Editing PO Distributions in Summary

So, with service packs for GP 10 (SP2 and later) and GP 9 (SP3 and later), users can no longer edit the summary distributions in Receivings Transaction Entry and Purchasing Invoice Entry. Users are required to access the Item Detail expansion, and modify the account associated with the line item.

I completely understand the change from an inventory perspective, since it has always been a difficult task to reconcile inventory to the general ledger when distributions could be modified in summary, therefore "breaking" any association between the line items and the resulting distributions. But, for the many clients that use the POP module without using inventory, this change has created a more complicated process.

At first, the majority of the complaints we received about it were related to the fact that it is more time consuming to access the Item Detail expansion than to simply edit the distributions in summary. Annoying, yes. But, yesterday, I had a client with an even more exasperating situation. In their case, they have been routinely coding single items (non inventory, of course) to multiple accounts. So, their PO may have one item, a service contract as an example, that needs to post to a variety of accounts. And, of course, it is not a fixed thing that could be addressed with an allocation account.

There is a workaround provided by Microsoft, but of course it is not ideal as it creates extraneous debit/credit transactions in the GL for non inventory items:

For non inventory items:

1. In Purchasing Distribution Entry, create a third distribution line with the same PURCH account but using an OTHER distribution type. Use this line to "wash" the original PURCH distribution.
2. Enter desired distributions using the OTHER distribution type.

For inventory items, I think the complaints are less frequent because most users do have items posting to default accounts, but there are workarounds per Microsoft there as well.

For inventory items (three different options):

1. Use fixed or variable allocation accounts
2. Receive quantities on multiple shipments, changing account on Purchase Order as needed
3. Change account on Item Maintenance or in Posting Account Setup to the appropriate default account

So, what to do? I would love to hear your thoughts, and the reactions you have gotten on this change (as necessary as it may have been from an inventory perspective).

UPDATE: Brenner from Willoware just let me know that they have included a fix for this in their GP PowerPack, www.WilloWare.com. "Not only will it allow you to again edit the PURCH distribution, but it also has a new "default" option which will calculate one distribution line per line-item received. " Thanks Brenner!