As CS3 Technology gears up for our 2019R1 internal release, I thought it would be fun to discuss some of the new features that we have been considering implementing.
The entire list of changes can be found here.
Acumatica ERP now supports the requirements of the 606 Revenue from Contracts with Customers GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) standard and the IFRS 15 (International Financial Reporting Standard) and these standards' models of recognizing revenue.
In layman terms, this means we can now recognize revenue for a Contract based on performance milestones within the Contract or a Project. Or we can have one contract with varying Terms for the line items of the contract. If my License is good for 5 years, and my Support is good for 1 year. We can now defer the revenue for the life of the contract for both items or split them with part of the revenue deferred over 5 years and part over just the 1 year. This is handled by the set up in the new Reallocation Pool.
To facilitate using this feature on some contracts and using the legacy Components table on the Details tab for others, there is a new Override check box on the Deferral Schedule. A Recalculate button was also added to facilitate switching back and forth between these calculation methods. Enhanced understanding of the calculations happening is done by the Net Tran, Comp Total and Comp Deferred calculations. In the detail section the Term Start, Term End and related Project Task fields allow for fine tuning and visibility of those Milestone dates.
Likewise, additions to the Sales Price screen for Fair Value check box and Prorated check box, further help to automate and meet GAAP segregation of duty requirements.
We used to have a guide mark of the 3 C’s for determining if a customer need a separate Tenant or Company within Acumatica. If they were the same calendar, same chart of accounts and same company/legal entity then they could be in the same tenant, otherwise they had to be separate. Now with this latest enhancement at least the Financial Calendar is taken out of the 3C’s, not sure the 2C’s will have the same ring here at CS3.
We can now generate a separate calendar for each company. These companies’ Financial Years and Periods can be cross-referenced to the Master Financial Calendar. If they are, then ARM reporting will still support combined or rolled-up financial reporting; simply check the new Use Master Reporting check box on your ARM report definition. Likewise, Intercompany transactions are booked using the periods that match the master calendar.
New check boxes add Zero Qty Inventory Items to the count sheet, or hide the book qty on the count sheet. The system also prevents duplicating count items across multiple open PI documents. Addtionaly, the system now allows selecting locations for which the PI document is going to be generated. Don’t want to count the returns or receipt locations, select to exclude them on PI preperation. Acumatica’s PI Book qty has also been updated to remove Work In Progress items like Issues and Transfers, that previously caused customers difficulty in performing counts.
Enhanced functionality is also now availabe for unit cost and estimated variance costing. For specifics on the calculation changes for specifc cost methodologies, check out the release notes linked above on page 47. When an inventory adjustment is called for preview the adjustment can be save in the balanced state and not released by setting your inventory preferences to not Automatically Release PI Adjustment. Previous editions released the PI adjustment as soon as the count was posted. Now make review and make changes to the Final Ext. Variance cost with the Manual Cost check box, then release the PI with confidence as to the impact of Inventory dollars. The Freeze Inventory When PI Count Is in Data Entry State has been removed from the Warehouse screen and moved to the PI screen now called Unfreeze Stock When Counting Is Finished. This setting allows stock transactions to be processed while the PI Adjustment is under review. A warning will appear regarding the risk to unfreezing stock prior to the PI Adjustment posting.
In previous versions of Acumatica ERP, if a user sent an email from a system email account, the header of the email included the following information about the email sender:
Now you can select the format in which the system will send emails per System Account box.
Standard functionality processed received emails and would create a Case with a contact only if that contact contained the email address. The system will now search all customer email fields and on a match, it associates the customer to the case and create a new contact if one does not exist. Still not quite domain matching, but with services like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail etc. I understand why aren’t there yet.
Approval maps can now require an Approval Reason or a Rejection Reason; or allow for those reasons to be optionally added at the approvers at time of approval.
New functionality allows for the temporary deactivation of Approval Map conditions, rules or steps. The New Execute step allows for quick one-off rules to be added to complex maps. Options of executing always or only if all other rules found no approvers makes adding new conditions more manageable.
Built-in help is fantastic, but if you are not on the latest build of your version you may not have the latest up to date help articles. The new option allows search to also scan the Acumatica Online Help Portal https://help.acumatica.com/ looking for the most relevant items. Feedback buttons also allow users to send Acumatica information on the helpfulness of an article, data which will help them focus on which articles to work on improving.
Users with several years of experience will note that previous versions of Acumatica did not have a method for deleting the Schedule history files once the option was turned-on to create them. Acumatica has added two boxes to solve this issue. Keep All History check box, keeps everything and the Executions to Keep in History text box allows an admin to specify the number of runs to keep.
Colors by Tenant, Company and Branches. Too cool. Nuff said.
Interested in this or other ERP software features, our team is happy to discuss them with you. Our experienced team of industry specialists support clients daily by initiating projects to improve business processes, assisting with the development of an RFP/RFI, architecting system blueprints, and the creation of unique business strategies through management consultation. What can we do for you?
