Mike's head doesn't hurt too bad from hitting it repeatedly on the desk in front of him.)


2. To install the update make sure the installation of GP is at least the first recommended release of 10.0. Had one client on 10.0.465 which is a beta release of 10.0. Who knows how they got that one installed. Kept getting this erorr when trying to apply the update. Applied 10.0 Feature pack 1 which includes SP3 (1.5 gb download so don't do this with a 56k modem), applied the update and they were good to go.
3. You can run the update from a client workstation. Don't need to be at the server. Kind of counter intuitive but it works. After corrupting GP on the server during resolution of #1 we got the update to go on a client workstation. (Thanks to Jamie Nelson on this one).
4. Plan for several minutes per database. I've timed several updates and it seems like it runs around the 20 min range per database. This is true when the databases are pre SP3. Not sure if it's quicker if SP3 is already applied. (Anyone know this?)
5. You must run the year end wage file before applying 2009 tax tables. Duh.
6. You can't run a 2009 payroll before running the year end wage file. Duh again. ha.
7. User gets kicked out of GP when running payroll reports after applying update. Recreated reports.dic as it was corrupted in the process. So....make sure you backup reports.dic, forms.dic, dynamics and company databases etc. The process looks like it actually exports then imports the reports as part of the update so that could easily cause issues.

Here's a few other Year end update comments from Christina Phillips on her blog.

Victoria Yudin still has a great post on Year end close resources.