I am asking this based on a specific circumstance. That is for a company that has never used Epicor before and is installing the current version.
Would you use Standard or Extended Posting Rules?
I understand that if a company previously owned and used the replacement functionality in 8, then they might want to continue using that functionality and choose Standard.
Why would you choose to implement Standard for a brand new, never used Epicor before implementation? I am thinking it would be better to use the Extended since you can edit the rules yourself. I know you can edit the standard, but why start off with restrictions?
Maybe the question should be who actually uses the Sales Category? It is an extra step to select on the Sales Order. I guess you could set up your system to default the Sales Cat based on the Product Group, but at that point, why not just use Product Group?
I guess I am not seeing a benefit to the Standard rules (if there is one) for a company that is implementing Epicor today.
Glad to see that so many people want to weigh in on Posting Codes.
I’ve been digging around the help and think I figured it out. I am going to try this on our upgrade from 8 to 11. They are not using the Division/Department functionality correctly today, so no need to continue using it.
I am at the point in my research that I think the Extended is hands down the only way to go. Why do you ask? I’m glad you did. Basically, the Dynamic Segment does exactly what the Department/Division functionality in Standard Rules does, but it does it for EVERYTHING! In the Standard Rules, you have to have the Chart, Division, and Department and you are constrained to the way Epicor has programmed that functionality to work. If you are not using the functionality, it just becomes 2 extra segments on the GL that mean nothing.
Now, if you choose Extended, you can just use the Chart segment and leave everything else as Dynamic. Do you have multiple sites? Instead of mapping them all, just create a Dynamic Segment, select the Site Business Entity, and now anywhere that Site is in the GL Transaction Type, it will be substituted. This also means that you do not need to create a GL Control Code for every Site, you only need one GL Control Code for every Site since that GL segment will flex based off of where the transaction takes place. You can effectively reduce your GL Control Codes to 1 for everything.
I know exactly what issues I am going to run into with Accounting. The biggest being accountants are used to ALWAYS having a full GL Account. That is, no matter the transaction, they will always see 0000-00-00. I have not tested this yet, but my assumption is that if the GL Transaction Type does not have that Business Entity in it, then nothing will show up in the GL Account. So, instead of seeing 0000-00-00, they will probably see 0000–00. The other thing that I think will be an issue is that we generally set up our IDs with words instead of numbers. If you think about using Site in a GL Account with a Dynamic Segment, the account would look like 0000-MfgSys-00. I personally do not think this is an issue, but accountants are the gods of who moved my cheese!
So, I plan on trying this out and seeing what happens. I will try and remember to come back and post the results after it is tested. I see a lot of potential based on my understanding of this today!!
If that’s the only mention of “extended post” in the entire tech ref on the subject (973 pages in 2023.2!), then where on earth did you learn about this?!
At some point in the future, I’d be curious to know how the extended idea would work with, say, multiple sites.
The only reason I ever learned about posting rules was because we had 2 sites* each with it’s own P&L. So for example, each site’s inventory goes in and out of its own GL accounts (1300.RID.00 vs. 1300.PDC.62).
I can’t imagine how you’d get the dynamic segments to do the same kind of thing.
*Footnote: We have more sites now, but site #2 is when I learned about posting rules.
Like I said, I have not tested it out yet. But, I believe it would work seamlessly.
You would create 1 GL Control Code for Inventory COS and WIP.
You would put the 1300 in the GL Account for Inventory.
You would have a Dynamic Segment in your COA for Site that you tie to the Plant Business Entity.
And then you just transact.
As long as the Business Entity you want is contained in the GL Transaction Type, it should flex in on EVERY transaction.
I will see if that is really what happens, but that is what I am thinking based off of my research. I’ve been wrong before and I will be wrong again.
The added beauty of it is if you check off the Create Segment Values, if you create a new Site, it should get automatically added to the segment and that is it.
EXACTLY!! And I was taught on 10 back in 2014 and the consultant drove us to Standard. I’m so pissed at that guy as I am only now getting to the Extended.
I need to correct something. You define the Business Entities in the GL Control Type (not the GL Transaction Type). But you could just add the Business Entity if it is missing. I just added Plant to the Inventory COS and WIP.
@jkane
Interesting discovery.
I am currently working with two new companies, we may take a look at this.
The odd part about this, is the lack of information of this feature.
I have been working around the posting rules for many years, eliminating PeriodPosting Process years ago, before Epicor finally fixed that.
I will take a look at the dynamic segments also to see what they might do…
The quick review - the rules compare in Kinetic is easier to use than classic.
shows functions that were deleted or replaced.
Knowledge Article (the only one)
Resolution
Standard Postings Rules include the logic to substitute Department or Division segments based on the GL Control set up
For Example, if a cost of material GL control is set up as 5000-00 but the Plant that the job was shipped out of has a Division GL Control of 10, the Standard Posting Rules will use 5000-10
Extended Posting Rules do not include the logic to substitute the Department or Division segment. Based on the same example as above, the Extended Posting Rules will use 5000-00
A user that is only using the Natural Account Segment should use Extended.
Users with more than 3 segments may still use Standard.
If a user has 2 segments and wishes to use departments or divisions, they must use Standard and map the 3 segment on the mapping screen as Not Used
This seems like a kludge for companies that (for whatever reason) absolutely refuse to use a 3-segment account structure. Anyone else should probably just stick to standard rules. Most of the documentation assumes you’re using standard. I assume support does too. Even if you only have 1 account and multiple departments, just slap the same dept segment on everything.
I have decide not to attempt to use Extended rules - the use of Standard has been working great for the past 15 years - why change…
If Epicor isn’t pushing, not ready to go down this road.
If you do this, or have questions, I would be happy to discuss with you.
If you want to import all of the GL Transaction Types for Extended, use the classic version. There is a bug in the web version that does not import them. Workaround is to import 1 at a time in web or all at once in classic.
Personally , just to weight in slightly. Comps choose extended rules because they found that the standard was not as informative. An example which was the periodic posting for AP vendor stuff. From what I understand this is something that has been resolved when upgrading to Kinetic.
I think by deviating from the standard it just adds additional workload in terms of testing when doing upgrades and stuff. Just a opinion…
If you look at STD posting rules from 2022.2.(I up I think). There is a function for COS/WIP that will create/replace the description with something more meaningful, and you can turn it on and off as well (another function to do that).
You can copy in the functions and update your transaction types to make it fire the description update…
Let me know if I have not provided enough detail and I will dig out the function names…
Don’t forget you can import the Std COS/WIP rule into you extended set and do a compare.
If you do want to change the format of the descriptions then that’s where all the time goes, particularly for the longer ones, the editor does not have a right to left scroll (not that I could see or get to work) … Tips anyone?
First thing that I have realized with using Extended. LESS GL CONTROL CODES!!!
If all of your COS and WIP accounts are the same, there is no need to create GL control codes for each Product Group. You can set the default at the Company level and everything will post based on that. So you no longer need to worry about forgetting to create a GL Control Code for every record. Just add the new one and it will flex in right away.
Edit: if all of your COS and WIP chart accounts are the same.
Took a minute for me to understand; we call it a “natural account” here.
This sure is intriguing. It is like you say with “flexing” in standard rules - In standard, as long as the “chart” is the same, you flex the rest. But here it seems even more elegant - or less restricted.
