Improve your historical aging reports in Dynamics GP

The one constant thing in our lives is change. There are plenty of self-help books about this. We cannot avoid it and the more we resist change the tougher our life becomes.

Just look at the latest big change in our lives…the coronavirus pandemic has caused a shift in our business environment as we know it, from how and where we work, to how we communicate with customers, and interact with colleagues. There have been challenges, and we have all had to learn and accept new ways of doing things.

So much of what we are dealing with has been difficult, and we are all looking for opportunities to make things easier right now. What if we could help you improve the way you are running reports in Microsoft Dynamics GP?

Challenges with historical aging reports

The historical aging report delivered out of the box with Microsoft Dynamics GP has some challenges. If you’d like to export it to Excel, the rows and columns do not align. This makes it difficult to analyze or share with coworkers who don’t have a GP login.

In addition, while running the report, GP can freeze up your application, causing you to lose productivity waiting for the report to finish processing.

Having an Excel-friendly report is key to allowing you to easily sort and filter by customer, look at summary data or detail, and use it as a basis for pivot tables and calculations.

How Enavate makes it easier

Enavate has created a flexible, user-friendly, Excel-friendly historical aging report for payables or receivables that will make life a little easier, for good.

Here are a few ways that Enavate makes these reports better and easier for you:

• It’s customizable. Available for customers using Dynamics GP versions 2013 or higher, this highly customizable report utilizes SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). SSRS is included at no cost for every Dynamics GP customer with a simple installation. SSRS is powerful because it allows you to run the report outside of GP without a GP login. Because it utilizes SSRS, you can add columns, remove them, change aging periods, etc. You can make changes on the fly.
• It’s faster. Running the report will not tie up your GP application, and it runs significantly faster than the out-of-the-box Historical Aging Report.
• It’s easier to access. You can run it from within GP with a link for easy access, but it’s also accessible for executives or other coworkers without a GP login. It can even be pulled into executive summary dashboards. Any changes within GP are visible on the report with a simple refresh.

Here’s what the report looks like in Excel:

The report is available for both standard GP and Multi Entity Management installations.

Three benefits from using this report

1. No more reformatting. Right now, you spend way too much time reformatting Dynamics aging reports to be readable in Excel. One little posting and you have to start all over again. This new report automatically updates with a refresh and you can easily export it to Excel.
2. No more endless waiting. Waiting … waiting … waiting for the report to finish. How many coffee trips can one person make? (Don’t answer that if you have one of those “But First, Coffee” shirts.) This report churns in the background so it doesn’t tie up your workstation.
3. More of what you actually want. More columns, more fields, more aging periods ... the list goes on. This highly customizable report provides the data you want in a format that works for you.

Ready to make reports easier?

Enavate has developed this flexible report and it can be configured for a single company database. We can install the standard report for you, provide you with a list of columns available, and configure it to meet your needs. If you are not already using SSRS, we are able to install and configure internally facing SSRS as part of the one-time cost. End-user training is included in the price.

In a time of major change and frustration, let us help you make life a little easier. For additional questions or how you can order your own Historical Aging Report, please contact us!

About the Author

Lisa Shechter is a Team Leader with broad experience in the Microsoft Business Solution space. She has been implementing and supporting Dynamics GP and other ERP products since 1994. Lisa started her career specializing in conducting large and medium-sized companies through implementation, integration, and technology decisions for their ERP systems. Lisa began working with hosted application systems in 2000 and began leading teams directed at supporting applications in the cloud in 2004.

By developing processes and systems to specifically address customer requirements around compliance and controls, Lisa is focused on maintaining and supporting Microsoft Business Solutions in stable, repeatable, high availability platforms. From new implementations to upgrades, from migrations to integrations, Lisa’s deep experience leads to assurance that customers’ application environments are reliable and durable.