Adding a Financial Dimension in AX 2012

Financial dimensions are not new to Microsoft Dynamics AX , but Dynamics AX 2102 now supports an unlimited number, and the setup and maintenance has been greatly simplified.

Actually the 'Financial' part of the name is a bit misleading, because financial dimensions are attached to every inventory transaction: production order and inventory transactions inherit their financial dimensions from the settings on the item master; purchase order line transactions inherit their financial dimensions from either the item or the vendor on the purchase order; and sales order line transactions inherit their financial dimensions from the item and/or the customer.

You can even record financial dimensions on sales forecasts as an aid to forecast vs. sales analysis. Of course, financial dimensions are attached to every GL posting too. These codes attached to every inventory transaction are the key to effective summary and exception reporting of inventory holding and usage.

We’ll now take a look at how new financial dimension can be created and deployed.
We’ll use the example of creating a new financial dimension like ‘Product Group; which will be used to analyse inventory and sales.

First create the new code in our example we are creating a Dimension "Product Group". Go to General Ledger > Setup > Financial dimensions > Financial dimensions and create a new financial dimension like:

When you create a new Financial dimension you’ll notice that the ‘Use values from’ can be set to <Custom dimension> as above, but also there is a long list of existing fields which can be used as well:

If you use an existing field, then you won’t have to create any values for your new financial dimension - the system will use the values already present in the database. It’s also worth noting that you cannot use any spaces, numbers, or symbols in the Dimension name field.

As above, if you’re going to use ‘Custom values’ for your new financial dimension the next step is to define the valid values which may be entered. Go to General ledger > Setup > Financial dimensions > Financial dimensions > Financial dimension values:

Using the previously created financial dimension, click on the ‘Financial dimension values’ button. Enter the values you want to use.
Now we just need to check which chart of accounts our current company is using. Go to General ledger > Setup > Ledger:

Note the chart of account name, as you need this in the next step.
Now we are going to add our new financial dimension to chart of accounts. Go to General ledger > Setup > Chart of accounts > Chart of accounts:

Select the Chart of accounts shown in the ledger form.
Select the P&L Account structure.
Click on the Configure account structure button and the system opens the ‘Configure account structures’ form:

The form is showing the current set of financial dimensions. To add your new one click on the Edit button:

Click on ‘Add segment’:

Select your new ‘Financial dimension’:

Almost there! Click ‘Activate’ and ‘Yes’:

Close the forms.

Finally, new Dimension "Product Group" is available from any of the forms items, sales order, purchase orders, customers and vendors:

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Until next time Cheers,,,,