Dynamics GP: Top 3 SmartLists You Should Create to Monitor Your Chart of Accounts

SmartList is one of my favorite tools in Dynamics GP. It is easy to use and very powerful. Best of all, it exports to Excel beautifully with just a click of a button. SmartList is great for any Ad-Hoc reporting and data analysis. Dynamics GP already organizes the different Smartlists in each of the module folders and sub-folders. This makes it even easier to use. You can also customize a Smartlist and save it as your favorite or reminder. Today, I’m going to show you how to make three very useful Smartlists in the Financial Module to help monitor your Chart of Accounts.

Balance Sheet Account with the Wrong Posting Type

This SmartList will help you catch any Balance Sheet account with Profit and Loss as the posting type. Before you run your year-end close process, make sure you check this Smartlist and fix any mistakes you might find. Better yet, I am going to show you how to set a reminder so you can routinely monitor and correct any mistake.

1. Go to your Smartlist, Financial folder and Accounts sub-folder. Click on the * which is the out of the box Smartlist. Let’s click the Search button and start modifying it! 
2. In your Search Accounts window, you want to put two search criteria. Let’s say my asset accounts are in the 1000 range; liabilities are in 2000 and Equity accounts are in 3000. First is to search by your GL account number from 1000 to 3999 account range. The second criteria is Posting Type is equal to Profit and Loss. Make sure you use Match All as the Search Type. Another optional search criteria you could use is “Active is equal to Yes”. The search results will have Active accounts only.
3. Now, click OK. If all of your balance sheet accounts are setup correctly, you should have no search result on the Smartlist. If you do, you know you have some corrections to make. No news is good news for this one.
4. The last step is to save this as your favorite and reminder. Simply click Favorites button, give this Smartlist a name, you can choose to make it visible to System or choose the other option as you see fit. Click the Add button and choose Add favorite and reminder.
5. In the Custom Reminder window, set the “Remind me when” option to Number of records is greater than “0”. Check the Display as a Cue checkbox.

On your home page, you will have a visual cue reminder whenever you need to fix a balance sheet account. How easy is that!

P&L Account with the Wrong Posting Type

You guessed it! This next SmartList will help you catch any P&L accounts with Balance Sheet as the posting type. Let’s say my P&L account range starts at 4000 and ends at 8999. Same steps as above to create this Smartlist but this time you will make the following search criteria.

If you have any Posting Allocation accounts, they are set as Balance Sheet Posting Type. These accounts might be in your P&L account range. That’s the reason why I added the third search criteria, Account Type is equal to Posting Account. A fourth but optional search criteria you could use is “Active is equal to Yes”. The search result will have Active accounts only.

Remember to save it under a new name such as P&L Accounts with Wrong Posting Type. Set it as your favorite and reminder as well.

New and Modified GL Accounts This Month

This Smartlist will help you identify any new GL accounts added in a period. This list comes in handy when you need to update your financial reports in Management Reporter for example.

1. First, start with the basic * out of the box Smartlist under Financial and Accounts subfolder. Then click the Columns button.
   
2. Add two new columns: Created Date and Modified Date. Simply click Add in the Change Column Display window.
   
3. Type “Created Date” in the search box. Click Find Next. Click OK.
4. Repeat step b and c above and search for Modified Date.
5. The new columns are added to the bottom of the list by default. Now click the “Move column to the beginning” arrow key to re-order them to the top. Click OK.
6. Click the Search button on the top and input these search criteria in the Search Accounts window. This time, choose Match 1 or More as the Search Type. This Smartlist will give you all the GL accounts that are created or modified in this month. You can certainly put a date range or enter a specific date depending on what you are searching for.
   
7. Now, save this Smartlist as your favorite by clicking the Favorites button on top. Let’s name this one “New and Modified GL Accounts This Month” and visible to the System. Click Add and you are done.

Creating your own favorite Smartlists is simple and easy. If you are new to Dynamics GP, I’m sure you will learn to love Smartlists very quickly. If you have been using Dynamics GP for awhile, I think you would agree Smartlists are something you cannot live without in your Accounting world.

Next time, I will show you some more Fixed Assets Smartlists that will help with your month end reconciliation. But for now, if you have any questions about SmartLists, please let us know by submitting the contact form below.