In my post yesterday summarizing my Day 2 training, I said that the D365 Financials Payment Terms window looked disappointingly simple, as I expected it to be more configurable.
Well, it turns out that it is quite a bit more configurable than I thought based on my first glance, but you wouldn't realize it unless you knew about the Secret Codes.
What are the Secret Codes, and why exactly are they secret? Good questions.
First, they are secret because they are apparently not documented yet. The D365 Financials help web pages do not currently have any reference to Payment Terms. And they are Secret Codes because unless you know what they are and how to use them, you would never know that they exist, or that you could wield their power in the Payment Terms window.
So...
At first glance, the Payment Terms window looks really basic. Code, Due Date code, Discount Date code, Discount Percent, and Description. Very simple and standard looking.
But notice the column headers: "Due Date Calculation" and "Discount Date Calculation"
Instead of just having "30D" for 30 Days, there are codes you can use to setup some unusual payment terms.
Let's say you need to pay 3 days before the end of each month. You would use a Due Date Calculation of CM-3D. CM means Current Month, and -3D means subtract 3 days. So CM-3D means 3 days before the end of the current month.
CM+1D apparently means the beginning of the next month.
10D means 10 days from today, while D10 means the 10th day of the month.
D = Days
W = Weeks
M = Months
Q = Quarters
Y = Years
CW = Current Week
CM = Current Month
It's an unusual type of date math, so it will take some new thinking to use it properly, but it looks pretty powerful and flexible.
It is apparently based on the NAV "Date Formulas" feature, which is discussed on this MSDN page.
So how does this compare to Dynamics GP payment terms? It looks like the current GP Payment Terms window is fairly good, but is different.
GP seems to have a few more options, such as calculating due date based on Transaction Date or Discount Date, and having a separate configuration for Discounts. Very few (maybe one?) of the customers I have worked with actually use terms discounts, but for customers that take advantage of discounts, this may be valuable. I'm pretty sure most of the customers I have worked with just ignore vendor terms and pay Net 60, Net 90, or Net 120 for cash flow purposes.
Dynamics GP also has options to calculate the discount on Sale/Purchase, Discount, Freight, Misc and Tax, which I am not seeing in D365.
It's been years since I helped a customer setup anything other than the typical Net 30 / Net 45 / Net 60 payment terms, so I don't have any unusual scenarios to offer. If you have come across any weird ones, let me know if either the D365 or GP Payment Terms window will handle them.
Steve Endow is a Microsoft MVP
for Dynamics GP and a Dynamics GP Certified IT Professional in Los Angeles.
He is the owner of Precipio Services, which provides Dynamics GP
integrations, customizations, and automation solutions.
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