When entering an invoice, a user enters the GL account number and the department field pre-fills with a department number, which is almost never the department they want. They would rather the department field to default to blank in all cases.

Is there a way to do that?

Steve

Hi Steve,

What default GL account is assigned to the vendor, on the Accounting tab? I presume it is the account with the undesired department.

At the current time, the setting in the Payables company profile for 'Validate ledger account' only applies to batch entry and not defining a default to a vendor. Thus the default GL account on vendors must be valid.

Also there is no setting to override the department on new distributions to blank.

Which means your only option (for how it works today) is to have a GL account defined with no department, and assign that as the default to the vendor. And then when a new invoice is created for this vendor, the account will be populated and the department will be blank, and can then be selected.

I can also appreciate that this may not be a desirable method of configuring GL accounts, but it would be the only possible way with what is currently shipping.

Thanks for confirming what I feared was the answer.

And by the way the vendor master default account and department are both blank. That is irrelevant to the issue and I’m not sure why you spent much of your reply assuming they weren’t blank.

Steve

OK. And I see that from your original post, they are probably typing in the account number for the distribution (rather than using the finder), and thus the first department automatically populates the field, which was not desiree here.

They can always over-type the department if they are doing keyboard entry, just as if the department was blanked out, since the automatically inserted department is highlighted. Is this just that they don't like the display of the auto-inserted department, or is there an actual problem that occurs because of this?

The problem is that if they aren't paying close attention, they will skip past the department field and an unintended department will result, with no warning. If the department field is blank, they won't be able to skip past the field, but will have to enter the correct department, lessening the odds for user error.

I'm sure you will agree that lessening the odds for user error is a worthy goal for software, all other things being equal. As is the goal of increasing user satisfaction. This is not the first time I have heard this complaint.

Steve

Hi Steve,

How are they entering the GL Account? Are they typing it in or popping the Finder and selecting it?

Everywhere in Adagio where you enter a GL account during transaction entry, the department is pre-populated with the department from the Finder. All the text is selected, so if you type anything then the text is replaced.

Having a warning when "an unintended" department is entered, requires a connection to the cosmic consciousness.

If an account-department pair exists, then presumably that's a valid expense distribution (although it may not be correct for the invoice at hand). Invalid account-department pairs should be marked Inactive in Ledger to prevent selection. Vendors should have default account-department pairs on their record.

Changing the way this works would result in screams of anguish from those used to this program operation. This means if we change the operation, it has to be controlled by a User Preference, which means changing every transaction entry dialog in Adagio to check the preference.

We have batches and batch listings in Adagio to allow people to easily check their work. The batch listing includes a GL account summary. Does it need to include a department summary too?

You misunderstand the problem. But unless someone else wants to pick this up I can accept no for an answer. There is nothing more to say I haven’t already said.

Steve

Just so that I am clear on the request, you'd like us to add an option under Company Profile | Batch options under "Validate ledger account", labelled "Force department selection", which would force the user to enter both the account and department as separate operations, even if they selected the "correct" (or at last a valid) account-department from the Finder when entering the account number field.

The option, being in the company profile, would be set on a company by company (not user by user).

I would like the department to default to blank after keying in an account and pressing the tab key when entering an invoice (or Cash Invoice manual check), unless there is a default department assigned in the vendor master record. I am talking about keying in an account, not using the finder.

Once they tab past the department field, the system would continue to react as it does now, depending on the "Validate ledger account" setting in Company Profile.

It would also be nice if in the vendor master record, one can enter an account and leave the department blank, or vice versa, even though there is no such account-department in the chart of accounts. But this is not my major concern.

Again, my major concern is to lessen the odds that a user will leave an unintended department in when entering an invoice.

Steve

Support:

I understand what Steve means. While some users like that Adagio tries to help by loading the first matching Department code (especially in situations with very few Departments), others would prefer a blank Department which means the user has to stop, think and select the correct Department.

One of my clients agrees with Steve's secondary request: The ability to allow a blank Department code on the Vendor master record. This would be used in situations where the GL Account can be assigned to the Vendor with accuracy but the Department can vary.

As Support stated, this is not currently possible. However this client is a relatively recent convert from ACCPAC Plus. That product didn’t do as much checking as Adagio and therefore they deliberately have a number of long-time Vendors with blank Department codes.

But that request brings up a related request. They have had a few transactions get to the GL with missing Department codes. The cause is (1) the long-term Vendor does not have a Department assigned and (2) the user is using the mouse rather than the keyboard to skip the GL Account and Department fields and go directly to the amount field. The request is that the application verifies the Account and Department when the detail form closes, not only when exiting from the Department field.

I agree with everything Steve has said. We also have had clients request that the department is not auto-filled during account entry. We have seen this be a concern with clients with dozens of departments.

Bruce is correct, most client like that Adagio tries to help find the department, but there is a small group that would prefer to do the thinking themselves. It is similar to the implied decimal setting, users who want it enabled vs disabled feel strongly about it.

As Steve mentioned above, it is about trying to minimize the errors. If you are entering multiple invoices with multiple distributions you might not notice that one line is posted to the wrong account when looking at the batch listings.

Hi Bruce,

You can get the behaviour you want by changing the Validate GL options in the Payables Company Profile (Batch options tab).

Everyone: Is this an option by User or by Company? Is this only in Payables or Payables and PO or in all modules?

Andrew,

If you're response to Bruce is for this

you're incorrect.

Even when the Validate Ledger Account Option in Company Profile>Batch Options tab is set to Account-Department, it does not warn of the invalid account department pair if the account is there by default from the vendor master file with a blank department UNLESS you tab through the field. If you use the mouse (as Bruce said) to go directly to the amount field and type your dollar value and then click okay on the detail window, it saves the detail line without validating. Although this issue would only exist with an old vendor record or if the default GL account was edited by GV-RW since I was unable to populate a vendor record with a GL account and a blank department even if the profile option to validate was set to None.

And as far as the original post goes, I agree with Steve that some clients don't want the first available department to populate automatically when typing the account code and tabbing, even if it's highlighted and can be typed over. The selecting of an account-department pair from the finder is different in that you had to select that pair. When typing it and tabbing you didn't make a conscious choice to select that department.

Should people pay more attention? Yes. But that's not realistic in some high volume cases. The option to have it so the department starts out as blank on a tab would "force" them as you said to enter the department.

However, would implementing that option mean that selecting from the finder would make you select an account and then a department? Or would you still be able to select a pair?

I would say it should be a company profile option and AP and PO would need it most. Although I could see it being a consistency issue if other modules didn't have it as an option.

Hi Andrew:

The "Validate ledger account" setting in the Company Profile applies only to batch entry. Even if "None" is selected (to not do any checking of GL accounts), the "Acct/Dept" default on the Vendor master profile is always verified to exist in the GL chart of accounts.

I would say that it would be by Company and could be useful in most modules, especially modules where there is a lot of batch entry focused around GL account numbers (AP, AR, GL).

Hi Dan,

The validation shouldn't change regardless whether you tab through the entry or use the mouse to click on the amount. Sounds like a bug.

I thought that we allowed entering just an account for distributions or default vendor accounts, but apparently not. I guess this didn't make the R&D cut, although it has certainly been discussed.

Interesting side note on this issue. I noticed today that, in sample data, when choosing the error account in the Edit>Banks screen in AP 9.3A (180201) it allows me to enter the expense account and when I tab to the department field it's blank and forces me to choose a department. So it doesn't default to the first available department like the invoice or check entry windows do. And the sample data has the validate option set to Account-Dept.

I checked the invoice and check entry again just to be sure this behaviour didn't change in the service pack. I knew it couldn't have been fixed that fast.

So the behaviour Steve and we are looking for already exists in that window. I didn't check any other set up fields in company profile defaults or the like. Just thought I'd point this out in case it means anything to R&D.

Thanks Dan.

It's been added to the R&D list.