Tips and tricks for importing by using the General journal entity

You can use the General journal entity to import only vouchers that have an account type of Ledger. The voucher can be entered so that there are ledger accounts on multiple lines. Alternatively, you can enter ledger accounts in both the Account field and the Offset account field.

The entity will continue to only support the Ledger account type, and won’t be expanded to support other account types. If the entity were expanded to support every combination of account types, the number of fields in the entity would be overwhelming. Without the UI, it’s difficult to communicate which fields are relevant for each combination of account types.

Instead, other entities exist for scenarios where different combinations of account types are required. For example, to import a vendor invoice (by using the journals), use the Vendor invoice journal entity, which lets you enter vendor/ledger transactions. The Vendor invoice journal entity is designed specifically for importing vendor invoices and includes only fields that are relevant for vendor invoices.

Setup

Before you import by using the General journal entity, validate the following setup in Microsoft Dynamics AX:

• Number sequence setup for the journal batch number – By default, when you import by using the General journal entity, the journal batch number uses the number sequence that is defined in the General ledger parameters. If you set the number sequence for the journal batch number to Manual, a default number isn’t applied. This setup isn’t supported.
• Financial dimension configuration – Every organization must define the order of financial dimensions when entities are used to import transactions. The order is defined for the Ledger dimensions integration format, at General ledger > Chart of accounts > Dimensions > Financial dimension configuration for integrating applications > Select data entities. The segments of the ledger account that is imported must have the same order. Otherwise, an error will occur during import.

General journal entity setup

Two settings in Data management affect how the default journal batch number or voucher number is applied: Set-based processing (on the data entity) and Auto-generated (on the field mapping). The following sections describe the effect of these settings, and also explain how journal batch numbers and voucher numbers are generated.

Journal batch number

• The Set-based processing setting on the General journal entity doesn’t affect the way that journal batch numbers are generated.
• If the Journal batch number field is set to Auto-generated, a new journal batch number is created for every line that is imported. This behavior isn’t recommended. The Auto-generated setting is found on the import project, under View map, on the Mapping details tab.
• If the Journal batch number field isn’t set to Auto-generated, the journal batch number is created as follows:
  • If the journal batch number that is defined in the imported file matches an existing, unposted daily journal in Dynamics AX, all lines that have a matching journal batch number are imported into the existing journal. Lines are never imported into a posted journal batch number. Instead, a new number is created.
  • If the journal batch number that is defined in the imported file doesn’t match an existing, unposted daily journal in Dynamics AX, all lines that have the same journal batch number are grouped under a new journal. For example, all lines that have a journal batch number of 1 are imported into a new journal, and all lines that have a journal batch number of 2 are imported into a second new journal. The journal batch number is created by using the number sequence that is defined in the General ledger parameters.

Voucher number

• When you use the Set-based processing setting on the General journal entity, the voucher number must be provided in the imported file. Every transaction in the General journal is assigned the voucher number that is provided in the imported file, even if the voucher isn’t balanced.
  If you want to use set-based processing, but you also want to use the number sequence that is defined for voucher numbers in Dynamics AX, a hotfix has been provided for the Dynamics AX 7.0.0 (February 2016) release. The hotfix number is 3170316 and available for download from Lifecycle services (LCS). For more information, see Download hotfixes from Lifecycle Services.
  • To enable this functionality, on the journal name that is used for imports in Dynamics AX, set Number allocation at posting to Yes.
  • A voucher number must still be defined in the imported file. However, this number is temporary and is overwritten by the Dynamics AX voucher number when the journal is posted. You must make sure that the lines of the journal are grouped correctly by temporary voucher number. For example, during posting, three lines are found that have a temporary voucher number of 1. The temporary voucher number of all three lines is overwritten by the next number in the number sequence. If those three lines aren’t a balanced entry, the voucher isn’t posted. Next, if lines are found that have a temporary voucher number of 2, this number is overwritten by the next voucher number in the number sequence, and so on.

• When you don’t use the Set-based processing setting, no voucher number must be provided in the imported file. The voucher numbers are created during import, based on the setup of the journal name (One voucher only, In connection of balance, and so on). For example, if the journal name is defined as In connection of balance, the first line receives a new default voucher number. The system then evaluates the line to determine whether the debits equal the credits. If an offset account exists on the line, the next line that is imported receives a new voucher number. If no offset account exists, the system evaluates whether the debits equal the credits as each new line is imported.
• If the Voucher number field is set to Auto-generated, the import won’t succeed. The Auto-generated setting for the Voucher number field isn’t supported.

By default, the General journal entity uses set-based processing. After you evaluate the business requirements for your organization, you can change the Set-based processing setting by clicking Data entities in the Data management workspace. Set-based processing is used to speed up the import process. If you don’t use set-based processing, import of the General journal entity import will be slower.