ax feature updates 3 to 4

SOLUTIONS

Microsoft Dynamics AX Feature Updates (3.0 to 4.0)

Date: October, 2006

Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................5

Release Overview......................................................................................5 Deeper Integration With the Microsoft Technology Stack.................................................................. 5 Increased Application Productivity ........................................................................................................ 5 Focus on Reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)............................................................................. 5

Platform Fundamentals .............................................................................5 Performance and Scalability ................................................................................................................... 5

Database Access and Server (AOS) Improvements .......................................................................5 Performance Improvements in the Application................................................................................6 Client Server Protocol Changes from AOCP to RPC ......................................................................6 Benchmark and Prescriptive Guidance ...........................................................................................7

Trustworthy Computing............................................................................................................................. 7 Documentation.......................................................................................................................................... 8

User Documentation ........................................................................................................................8 Partner Documentation....................................................................................................................9 Administrator Documentation ..........................................................................................................9 Developer Documentation ...............................................................................................................9

Platform Investments ...............................................................................10 Deeper Integration with Microsoft Technologies................................................................................ 10

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 ....................................................................................................10 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services............................................................................10 Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies.........................................................................11 BizTalk RFID Infrastructure............................................................................................................11

Updated Application Architecture....................................................................................................... 12 General Architectural Changes......................................................................................................12 Database Changes ........................................................................................................................13 Application Object Server (AOS) changes.....................................................................................14 Setup and Deployment Tools ........................................................................................................15 Upgrade Toolset ............................................................................................................................16 Business Connector.......................................................................................................................17 Enterprise Portal in Microsoft Dynamics AX..................................................................................17 Document Exchange Updates (Application Integration Framework).............................................19 Development Features...................................................................................................................21

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MICROSOFT DYNAMICS AX FEATURE UPDATES FROM VERSION 3.0, OCTOBER 2006

Application Enhancements ....................................................................24 User Productivity....................................................................................................................................... 24

User Interface Design Improvements ............................................................................................24 Filtering Function ...........................................................................................................................25 Global Search ................................................................................................................................25 Alerts ..............................................................................................................................................25 Business Intelligence and Reporting .............................................................................................26 Language Support .........................................................................................................................27

Supply Chain Management .................................................................................................................. 27 Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) ..........................................................................................27 Advanced Intercompany Functionality...........................................................................................28 Other Supply Chain Enhancements: Distribution ..........................................................................29 Other Supply Chain Enhancements: Manufacturing .....................................................................30 Quantity-dependent BOM and Route ............................................................................................30 Product Builder in Microsoft Dynamics AX ....................................................................................30 Shop Floor Control in Microsoft Dynamics AX ..............................................................................31

Financial Management .......................................................................................................................... 33 Financial Dimensions.....................................................................................................................33 Fixed Assets ..................................................................................................................................34 Regulatory Compliance..................................................................................................................35

Project Accounting ................................................................................................................................. 37 Budget and Forecast......................................................................................................................37 Statistics and Reporting.................................................................................................................37 Invoice Control ...............................................................................................................................37 Project Quotation ...........................................................................................................................37 New Internal Project Types............................................................................................................38 General Enhancements .................................................................................................................38

New: Service Management................................................................................................................... 39 Service Dispatching Support .........................................................................................................40 Service Subscription Support ........................................................................................................40

Customer Relationship Management .................................................................................................. 40 Sales Quotations............................................................................................................................40 Sales Management Statistics ........................................................................................................41 Microsoft Outlook Integration.........................................................................................................41 General Enhancements to Customer Relationship Management .................................................42

Human Resources.................................................................................................................................... 42 Improved Support for Work with Contractors.................................................................................43

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Expanded Recruiting Functionality ................................................................................................43 Improved Support for Absence Planning.......................................................................................43 Enhanced Hiring Functionality .......................................................................................................43 Improved Control Over Employee Exit and Transition Scenarios .................................................43

Balanced Scorecard............................................................................................................................... 43 Improved Access and Visibility ......................................................................................................43 Realigned Terminology and Structure ...........................................................................................44 More Robust Performance Drill-down............................................................................................44

Overviews of Country/Region-specific Features ................................................................................ 44 Austria............................................................................................................................................44 Belgium ..........................................................................................................................................44

Asset Report Specification ..................................................................................................................... 45 Canada ..........................................................................................................................................45 China..............................................................................................................................................46 Finland ...........................................................................................................................................47 France............................................................................................................................................48 Germany ........................................................................................................................................48 India ...............................................................................................................................................49 Italy.................................................................................................................................................51 Malaysia.........................................................................................................................................52 Mexico............................................................................................................................................52 The Netherlands ............................................................................................................................52 Norway...........................................................................................................................................53 Singapore.......................................................................................................................................53 Spain..............................................................................................................................................53 Sweden ..........................................................................................................................................55 Switzerland ....................................................................................................................................56 Thailand .........................................................................................................................................56

Upgrade Path ...........................................................................................57

Conclusion................................................................................................57

Appendix: List of Features Added in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 Service Pack 1 (SP1)................................................................................58

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Introduction This document provides a high-level summary of Microsoft Dynamics™ AX 4.0, formerly Microsoft Business Solutions–Axapta®. It is intended for internal employees, partners, and select customers. Familiarity with Microsoft Axapta or other business management software is assumed. This is an early snapshot of the feature set and is subject to change without notice.

Release Overview Microsoft Dynamics AX is a platform and application release delivering significant new value to customers and partners. In designing the feature set for the Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 release, the Microsoft product development and planning teams spent extensive research time with customers and partners in order to truly understand market needs and identify improvements that could be made in the current software.

Deeper Integration With the Microsoft Technology Stack Major platform improvements are focused around security, performance and scalability, and documentation. Deeper integration with the Microsoft technology stack is a key strategy to accomplish these goals.

Designed to run on the Microsoft Windows® Server 2003 operating system, Microsoft Dynamics AX provides customers the enhanced security, connectivity, scalability, and performance support required in today’s business environment.

Increased Application Productivity Improved application functionality delivers increased productivity to information workers across a variety of vertical markets.

Focus on Reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Because total cost of ownership (TCO) is a critical component of business vendor-selection criteria, Microsoft is focused on lowering TCO for customers by continuing to build or acquire tools to reduce customer costs. Microsoft will continue to deliver innovation and resources to our partners and customers through global solutions that are easily customizable and scalable, at the lowest TCO possible.

Platform Fundamentals Key tenets of the platform improvements for Microsoft Dynamics AX are performance and scalability; Trustworthy Computing; and documentation.

Performance and Scalability Microsoft Dynamics AX provides a number of performance and scalability improvements to address the needs of existing customers and support the requirements of new features included in this release.

Database Access and Server (AOS) Improvements In Microsoft Dynamics AX, the product database indexing and updating has been optimized, and the documentation provides guidelines for improving database performance in customizations and add-ons.

Support for Oracle Database 10g has been added in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 SP1. There are no functionality differences between implementations that use Oracle databases and implementations that use Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005, although there are some minor

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differences in installation and configuration. You can upgrade a Microsoft Dynamics AX 3.0 system that is running on Oracle to Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 SP1, although you must first upgrade from Oracle 9i to Oracle 10g.

The following features improve database performance:

• Improved default use of SQL hints, which can be used with both Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and Oracle Database 10g

• Improved use of indexes

• Index Changes: Primary Keys for all tables, clustered index for all tables

• Default use of an optimistic concurrency checking model when making updates to database rows from forms

• Optimization of server-side use of Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) cursors

• Meta-data round trips optimized for table and class loading

• The database-server communication protocol changed from AOCP to the Security Support Provider Interface (SSPI) and remote procedure call (RPC)

In addition, enhancements to the Microsoft Dynamics AX kernel have been made that affect database performance, including the following:

• Improved code execution patterns to provide better performance

• Use of global locks to synchronize access to global data structures and to synchronize other operations, such as file access

Performance Improvements in the Application A number of performance-specific improvements have been made in existing Microsoft Dynamics AX application components to address known issues, including the following:

• Improvements to BOM calculations

• Checking credit limits

• Optimized handling of guaranteed orders to eliminate the risk of looping

• Improvements to master planning when using periods

• MRP (Disassociate Sales Order Processing from Master Planning and Picanol Helper Uptake)

Client Server Protocol Changes from AOCP to RPC The Microsoft Dynamics AX network transportation layer uses RPC. Previously, communication between the Microsoft Axapta 3.0 client and server had been implemented by using socket programming.

This change allows:

• Runtime support for channel security

• Data serialization

• Client-side connection pooling

• Server-side thread pooling

• Asynchronous calls

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• Exception-handling mechanism across the client and server

The abstraction RPC provides makes it easier to identify and implement potential performance improvements for client/server communications. Lastly, RPC requires a formal contract between client and server. This moves Microsoft Dynamics AX one step closer to a true Web service model.

Benchmark and Prescriptive Guidance The documentation that is provided as part of the continuous publishing process will include recommended hardware and standard architecture guidelines for running Microsoft Dynamics AX to maximize performance for larger-scale installations.

A new set of benchmark classes is being built, in addition to a new external benchmark driver tool. This new toolset addresses functional areas that are currently not covered by the existing tool. The current plan is to ship this tool as a Microsoft Dynamics AX Resource Kit download.

Trustworthy Computing Computer security is a vital business issue today. Trustworthy Computing is the term for the companywide initiative at Microsoft to boost software security and address software-security vulnerabilities. Although the Internet has introduced significant productivity gains in conducting information work, particularly in terms of research and e-mail, its use exposes internal computer networks to unprecedented levels of vulnerability.

Trustworthy Computing means helping to ensure a safe and reliable computing experience that is both expected and taken for granted. The goals set for Trustworthy Computing are designed to deliver the level of trust and responsibility that people expect from the computing industry: security, privacy, reliability, and business integrity.

Specific examples of changes made to Microsoft Dynamics AX to enhance Trustworthy Computing include the following:

• Required use of Active Directory and Microsoft Windows authentication

• The use of RPC to communicate between client and Application Object Server (AOS) instances takes advantage of Windows authentication, and encryption protocols

• The AOS runs as a Microsoft Windows service, and runs under the Network Service account. Alternatively, a domain account can be used instead of a Network Service account

• A three-tier environment, which uses one or more AOS, is required

• Additional security keys added to enable administrators to have more precise control of highly sensitive data

• Write access to sensitive system tables and metadata restricted to developers and administrators

• Code access security (CAS) is a new mechanism that helps secure the use of dangerous APIs in Microsoft Dynamics AX.

• The table permissions framework (TPF) restricts write access to sensitive system tables to developers and administrators.

• Batch jobs can now be executed as the Microsoft Dynamics AX user who first submitted the job, rather than the user who is running the batch process, by using the newly-available RunAs functionality. When this kind of batch processing is used, the user who initiates batch processing cannot interact with the batch job or view its output, minimizing security risks with batch jobs

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• Enhanced documentation and training for security best practices for IT professionals and developers is included with the product.

• Privacy guidelines provided in the documentation help IT professionals secure sensitive data.

• An updated version of Writing Secure X++ Code has been published on MSDN.

Documentation In Microsoft Dynamics AX, the documentation is being significantly improved, with an emphasis on business processes, end-to-end guidance, and quality.

Highlights of the new documentation set include the following:

• Customer research-driven approach: The Microsoft Dynamics AX content team has a dedicated user researcher who has spent 12 months talking to partners and customers to assess priorities and design content solutions that truly meet the needs of our users.

• Redesigned Help system: In Microsoft Dynamics AX, the Help system is redesigned to provide a distinct set of content for end users, IT professionals, and developers. Instead of the proprietary Help format that was included with earlier versions, the new Help system is compiled HTML (CHM) format. This enables customers and partners to update the Help system with standard HTML editing tools. The Help appears in a standard CHM viewer, and the table of contents is a click away in the Help viewer. The Help includes a complete glossary and full-text search.

• Customer feedback mechanism: Users can send freeform text feedback directly from Help topics in the product and on the Web. Each topic contains a Documention Feedback link that enables you to rate the topic and e-mail feedback. The responses are sent directly to the content team.

• Continuous publishing: Updates to the User and Administrator Help are provided as part of an Enhancement Plan. Updates include browseable updates and downloadable updates that can be installed to replace the Help that is included with Microsoft Dynamics AX. Updates to developer Help are published regularly on MSDN.

• All updates to Help will be announced on Using Microsoft Dynamics AX. Articles, best practices, and other content will be available on the site also. The software development kit (SDK) will be continually updated on the site, and be referenced from the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) site.

User Documentation For Microsoft Dynamics AX, the documentation for end-users is task-based and provides context for how to accomplish tasks in Microsoft Dynamics AX in an overall business process.

Online Help for End Users The online Help for end users includes conceptual information and task-based procedures. A new emphasis on business process documentation will be introduced in a future Help update of Microsoft Dynamics AX. The goal is to describe how to use the features of Microsoft Dynamics AX to accomplish tasks within the context of larger business processes, explaining best practices for how the application is designed to handle various business processes.

Context-sensitive Help Context-sensitive Help is available from Microsoft Dynamics AX forms and reports. The form-level Help includes information about the tabs, fields, and buttons on the form or report, in

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http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/AxOnline/html/f156b8a9-16cc-4ce8-8d3a-56e041f8a9b7.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/ax/using

addition to links to task-based procedural Help topics. The field-level Help will provide more detailed descriptions of individual fields within a form or report.

Partner Documentation

Implementation Guide The Microsoft Dynamics AX Implementation Guide has been significantly enhanced, compared to previous releases, and provides detailed guidance for upgrading, planning, installing, configuring core and extended functionality, migrating data, and deploying in various environments. It will be included on the product DVD and also be available for download.

Microsoft Dynamics AX Resource Kit The performance feature team has compiled customer feedback from site visits, partner events, and front-line customer and field sales support teams to drive the creation of performance and scalability goals. Performance improvements are a highlight of the Microsoft Dynamics AX release and make up a major part of the new Microsoft Dynamics AX Resource Kit. The resource kit will be available as a download after the product release.

With a focus on maximizing capacity and performance, the resource kit will provide essential details for deployment planning, performance monitoring, and security management in addition to best practices and insights into architecting Microsoft Dynamics AX installations with the Microsoft Windows XP operating system, Microsoft Windows SharePoint® Services, and Microsoft SQL Server. The companion CD contains performance monitoring and administrative tools and utilities from the Microsoft Dynamics AX team.

Inside Microsoft Dynamics AX In September 2006, Microsoft Press published the book Inside Microsoft Dynamics AX, authored by members of the product team. This book provides a complete, architectural exploration of Microsoft Dynamics AX: how to envision, program, and maintain customized solutions for enterprises.

Administrator Documentation Documentation for the Administrator audience provides more information for the planning phase and much more detailed implementation guidance.

Online Help for IT Professionals The online Help for IT professionals includes conceptual topics and procedures for operating and maintaining Microsoft Dynamics AX. The model being used is the writing style of Microsoft Windows Server and Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS).

Developer Documentation Microsoft Dynamics AX developer documentation has been significantly enhanced. Documentation and the tools included will help developers quickly and easily develop forms and otherwise customize the Microsoft Dynamics AX application for a particular company or industry.

This content will be provided on the product DVD and on the Microsoft Dynamics AX Online site, as well as being referenced from MSDN.

The SDK provides information about common developer tasks, such as:

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• Becoming familiar with the Microsoft Dynamics AX programming environment, database, application object server, security system, and development best practices

• Designing forms, reports, and menus

• Creating Web sites

• Integrating Microsoft Dynamics AX with other applications

• Changing code for upgrades

• Customizing Microsoft Dynamics AX Help

It also contains:

• An X++ language reference

• A reference guide to the Tables, Methods, Classes and Functions

Platform Investments

This section discusses underlying platform changes coming to Microsoft Dynamics AX. These platform changes are designed to bring customers improved performance and reliability, business intelligence gathering, and information sharing.

Deeper Integration with Microsoft Technologies Additional integration with the Microsoft technology stack eases setup and administration tasks.

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Building on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 provides improved security, reliability, availability, and scalability. In addition, Microsoft has improved and extended the Microsoft Windows Server operating system to incorporate the benefits of Microsoft .NET for connecting information, people, systems, and devices.

For complete information about Microsoft Windows Server 2003, see: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/overview/family.mspx

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is a comprehensive, server-based solution that enables the creation, management, and delivery of traditional, paper-oriented reports and interactive, Web-based reports. An integrated part of the Microsoft business intelligence framework, Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services combines the data management capabilities of Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Windows Server with familiar and powerful Microsoft Office System applications to deliver real-time information support to daily operations.

As described later in this document, a new ad hoc reporting feature lets users create day-to-day operational and management reports using the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Report Builder tool.

For general information about Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, see

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/reporting/productinfo/overview.asp

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http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/overview/family.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/reporting/productinfo/overview.asp

Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies The new Enterprise Portal in Microsoft Dynamics AX functionality is based on Microsoft® SharePoint® Products and Technologies (Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, version 2, Service Pack 2, or Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Portal Server 2003).

Support for running Enterprise on Windows SharePoint Services (version 3), Beta 2, or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Beta 2 has been added in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 SP1.

For complete information about Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, see

http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsServer2003/technologies/sharepoint/default.mspx

BizTalk RFID Infrastructure Microsoft Dynamics AX can be easily integrated with BizTalk RFID Infrastructure. The introduction of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology gives manufacturers and distributors improved visibility into their supply chain by increasing the number of data capture points. This functionality will be available when BizTalk RFID Infrastructure is released.

The BizTalk RFID server software has been updated and enhanced for use with Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 SP1.

Be aware that BizTalk RFID Infrastructure is not expected to be released until after the initial release of Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Figure 1: Microsoft Dynamics AX Technology Relationships

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http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsServer2003/technologies/sharepoint/default.mspx

Updated Application Architecture The changes to the architecture of Microsoft Dynamics AX provide a more stable, secure, and scalable environment.

Figure 2: Microsoft Dynamics AX Architecture

General Architectural Changes Microsoft Dynamics AX is expected to contain several changes in the general architecture of the solution, compared to previous releases. These changes are intended to improve the solutions' foundations of performance and security.

Three-tier Support Only This version of Microsoft Dynamics AX only supports 3-tier implementations.

RPC support The Microsoft Dynamics AX network transportation layer uses the RPC service. This change allows for runtime support for channel security, data serialization, client-side connection pooling, server-side thread pooling, asynchronous calls, and an exception-handling mechanism across the client and server.

Microsoft Windows Authentication Microsoft Dynamics AX logon is moving to an Active Directory-based solution that improves security and administration. Users only need to log on to their computers to access Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Unicode Support Microsoft Dynamics AX supports Unicode and multiple locale input and output without the risk of data loss when using multiple locales. The X++ programming language has been kept

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backward compatible, while enhancements have been made to support Unicode file input and output, and Unicode interoperability by using COM and DLL.

As part of the Unicode enablement, the sorting order of all data has been changed to the Microsoft Windows sorting order and no longer uses the ktd collating sequence in any scenario. The locale of sorting in various scenarios remains different.

Microsoft Dynamics AX User Management Microsoft Dynamics AX users and Web users are merged, and all users are managed in the user management forms. Separate logon accounts for the Microsoft Dynamics AX client and Enterprise Portal clients are no longer required. You can now set a user's default language and default Help language inside Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Batch Processing Updates Batch jobs can now be executed as the Microsoft Dynamics AX user who first submitted the job, instead of the user who is running the batch process, by using the newly-available RunAs functionality. When this kind of batch processing is used, the user who initiates batch processing cannot interact with the batch job or view its output. Batch processing that does not use RunAs is still available. Batch-enabled classes in Microsoft Dynamics AX that do not use RunAs can easily be changed to use it, if it is appropriate.

Tracing Improvements New functionality has been added to Microsoft Dynamics AX that enables tracing either client or server activity. Traces can be set in either the Server Configuration Utility and the Client Configuration Utility.

Configuration Utilities The configuration utilities have been rewritten, and are now launched from All Programs > Administrative Tools.

The utilities have been updated to support architecture changes, enable configuration of Business Connector when running non-interactively, and enable robust tracing capabilities.

Compression and Encryption Packet compression is now available.

Encryption now uses RPC encryption algorithms, and is set in the Client Configuration Utility.

Updates to E-mail Support In Microsoft Dynamics AX, the “Dundas” component that controlled e-mail in Microsoft Axapta 3.0 has been replaced by Windows .NET Collaborative Data Objects (CDO) 2.0. The administrator can define retry schedules for emails that fail to send. All emails sent through CDO that are traced (alert emails) are logged with a sending status of waiting, sent or failed.

Database Changes Integration between Microsoft Dynamics AX and the database is also a key component that affects performance and security. Several changes to the way Microsoft Dynamics AX communicates with the database are expected to be implemented, compared to previous releases.

64-bit Record Identifiers To support larger customers, Microsoft Dynamics AX has moved to using 64-bit per table record identification representation.

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Write-access Restrictions Write access to sensitive system tables and metadata is now restricted to developers and administrators.

Unicode Compliance In this version, the Microsoft Dynamics AX code base is Unicode-compliant. Unicode enables a single software product or a single Web site to be targeted across multiple platforms, languages, and countries without re-engineering. Unicode supports double double-byte characters and our geographic expansion plans for Microsoft Dynamics AX wave of releases includes China and Japan. Closely related to ISO/IEC 10646, it enables data to be transported through many different systems without corruption.

Database Hint Improvements The number of available Microsoft SQL Server hints was decreased. Global control over hint features was added to the user interface.

Database Concurrency Configuration Previous releases of the solution did not allow control over the concurrency model to use when creating, updating, deleting, or reading data. To increase transaction throughput in Microsoft Dynamics AX, control over the concurrency model has be added in the form of global concurrency settings, a table property, and keywords.

Database Index Improvements In Microsoft Dynamics AX, the product database indexing and updating has been optimized, and the documentation provides guidelines for improved database performance in customizations and add-ons.

Personalization Data Moved to Database Personalization data such as favorites and language have been moved from the application files to the database.

Meta-data Round Trips The number of round trips required for meta-data on table and class loading has been reduced in order to help improve performance.

Communication Protocol The database-server communication protocol changed from AOCP to the Security Support Provider Interface (SSPI) and RPC.

Application Object Server (AOS) changes Changes to the AOS are described in the following sections.

AOS Runs as a Windows Service The AOS is now a Windows service instead of a separate executable file. The configuration, control, and management of this service can be done with the standard Microsoft Windows interface for managing services. This service provides better manageability, is more secure, and takes advantage of the existing Microsoft Windows service interface for a faster ramp-up time. Benefits of running as a Microsoft Windows service include the following:

• Windows service applications run in the security context of a specific user account that is different from a user who is logged on or the default computer account. After

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installation of Microsoft Dynamics AX, the default user account has all the permissions that are required to access Microsoft Dynamics AX functionality.

• Eliminating the dependency on the Microsoft Dynamics AX Server Manager removes a security threat by which an attacker could send a command to the AOS to shut it down.

• A Windows service application runs in its own session and takes advantage of the Service Control Manager (a feature of the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system) to maintain status information and to provide the user interface for managing the AOS.

• Windows services can be configured to start at system startup or upon demand, and they continue to run even when no user is logged into the system.

• Server status can be reported to the Microsoft Windows event log, allowing administrators to view errors and warnings that can help in troubleshooting problems.

User and Session Management The session information has been moved from the file system to the database. This has enabled the following features:

• New interface added for managing user and business connector sessions across all AOS servers.

• Single point for monitoring all AOS sessions.

Load Balancing Support for AOS load balancing has been added in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 SP1. You can load balance a group of AOS instances without using an external load balancer. You can also configure a load balancing cluster to use a single AOS to load balance.

AOS Account Support for using a domain account for the AOS service has been added in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 SP1. By default, an AOS instance runs as the Network Service account of the computer that you install it on.

High Availability Support for Microsoft SQL Server failover clusters has been added in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 SP1.

Setup and Deployment Tools Deployment of a Microsoft Dynamics AX solution can become much easier and more efficient with the addition of several new features in Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Integrated Setup Wizard The Microsoft Dynamics AX installation runs through a single setup wizard for either distributed or single-computer topologies. Deep technical knowledge of Microsoft Dynamics AX architecture is not needed to successfully install the product.

Improved Language Support All languages are automatically supported in the AOS. The only language decisions that you need to make during installation are the default client language and Help languages. This improved language support speeds setup, reduces deployment errors, and generally simplifies deployment.

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Perimeter Network Configuration Tool Integration Microsoft Dynamics AX includes the Microsoft Business Solutions Perimeter Network Configuration Wizard so that customers can quickly deploy Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA 2004) to configure a secure perimeter network for external users of Microsoft Dynamics AX Enterprise Portal. Integration with the Perimeter Network Configuration tool reduces deployment costs and errors, and reduces the setup time.

Support for the use of a traditional perimeter network topology for Internet-facing Enterprise Portal is available in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 SP1. A traditional perimeter network contains two Active Directory domains. The internal domain contains:

All internal users to be added to Microsoft Dynamics AX. Special users required for Microsoft Dynamics AX functionality. Group required for application integration server functionality.

The perimeter network contains a second domain controller with a one-way trust relationship to the first domain controller that contains any users from outside the organization that require Enterprise Portal access.

Upgrade Toolset The upgrade tool set has been improved for Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Microsoft Dynamics AX DB Upgrade Preparation Tool The Microsoft Dynamics AX DB Upgrade Preparation Tool reads a Microsoft Axapta 3.0 database and repopulates the new database (installed through the Microsoft Dynamics AX database server installation) with Unicode data types (nchar, nvarchar and ntext) instead of the MBCS data types. In addition, the record identification references and the transaction identification reference fields are converted from 32 bit to 64 bit (data type int64 instead of int). For relevant tables, optimistic concurrency control is enabled.

Upgrade Checklist The upgrade checklist automatically opens when a new version of Microsoft Dynamics AX is installed on top of an existing installation. The checklist leads the implementer through upgrading code and data. In this version the checklist has been simplified with fewer steps and performance is improved so that the data upgrade steps in the checklist can be completed within two business days.

New and Improved Demonstration Data The demonstration data will be localized both with respect to language and with respect to data to demonstrate local country functionality. The first demonstration data company is set in the United States.

The new Global Trade and Manufacturing Company demonstration data supports demonstrating new Microsoft Dynamics AX functionality. The Global Trade and Manufacturing Company is based in the US and represents an American company with US-specific functionality in use. The structure of the data is based on the Light Company data.

Excel Data Export and Import Partners can modify the existing demonstration data by using the new Microsoft Excel® export and import functionality. This functionality enables data residing in tables to be exported to an Excel workbook for editing and then to be imported into Microsoft Dynamics AX. The new features also ease the transfer of data between systems, such as legacy applications and Microsoft Dynamics AX. When data is available in Excel,

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users can modify, translate, and add data in a familiar way using the Microsoft Office environment for presentation or business use.

Business Connector The new .NET Business Connector is implemented by using the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and provides a set of documented managed classes that customers, partners, and ISVs can use to build applications that integrate with Microsoft Dynamics AX.

The COM-based Business Connector that is available in previous releases will continue to be shipped in Microsoft Dynamics AX, to enable applications that were developed for earlier versions to continue to function. Platform changes including the transition to Windows authentication will require these applications to be modified to work with Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Customers can create their own applications and take advantage of .NET Business Connector to interface with Microsoft Dynamics AX.

• Using the.NET Business Connector partners can build managed code applications using the Microsoft .NET Framework and common language runtime (CLR)-compliant languages such as Microsoft Visual C# and Microsoft Visual Basic .NET.

• Developers can take advantage of the .NET Business Connector to develop .NET Framework applications that integrate with Microsoft Dynamics AX.

The .NET Business Connector supports "act-on-behalf-of" functionality for external users or users who are at times unable to connect to your application. A Microsoft Windows domain account, referred to as the Business Connector Proxy is required to support this functionality.

To support integration with Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services and to enhance product security, Microsoft Dynamics AX uses integrated Windows authentication in both the COM Business Connector and the .NET Business Connector. Changes to the authentication scheme mean that your existing COM applications must be modified to use integrated Windows authentication before they can work with the COM Business Connector in Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Enterprise Portal in Microsoft Dynamics AX The Enterprise Portal in Microsoft Dynamics AX platform is built on Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (WSS). Integration with Microsoft Windows SharePoint can greatly simplify the process of creating and maintaining Web pages on the Enterprise Portal site.

Enterprise Portal in Microsoft Dynamics AX provides:

• Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Web authoring experience

• Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services content and document management

• Integration of Microsoft Dynamics AX Web parts into existing Microsoft Windows SharePoint portals

• Common search across Microsoft Windows SharePoint and Microsoft Dynamics AX

• Better personalization compared to previous releases

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Figure 3: Enterprise Portal Architecture Supported configurations are Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 2, running on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 or Microsoft Windows Server R2.

With integrated Microsoft Windows authentication, no separate user ID or password is required to enter the site. An additional benefit to customers is that they can now easily create their own Web pages in the Enterprise Portal and personalize their view of the Web part pages.

The switch to WSS also opens up new opportunities for integrating Microsoft Dynamics AX into existing Microsoft Windows SharePoint sites. Partners can now integrate other applications and Microsoft Windows SharePoint Web parts into an Enterprise Portal custom-made for their customers.

Benefits of using Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services include the following:

• Web pages are created outside the Microsoft Dynamics AX integrated development environment (IDE) by using the Microsoft Windows SharePoint Web page/Web parts infrastructure. Microsoft Front Page is another option for creating Web part pages.

• Web form and Web report development continues to use the Microsoft Dynamics AX development environment, the Application Object Tree (AOT). These objects in the AOT are secured under the new construct, Web Content Object.

• Weblets are securable by Microsoft Dynamics AX security keys, exactly as Web content objects are.

Enterprise Portal sites can be deployed as WSS root sites, WSS sub sites, or Microsoft Windows SharePoint Portal Services (SPS) sub sites. From the perspective of the administrator, the workflow and user interface associated with collaboration and content management is different in Enterprise Portal in Microsoft Dynamics AX.

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• Authorization to access WSS lists and document libraries in Enterprise Portal sites is managed by using site groups that parallel the groups that exist within Microsoft Dynamics AX. The administrator is therefore tasked with managing the authorization settings.

• Backup and failure recovery of the Enterprise Portal site resembles any other Microsoft Windows SharePoint site that has its own database.

• Authorization is through both Microsoft Windows SharePoint Site Groups and Microsoft Dynamics AX security keys.

• The collaboration and content management functionality that had been offered with Microsoft Axapta 3.0 is no longer present in Microsoft Dynamics AX. Instead, you can use equivalent features in WSS.

• Enterprise Portal in Microsoft Dynamics AX uses the .NET Business Connector instead of the COM Business Connector to interoperate with Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Document Exchange Updates (Application Integration Framework) Using the Application Integration Framework (AIF) companies can electronically integrate and communicate with other business processes and partners. As the replacement for the Microsoft Axapta Commerce Gateway, AIF provides more secure Business-to-Business and Application-to-Application integration scenarios, with reduced cost to develop and customize documents based on industry-standard XML.

With AIF, the document-based interface to Microsoft Dynamics AX has been renewed, XML schemas have been simplified, and performance in the supply chain process is expected to improve. Also, the XML Common Business Library (xCBL) document standard has been eliminated. You can still map to xCBL standard documents, but this is no longer required. Customers who want to continue to use xCBL as their document format must create their own schema mapping (for example, with Microsoft BizTalk Server) from the new Microsoft Dynamics AX XML format to xCBL.

Improved setup and customization features make it easier to translate data into XML for exchange with other internal and external software applications or to a different Microsoft Dynamics AX installation. Export is handled through Web services or in batches, for example, using Message Queuing, file system, or the Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 adapter. XML documents can be imported by AIF through the same channels, and AIF helps make sure that the appropriate business logic is applied before writing the data to the Microsoft Dynamics AX database.

Support for the BizTalk transport adapter has been added in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 SP1. You can now use BizTalk to manage document exchanges with other applications.

AIF includes out-of-the-box support for an enlarged set of commonly used documents, including the following:

• ASN (Advance shipping notice - outbound)

• Exchange rates (outbound and inbound)

• Free text invoice (inbound)

• Inventory balances (outbound)

• Inventory counting journal (inbound)

• Inventory profit and loss journal (inbound)

• Inventory transactions (outbound)

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• Inventory transfer journal (inbound)

• Ledger chart of account (outbound and inbound)

• Ledger dimensions (outbound and inbound)

• Packing slip update (inbound)

• Picking list (outbound)

• Price discount agreement journal (inbound)

• Price list (outbound)

• Purchase invoice (inbound)

• Purchase order (outbound)

• Sales invoice (outbound)

• Sales order (inbound)

• EDI 820 remittance advice (inbound)

Partners and customers can easily customize and extend the application programming interfaces (APIs) using the Microsoft Dynamics AX software development kit (SDK). The SDK includes a new wizard that enables developers to easily create custom documents:

Figure 4: Application Integration Framework Wizard AIF provides an extensible framework that supports multiple transports to reliably exchange documents with trading partners or other systems:

• Send Documents: Microsoft Dynamics AX sends documents to another system.

• Receive and Create Documents: Microsoft Dynamics AX receives documents from another authorized system and creates new records in the Microsoft Dynamics AX database.

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• Respond to Read Requests: Microsoft Dynamics AX receives requests for documents from another authorized system, retrieves the requested information from the Microsoft Dynamics AX database, and returns it to the requesting system, with appropriate filtering and security.

Microsoft Dynamics AX supports the following asynchronous adapters:

• File System

• Message Queuing

• Outbound Web Service Adapter

Additional custom asynchronous transport adapters can be developed using the Microsoft Dynamics AX Software Development Kit (SDK).

AIF supports the following character encoding formats:

• UTF-8

• UTF-16

• UTF-16be

• GB18030

The AIF also provides a Web services interface for exchanging documents synchronously. This interface provides a seamless integration experience for .NET and other Web clients. The Web services are generated automatically from the Microsoft Dynamics AX business logic so that developers with limited Web experience can easily create their own Web services.

To support document transformations, the AIF provides an extensible pipeline architecture with configurable components. A value substitution component is provided out-of-the-box that lets administrators define simple value maps without programming. Partners can develop other custom pipeline components using the SDK and the hooks provided by the extensible architecture to address specific transformation needs.

Development Features The following development features have been introduced in Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Code Access Security Code access security (CAS) is a new mechanism that helps secure the use of dangerous APIs in Microsoft Dynamics AX. Dangerous APIs are kernel classes and methods in X++ that, if exploited, can create security vulnerabilities. The role of CAS is to control the use of dangerous APIs and to promote security-related development best practices, including validating parameters that are passed to a dangerous API.

CAS also restricts the execution of dangerous APIs to the AOS and requires that X++ code that invokes a dangerous API reside in the Application Object Dictionary (AOD). Two parties implement CAS: the dangerous API owner and all the consumers. The owner follows a set of steps to enable CAS for their API. Consumers follow a different set of steps to enable their code to successfully start the secured API. Once enabled, CAS affects all consumers of the API. CAS is enabled on a number of X++ and kernel classes in Microsoft Dynamics AX. For more information, see the topics on Writing Secure X++ Code in the developer documentation for a list of CAS-enabled classes and detailed implementation steps.

Common Language Runtime (CLR) Interoperability The CLR interoperability feature enables X++ developers to add CLR assemblies to the AOT and to write X++ code that interoperates with objects in these assemblies.

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This provides a number of benefits:

• Developer productivity: Developers can create CLR assemblies more quickly than they can create assemblies that are the wrapped as COM components.

• .NET support: Developers can use the existing CLR components they have already written in Microsoft Dynamics AX.

• ISV integration: ISVs can use .NET to write applications and to expose their application APIs using XML Web services and remoting. X++ developers can then use these APIs directly from X++.

Version Control Management System (VCMS) Because partners want to protect their intellectual investment in customizations, and because the application layer framework is insufficient for this purpose, version control has been a common request from partners.

By default Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 supports version control using Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 6.0. Some partners will want to support their own version control system, so extensibility hooks are provided to work with Version Control ID Server.

Each object in the Application Object Tree (AOT) must have a unique ID. When you develop for Microsoft Dynamics AX in a team environment, you must have a central service to coordinate the assignment of unique identification (IDs) to each object and label. The Team Server performs the task of issuing IDs when developers create new objects and labels.

With Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 SP1, the team server can run either Microsoft SQL server or Oracle.

For general information about Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/previous/ssafe/default.aspx

Debugger Enhancements In Microsoft Dynamics AX, the debugger is a stand-alone application and contains several new features for efficiently finding and fixing common problems in code, such as callstacks, breakpoints, and the ability to move the current execution point when executing code. Additionally, the user interface and shortcut keys follow the familiar design of Microsoft Visual Studio.

Compiler Optimization The compiler redesign can reduce compilation time by as much as forty percent.

Data Model Reverse Engineering Using MorphX By reverse engineering using MorphX, partners can easily get detailed information about the structures and relationships of the Microsoft Dynamics AX business logic and data model.

The reverse-engineering feature is intended to replace the existing Visual MorphXplorer used to visualize the Microsoft Dynamics AX data model by drawing Entity Relation Diagrams for tables and classes. The goal is to simplify collection, extract relationships, and integrate and view collections such as Microsoft Office Visio diagrams as unified modeling language (UML) diagrams. This feature handles reverse engineering of both the data model and the object model.

By integrating the data-model and object-model evaluation with Microsoft Office Visio UML diagramming, Microsoft Dynamics AX gives partners a familiar out-of-the-box tool to use for true modeling and simplified deployment.

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ImageGear Library Replaced With GDI+ Microsoft Dynamics AX now uses the Microsoft GDI+ graphics library instead of the Accusoft ImageGear graphics library. The GDI+ library is an application programming interface (API) that is exposed through a set of C++ classes.

The GDI+ subsystem is a native component of the Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating systems and is available for 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows-based applications.

GDI+ enables application programmers to display information on a screen or printer without having to consider the details of a particular display device. GDI+ insulates the application from the graphics hardware, and it is this insulation that lets developers create device-independent applications.

Print Drilldown The print framework lets users preview report content before actually printing the report. The print preview concept has been extended from being view-only to support drilling down into the transaction hierarchies and related transactions.

Print drilldown features include support based on Menu Item types (Output and Display), and multiple drilldown options on each report field.

Filtering Function Improved filtering of records in tables is accomplished through a new, easy-to-use, embedded filter.

Moving Programming Logic Into Classes Programming logic has been moved out of forms and into classes. These classes are exposed to the Application Object Server (AOS), which allows MorphX® software, non-MorphX software, X++® software, and code written in other languages to make calls and directly update the Microsoft Dynamics AX databases, .NET-connected applications, and .NET independent software vendors (ISVs) applications.

Country Consolidation To meet the expectations of our partners and customers, country-specific features are consolidated in Microsoft Dynamics AX as follows:

• Western Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific regions Local features for the following countries have been merged into the SYS layer: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, United Kingdom, and United States.

• Eastern Europe Local features for the following countries are consolidated in a separate layer: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Russia.

• Other countries Local features for the following countries have stand-alone layers: Brazil, China, Iceland, India, Japan, and Turkey.

The Microsoft Dynamics AX globalization team will strive to incorporate all new legal requirements into Microsoft Dynamics AX as time allows.

Consolidation of country-specific features can reduce deployment and customization complexity.

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Application Enhancements

A number of enhancements have been made to the application user interface to increase user productivity. These enhancements are described in the following sections.

User Productivity

User Interface Design Improvements The Microsoft Dynamics AX user interface has undergone a significant upgrade in appearance and behavior. Common Microsoft Office design elements are used for navigation, replacing the current model with the Office-style Navigation Pane and Microsoft Outlook-like controls that are familiar and easier to navigate.

Figure 5: Microsoft Dynamics AX Application User Interface Users take advantage of a custom Navigation Pane and a Favorites feature to personalize the interface. The Favorites feature resembles that in Microsoft Internet Explorer. The Main menu and User menu concepts in Microsoft Axapta 2.5 and Microsoft Axapta 3.0 are replaced by the new Navigation Pane and Favorites menu.

These improvements are aimed at increasing overall usability by bringing more control, familiarity, and personalization to the Microsoft Dynamics AX application.

Support for collapsing and expanding the Navigation Pane to the side-bar is available in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 SP1. Click the chevron (<<) in the Navigation Pane header or select Auto-Hide Navigation from the View menu.

Developers can expect the same ease of use they have become accustomed to. Partners, ISVs, and developers can use the X++ developer environment much as they have for Microsoft Axapta 3.0.

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Filtering Function Filtering is embedded in the form grids instead of requiring a separate dialog box. Users can then filter business data in the context of the task that they are working on.

Filtering enhancements include embedded filtering in grid controls, stored filters available directly in the interface for easy deployment, and filter terminology aligned with Microsoft Office.

Figure 6: Filtering function

Global Search With Global Search, users can search for any string or record anywhere in Microsoft Dynamics AX. For example, if a user knows the name of a person but does not know whether this person is an employee, a vendor, or a customer, global search can find the person in Microsoft Dynamics AX without requiring the user to search several tables individually. This is much faster and simpler than the search functions available in Microsoft Axapta 3.0.

Alerts Alerts are a new notification feature that works across all modules in Microsoft Dynamics AX. Alerts are the first in a series of features that will provide access to Business Process Management and workflow in Microsoft Dynamics AX.

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Figure 7: Create alert rule on the shortcut menu Users set their own alert rules to be notified about events, such as when a due date for a purchase order is exceeded by a specified number of days. Users define the alert rules from the Microsoft Dynamics AX form that displays the data to be monitored. For the previous example, the alert rule would be defined in the Purchase order form where the due date is displayed. From the resulting alert message, the user can drill down for more information about the relevant business data.

Users can set up alert rules that monitor the following types of events:

• Change of a database field

• Creation or deletion of a record

• Specific dates

Before a specific date (alert me X days before)

On a specific date

After a specific date (alert me X days after)

Users can also add specific conditions to their alert rules using standard Microsoft Dynamics AX filtering functionality so that alerts are sent only when those conditions are met. For example, a rule could specify that Microsoft Dynamics AX send an alert only when a purchase order is created for a particular vendor group.

As an alternative to creating each alert rule from scratch, users can use the Company Account Template feature to create an alert rule based on a template that is defined by the Administrator of the system.

Alerts can also help remote and non-full time users. Users can receive alerts when they work from Enterprise Portal in Microsoft Dynamics AX, and they can set up alerts to be sent as e-mail messages.

Microsoft Dynamics AX integrates e-mail alerts with Microsoft Office Outlook 2003. From the alert e-mail message, users can choose to click a link that opens Microsoft Dynamics AX and displays the related business data, or displays the alert and all previously received alerts in Microsoft Dynamics AX. Users can also click a link in the e-mail that displays the alert rule in Microsoft Dynamics AX.

In addition to alert rules that are set by individual users, administrators can streamline the process of setting alert rules as follows:

• Create, modify, and delete alert rules for individual Microsoft Dynamics AX users

• Create alert rule templates.

• Define an HTML or Extensible Style Language (XSL) template that merges alert data into an e-mail message at runtime

• Set up scheduled batch processes to detect date-driven events and to process events that are derived from changes in the database

Detection of changes in the database is based on the Database Log technology.

Business Intelligence and Reporting A new ad hoc reporting feature enables Microsoft Dynamics AX users to easily create day-to-day operational and management reports. Using the Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 Reporting Services Report Builder tool, users drag data elements onto a report design canvas, to create reports that contain a list, a chart, or a matrix of related data.

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After a report is defined, users can view and drill down in it within Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Report Builder, Enterprise Portal in Microsoft Dynamics AX, or by using any other tool that can display Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services reports.

Customers can now create their own ad hoc reports using Microsoft Dynamics AX data. Users familiar with creating Pivot Tables in Excel or with dragging and dropping will be able to easily create powerful reports that bring together related data from many parts of the Microsoft Dynamics AX application. IT departments at customer sites may no longer be as reliant on their Microsoft Dynamics AX partner to create new reports, and will be able to give certain users permission to create their own reports. Also, with the ad hoc reporting feature being built on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services, IT departments now have a reporting platform they can standardize on for all their corporate reporting needs, and start the transition away from the proprietary Microsoft Dynamics AX reporting engine if they want to do so.

Partners can now provide additional value to their customers by configuring the new ad hoc reporting experience when they deploy Microsoft Dynamics AX. Also, by setting additional properties in the Application Object Tree (AOT), they can customize the ad hoc reporting experience for their customers. For example, a company that builds boats might want to have a property for whether data is related to military or civilian production as top-level information that they can build reports around.

Additionally, because the ad hoc reporting feature is built on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services, partners are now able to invest in this Microsoft technology as a single solution to all of their customers’ report delivery and infrastructure needs.

Language Support Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 SP1 is available in these languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese (Simplified), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Spanish, Swedish, Russian, Thai, Turkish.

In addition, a number of adaptations are available for various countries and regions:

• English adaptations for Canada, UK, Australia, Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and India.

• German adaptations for Austria and Switzerland.

• Italian adaptation for Switzerland.

• French adaptations for Belgium, Canada, and Switzerland.

• Dutch adaptation for Belgium.

• Spanish adaptation for Mexico

Supply Chain Management Key improvements to the Supply Chain Management functionality in Microsoft Dynamics AX are radio frequency identification (RFID) support and advanced intercompany functionality.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Supply chain management can be easily integrated with BizTalk RFID Infrastructure. This functionality will be available when BizTalk RFID Infrastructure is released.

The BizTalk RFID server software has been updated and enhanced for use with Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 SP1.

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Microsoft Dynamics AX Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) improves visibility into the supply chain so that suppliers can more quickly fulfill the needs of their trading partners. RFID is a technology that assists manufacturers and distributors by increasing the number of data capture points in the supply chain. The aim is to put RFID tags on pallets, cases, or items so that they can be uniquely identified and tracked. The tracking is performed by tracking the time that a unique pallet, case, or item was registered at a specific location. This data is collected by an RFID middleware application and sent to Microsoft Dynamics AX, where it is processed accordingly to speed fulfilment.

Microsoft Dynamics AX RFID includes:

• RFID server handling

• Graphical device overview

• Support for shipping and receiving goods

• Tagging, including multilevel (items, cases, and pallets)

The user interface supports RFID-related data standards, such as the serialized Electronic Product Code (EPC). EPC is provided in the core Microsoft Dynamics AX functionality, including out-of-the-box integration with key business processes, such as pick, pack, ship and receive.

Important: BizTalk RFID Infrastructure will not be available in the initial release of Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0. Future releases of Microsoft Dynamics AX will support the BizTalk RFID Infrastructure. The introduction of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology will help manufacturers and distributors achieve improved visibility into their supply chain by increasing the number of data capture points.

Advanced Intercompany Functionality In today’s global economy, many enterprises have companies both domestic and abroad as affiliated production and sales companies.

Traditionally, trade between companies within the same enterprise (intercompany trade) involves double-order entry, manual work, and no intercompany process control. This results in wasted resources and a greater risk of error.

Microsoft Dynamics AX Intercompany functionality provides significant enhancements over functionality available in Microsoft Axapta 3.0. Sales and purchase trading is now automated, as well as document flow between companies in an enterprise. Also, new controls are added to increase integrity of orders and documents.

Extended Sales and Purchase Order forms display an overview of related orders and the original sales order. The intercompany trading process is now a more controlled process with limits on the ability to change a sales or purchase order.

Users are limited when changing price, discounts, and miscellaneous charges when the other company determines the price. Therefore, users will be unable to update order details on a specific sales, intercompany purchase, or intercompany sales order if the action violates the intercompany parameter setup and the specific intercompany trading process.

The functional improvements in Intercompany give partners a more attractive solution to offer customers who require comprehensive intercompany process support out of the box.

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Other Supply Chain Enhancements: Distribution

Enhanced Delivery Date Control on Sales Orders Microsoft Dynamics AX has extended the current delivery date concept. Microsoft Dynamics AX now distinguishes between the selling company’s possible ship date and the buying company’s receipt date. Three new calendars are introduced: Shipping, Transport, and Customer Opening Days.

Transfer Order Handling Improvements Handling transfer orders is greatly enhanced in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0. With the introduction of the transit warehouse and the concept of transit time, employees are better equipped to coordinate the logistics for outbound and inbound items, and therefore they can more tightly control supply. These enhancements are integrated with the master planning schedule.

Release Order Picking Microsoft Dynamics AX introduces a new process-oriented overview form to handle the picking procedure across all sales and transfer orders, including back orders.

The new process-oriented form provides a more push-oriented approach, where the item arrival kick-starts the process for the sales back-order lines or the transfer back-order line.

Direct Delivery To optimize customer service and delivery time, it is now possible to create a purchase order as a direct delivery (drop shipment) from the vendor to the customer. This kind of delivery reduces the costs of labor, inventory, and transportation.

The entire process is controlled so that the references and states of the sales order and linked purchase orders control whether order updates can be performed.

Enhanced Credit-limit Check for Sales Orders Historically, complex credit limit checking for sales orders may have slowed the system or otherwise adversely affected system performance. In Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0, processes have been improved to eliminate this problem.

In addition, when the credit limit is exceeded, users receive complete information about the results of the credit check so that they can communicate that to the supplier or customer. This includes the amount that the credit limit was exceeded in both the customer’s currency and the user’s own company currency, and the various subtotals that constitute the credit balance.

Multiple Delivery Addresses Microsoft Dynamics AX introduces order line-specific delivery and receipt addresses, enabling multiple delivery addresses for a single purchase order or sales order.

Enhanced Status Reporting of Reserved Inventory In Microsoft Axapta 3.0, it is possible for the order processor and purchasing agent to lack information about the status of the entire sales/purchase order. In Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0, additional user-interface items have been added to show inventory transactions status of Reserved Physical, Reserved on-order, and On-order. Quantity on the purchase-order line displays the status of Registered, Arrived, or Ordered.

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Improved Intrastat Support When buying and selling within the European Union (EU), it is mandatory to record and inform authorities about foreign trade. This is referred to as Intrastat and applies to all goods sold. In Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0, the existing foreign trade functionality has been enhanced so that it is possible to generate Intrastat transactions from the Free Text invoice form.

Other Supply Chain Enhancements: Manufacturing

Enhanced Subcontracting Functionality Microsoft Dynamics AX provides enhanced functionality for subcontracting. Shipping documents for raw material and work description (operation and route) to the subcontractor are attached to the purchase order, transfer order, or production order. Improved support for kitting is also included.

Enhanced Bill of Materials (BOM) Calculation The cost calculation of the bill of materials (BOM) is enhanced in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0. The calculation is now performed in a single calculation that is run throughout the entire BOM, from the top down, taking into account the actual quantities on higher-level BOMs and applying these when calculating the required sub-BOM quantities. Calculating the actual or required sub-BOM or item quantities is important in searching and summarizing in order to retrieve the correct price and apply it to the BOM cost, because these prices may be stored in intervals.

Microsoft Axapta 3.0 applied inventory standard quantities when retrieving the unit price to apply in calculations. In Microsoft Dynamics AX, the quantities applied at all levels can be the exact required quantities for producing the BOM top-down to the sub-BOMs so that the BOM calculation produces the precise cost.

When calculating the projected cost of the BOM, the constant scrap quantity is also taken into account. This helps ensure that all scrap is added to the BOM cost.

Quantity-dependent BOM and Route In Microsoft Dynamics AX, BOM and route version selection are controlled by both quantity and date.

• Quantity controls enable the user to let the system make the make and buy decision automatically based on order quantity.

• Expiration dates on materials in BOMs can help reduce the excess and obsolete material by specifying that the older part be used before the newer part.

Product Builder in Microsoft Dynamics AX Enhancements to Product Builder in Microsoft Dynamics AX include a new, optional guide to walk users through the steps of creating a new model. Advanced model compilation and configuration abilities are also introduced.

Rules System The rules system has been extended and now includes three different types of rules:

• Formulas

• Actions

• Constraints

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To improve the model designer’s user experience, all the rules in a product model can now be accessed from a single overview form. This makes it easier to maintain changes to existing rules. Rules can now be connected to a specific product model or they can be global. Also, both system variables and internal product model variables can now be used in validation rules.

Product Builder in Enterprise Portal Support for Product Builder in Enterprise Portal is available in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 SP1.

It is now possible to configure product models over the Enterprise Portal. Specifically this means the ability to do the following in EP:

• Configure a modelling enabled item in a Sales order

• Configure a modelling enabled item in a Sales quotation

• Configure a modelling enabled item when buying it through the Enterprise Portal Product catalog

• Configure a modelling enabled item when buying it through the Campaign item in the Enterprise Portal

• Possibly configure additional modelling enabled item through the Enterprise Portal shopping cart

• Possibly reconfigure a modelling enabled item in an Enterprise Portal shopping cart.

Other Enhancements Additional enhancements to Product Builder in Microsoft Dynamics AX include the following:

• Ability to compile several product models and perform rule validation

• A new wizard for creating product models guides users through the process

• Ability to hide dialog boxes and confirmation forms

• Ability to drag in the modeling tree

• Automatic and mandatory configuration

• Graphics display

• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) integration with sales and purchase quotations

Shop Floor Control in Microsoft Dynamics AX Significant enhancements have been made to Shop Floor Control in Microsoft Dynamics AX. These include a new graphic work planning tool, new limitations for startup and feedback quantity, new features for tracking on-call compensation, and more accurate tracking of the source of errors on the production line.

Work Planner In some companies, the shift rotation is complicated and defined from week to week. The work planner is a new graphical planning tool that makes it easy to plan shift work several weeks ahead. Users can also print the shift rotation plan for the weeks they have planned.

Limitation to Startup and Feedback Quantity In Microsoft Dynamics AX, limitations can be set for startup quantity and feedback quantity. The startup quantity limitation prevents users from entering a larger startup quantity than is

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reported as finished on the previous job. The feedback quantity limitation prevents users from reporting a finished quantity that is larger than the startup quantity.

The Production tab page of the Parameters Setup form now allows configuration of the startup and feedback quantities.

On Call Duty New features have been added to control registration and generate pay for employees who work on call. A new indirect activity type (On Call) makes it possible to specify an on-call activity on the electronic timecard. This in turn triggers the payment of different on-call bonuses.

Production Error Source Tracking When registering time on production jobs in Shop Floor Control in Microsoft Dynamics AX, the system can provide statistics on the number of good versus error items produced. For error items, users can give multiple error sources. For example, if ten error items are produced in a run, the shop floor manager can indicate that five of them were caused by the machinery, and the other five were caused by the operator.

Machine Time Creating registrations for a machine is indirectly supported in Shop Floor Control in Microsoft Dynamics AX. A machine can be added to the system in the employee table, and then registered on jobs, typically as a pilot. Employees who are operating the machine can register on the jobs as assistants to the machine.

The Employee form is updated so that a supervisor can configure whether employees are running in Employee time recording mode or Machine time recording mode. A new field has been added to the Shop Floor Control Employee table allowing tracking of whether a specific employee is actually a machine.

Picking List Integration This new feature is launched automatically at startup or finish of jobs and suggests the item numbers and quantities to be picked. Users can change this information or add to it before the picking list is posted.

Payroll Periods In Microsoft Dynamics AX, payroll periods can be defined in a more flexible way. The forms that previously displayed the predefined payroll periods now display user-defined payroll periods. Additionally, a new feature has been added that makes it possible to assign an employee to be paid according to a specific payroll period, making the export-to-pay feature much easier to control.

Other Enhancements Additional enhancements to Shop Floor Control in Microsoft Dynamics AX include the following:

• Advance notice board - Employees can send messages to each other.

• Performance improvements - Forms now launch more quickly.

• Absence integration with HRM - Absence tracking is now integrated with the Human Resources Management (HRM) component.

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Financial Management The accounting and financial management modules are receiving significant enhancements to the following key areas:

• Financial dimensions

• Fixed assets

• Regulatory compliance

• Global features

• Integration of localized features

Financial Dimensions Financial dimensions are an important tool for understanding company performance. Dimensions provide an alternative to the ledger chart-of-account perspective when you analyze financial transactions and figures. Key improvements in this area significantly enhance business intelligence.

Financial Dimension Hierarchy With a new advanced control feature, users can drive contextual value restrictions on financial dimensions. Financial controllers can specifically restrict authorized values or value combinations at the entry point on chosen table collections or journal names, or upon posting to chosen ledger accounts. Dimension sets, which combine dimension types, can be built to drive and control the dimension value dependencies. Assistance for financial dimensions entry is available to end users through the lookup form in dimension fields.

Data reliability is increased with regard to financial dimensions across the company, and according to specific corporate needs or policies. Customers can better prevent incorrect values and value combinations from being posted in the ledger and can restrict dimension value entry in context according to their business practices, therefore securing data accuracy at the source.

Partners and ISVs can alter the AOT default table collections to redistribute their content according to specific customer needs. In extreme cases, additional business logic can be built to increase the granularity of the context notion.

New Financial Statement Reporting A new financial statement row definition enables the building of custom reporting row structures on ledger accounts, financial dimensions, or a combination of the two. Users can drag topic values in a tree representation and map them in user-defined levels for multilevel aggregation. Together with the capability to perform calculations between rows, this definition enables the production of powerful analytical reports to explore financial figures seen in a company context and from a business perspective.

Additional forms and feature enhancements, including the account statement, provide instant exploration of balance composition and transactions that relate to financial dimensions values.

Productivity can be increased when customers use the powerful financial statement tool to generate analytical reports customized to company and reporting needs. They can monitor and analyze financial figures through financial dimensions, using the financial statement. Customers can also explore balances composition from different perspectives, and trace and investigate transactions according to their business or organizational origin.

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Partners and ISVs can provide additional value to their customers by offering row definition templates that are custom built to fit specific industries and types of business needs for analytical accounting.

Cost Accounting Cost Accounting in Microsoft Dynamics AX lets you conduct comprehensive analysis by using financial dimensions. Highly-flexible distribution and allocation capabilities enable the allocation of costs in a top-down manner. Financial modeling is supported, in addition to flexible cost methodology and fixed and variable costs.

Fixed Assets New features have been implemented in Fixed Assets in Microsoft Dynamics AX, in order to meet requirements that have been mandated for companies in the United States and other regions of the world.

Asset Calendars For many companies, the tax year is not the same as the financial reporting year. An asset calendar lets you depreciate assets using a calendar that differs from what is used by the general ledger. Asset calendars will be available for both Value models and the new Depreciation book.

Depreciation Books The new Depreciation books feature provides the ability to track asset transactions without affecting the general ledger. US asset tracking for taxes requires more than the three posting layers provided by Microsoft Axapta 3.0. Taxes, or depreciation books, do not affect the general ledger in any way. The information tracked in Depreciation books is used only for tax purposes, such as tracking asset transactions based on the parent company’s requested depreciation methods. Most of the reports in Fixed Assets in Microsoft Dynamics AX have been updated to include support for the new Depreciation books. The Microsoft Axapta 3.0 functionality that lets users associate a Value Model with the current posting layer remains.

Depreciation Conventions and New Depreciation Methods New depreciation methods needed to support the United States have been added. These include 200 percent reducing balance (also known as double-declining balance), 175 percent reducing balance, 150 percent reducing balance and 125 percent reducing balance. The straight line depreciation has also been broken out into two separate methods to enable both: Straight line service life and Straight line life remaining.

Various depreciation conventions have also been added. The conventions restrict the first and last year of depreciation that can be taken for an asset using a specific convention. The new depreciation conventions include Half year, Full month, Mid-quarter, Mid-month (1st of month), Mid month (15th of month), Half year (start of year) and Half year (Next year).

Bonus Depreciation New bonus depreciation records can be created for the new Depreciation books in Microsoft Dynamics AX. Bonus depreciation is available before taking any ‘normal’ depreciation for an asset and is generally for tax purposes. Section 179 in the United States is an example. The Section 179 fields are removed from the Value models and replaced by the new Bonus depreciation feature.

Mass Update Depreciation Conventions The new Mass update feature provides the ability to change the depreciation convention for assets associated with a Depreciation book at a mass update level. For Federal tax purposes

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in the United States, if more than 40 percent of the new assets were placed in service in the fourth quarter of the current year, the assets must be depreciated using the mid-quarter convention. This feature provides an easy means for the user to update the convention.

Country/Region Features

Germany, Austria, Switzerland Region As part of the country consolidation, some Fixed Assets in Microsoft Dynamics AX features have been moved to the SYS layer and are available for the global market.

These include the following:

• Leave net book value at

• Allow net book value higher than acquisition costs

• Allow negative net book value

• Depreciation rule functionality has been moved to the new half year (start of year) depreciation convention

• Used from date renamed to Placed in service date

• Depreciation periods

• Depreciation periods remaining

France The French RB/SL depreciation method has been moved to the SYS layer. The country configuration key 'France' is required for this depreciation method to be available in Fixed Assets in Microsoft Dynamics AX. This method will not support the new asset calendars, Depreciation books, or depreciation conventions in Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Regulatory Compliance Enhancements in Microsoft Dynamics AX support regulatory compliance in various locales.

Financial Statement for IAS/IFRS and US-GAAP With the new financial statement, you can more easily build compliant financial reports such as an income statement. Ledger accounts can easily be mapped into line items. Customers can use the ability to compose reporting rows based on given posting layers to produce financial statements for different generally accepted accounting principles (GAAPs).

The row definition includes a consistency check and exception report, where customers can catch duplicate or missing figures at both design and financial statement production.

Fully compatible with Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), the taxonomies can be converted into row definitions ready to map. This enables the generation of XBRL output from the financial statement. The row definition templates can also be produced and passed on, ready to map to the Microsoft Dynamics AX application.

In addition, the new financial statement supports the export to multiple formats, which enables the use of the figures and structure in third-party products.

Partners and ISVs can provide their customers with up-to-date templates designed to meet specific local financial reporting requirements. Partners and ISVs can add extra export formats easily to extend the export capability to additional third-party products.

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EU 115 Directive The EU 115 directive feature supports easier compliance with the European Council directive 2001/115/EC on harmonizing value-added tax presentation on invoice documents. It includes the revision and alignment of all invoicing documents to present compliant tax information. Tax exemption codes can be attributed per tax code usage in tax groups to produce the different exemptions applied with explanatory texts.

FASB52 (Financial Accounting Standards Board) Microsoft Dynamics AX provides a consolidation tool for consolidating multiple company accounts into a single set of company accounts. In the consolidation company, users can now specify which exchange rates to use when consolidating the transactions.

The exchange rates can be one of the following:

• Average - related to profit and loss transactions

• Closing - Related to outstanding balances on customers or vendors

• Historical - Used to keep the same value as when the assets (shares) were bought.

When consolidating the transactions, the user decides which exchange rates to use for the different types of transactions. If more than one setup is chosen, such as average for the profit and loss and closing for the balance sheet, a difference appears when the totals are calculated. The user then chooses where to book the consolidation exchange difference.

Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) (United States) The Microsoft Dynamics AX product development team realizes that complying with the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002, generally referred to as Sarbanes-Oxley, or SOX, is critical for financial accounting departments conducting business in the United States.

The auditing features of Microsoft Dynamics AX have been extended and secured in order to support the review of financial information for validity and transparency. The following features enable customers to review the accuracy and validity of financial information:

• The new Alerts feature enables companies to create internal controls to track changes that were made to financial information.

• Because of the move to Active Directory-based security each user is uniquely identified, which increases the effectiveness of tracking and logging changes in the system.

• The internal authorization system of Microsoft Dynamics AX enables companies to implement a role-based system that clearly supports the segregation of duties.

• Companies can use the security system to control access to financial information on a functional level including forms, reporting, and tables. Access authorization can be set to no access, read-only, update and full access.

• Companies can use the Microsoft Dynamics AX reporting capabilities to document the segregation of duties at a single point in time.

• The tracking system can be used to log all access to the system. The database logging system also tracks all changes to valuation models, and aggregation of reported financial information. This capability enables companies to easily disclose material changes in financial conditions and operations.

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United States Sales-tax Issues The sales-tax functionality has been expanded to meet requirements coming from the United States. Sales-tax information displayed on a retail invoice is now incorporated in such a way that, when dealing with multiple tax authorities, the invoice displays one sum per tax authority. When an invoice is valid for one tax area only, then only one tax amount is printed. When an invoice is for multiple tax areas, then the invoice displays multiple amounts.

Tax rounding happens on a sum of different sales taxes and not, as in earlier versions, on each individual sales tax. Reporting can be based on exemption codes, with the information coming from different sales-tax codes, the taxable sales amount, the exempt amount, and non-taxable sales-tax amount.

Payment Proposal The new payment proposal includes an editing capability that allows the modification of open transaction information and the instant visualization of the resulting payment suggestions. New streamlined payment reports offer a common consistent format throughout the process and replace existing reports.

Additionally, companies can configure their method of payment so that the payment proposal generates suggestions according to characteristics of the transactions to be paid. The transactions can be corrected, revised, and adjusted and instantly re-assessed to see the effect on the payment plan before approving.

Project Accounting The Project Accounting in Microsoft Dynamics AX data model is restructured to improve features within reporting, statistics, and budgeting/forecasting. Invoicing and credit notes can be handled in a more flexible way. Over forty new reports have been added to show actual and budgeted figures.

Budget and Forecast In Microsoft Dynamics AX, the budget/forecast is redesigned. The restructured data model is aligned with the data model for actual (new on-account forecast introduced + ProjTransBudget = ProjTransPosting).

Three different budget scripts can be executed: copy budget, create budget, and transfer project budget to ledger budget.

Statistics and Reporting Based on the new data model, a new statistics form has been introduced to replace the old one. The amounts displayed in the form are for both cost and sales prices in company currency. From the new statistics form, users can view the profit and loss, work in progress, consumption cost, payroll allocation, on-account invoicing, and hour rate. Fifty-three new reports have been added to show actual and budget reporting.

Invoice Control With a new invoice control form, users can follow up on the invoice status and compare it to the project quotation. The figures displayed in the form are for sales prices in invoicing currency. From the new invoice control form, it is possible to display the invoiced, chargeable, and nonchargeable amounts.

Project Quotation In Microsoft Axapta 3.0 it was possible to create a CRM quotation and transfer the quoted items to the item requirements on a project. In Microsoft Dynamics AX, the quotation feature

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set provides project quotations. This makes it possible to create a project quotation that also includes such this as hours, expenses (cost), and fees (revenue). The user can decide whether to transfer the quoted elements to a project forecast in order to follow up on the project, or the quoted items can be directly created as item requirements if needed.

You can also work with predefined project templates that let the user issue standard project quotations based on template values.

New Internal Project Types The internal project type has been subdivided into three new internal project types:

• Time project – Hours are posted to the project, but not posted to the ledger (administration hours, such as education, illness, and holidays).

• Cost project - All costs of hours, items, and expenses are posted to profit and loss.

• Investment project – The costs of hours, items, and expenses are posted to work in progress (capitalized) by the estimate system. When a project is terminated, the value can be posted to a ledger account, to fixed assets, or to a new project.

General Enhancements

Credit Note In Microsoft Dynamics AX, users can select the transaction to be credited. The transaction can be selected from both the invoice journal and the individual project transaction. A credit note proposal can be generated and based on this proposal, and a credit note can be issued. Users can also edit invoice and credit note proposal lines.

Estimate Form The Estimate form has been significantly improved to give users a better overview of the estimated profitability of the project before posting. Four tabs have been added to the Estimate form: P&L (profit and loss), WIP (work in progress), Consumption, and Hour rates.

Additional New features Additional Project Accounting features have been added in the following areas:

Journals • Set default offset account setup for expenses, based on a matrix of project,

category, and employee

• Cost prices on expenses in journals

• Trace the transaction from journal lines (Jump from TransID)

• Default categories in journals set up on project parameters

• Hide inactive categories and employees who have exited in journal look-ups

• Job to delete posted journals

Adjustments • Improved adjustments:

Field update logic

Manipulate sales price based on a mark up pct. before invoicing.

• Functions can be performed from a single transaction or for a number of transactions by using multi select for the following functions.

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Adjustment

Post cost

Accrue revenue

Create invoice proposal

Project Form • Change the project group on a project

• Edit fields in project tree. ( Invoice project, Project name, Responsible, sorting, dimension, Dates)

• Show only active projects by hiding finished projects.

• Backorder sales and purchase lines to be displayed from projects

• Improved copying wizard:

Start in an existing tree,

Overwrite responsible, project group, sorting, dimension dates from template project

• Project, activity, item task, forecast and project stages added to invoice project and estimate project.

Invoice • Edit text and sales price on invoice proposal

• New total form from invoice proposal and invoice journal

• Customized columns in the report Invoice journal.

• Report to reprint original and copies

• Hide transactions with zero sales prices on invoice layout, based on line property.

• Handle prepayment tax for on-account transactions (Austrian law requirement)

• Trace the invoice proposal and invoice line from the transactions (TransID).

• Trace the transaction from the proposal and invoice lines (TransID).

WIP Posting • Tab pages to view the P&L and WIP impact on time and material projects (Post

cost/Accrue revenue) before posting the amount

• Not to capitalize cost on the individual transaction, based on line property.

New: Service Management A new Service Management in Microsoft Dynamics AX module has been introduced that is targeted at manufacturing service organizations that service complex machines and equipment on a periodic or call-initiated basis.

Service subscription functionality offers a periodic revenue stream that is independent of service frequency and can be used independently for companies without a service division.

Service Management relies on the Project Accounting (Project I) in Microsoft Dynamics AX module in order to register resource consumption and post service invoices.

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Service Dispatching Support In the Service Management modules, users have access to the following support for service dispatching:

• Enable long term service contracts, including definition of tasks to be performed, equipment to be serviced, and time schedule for periodic service calls

• Create of emergency service calls on the basis of existing service contracts or directly integrated into the existing project accounting system

• Register of equipment failure symptoms and diagnosis

• View spare-part history from the inventory on both individual and long term service engagements

• Track complete inventory of item requirements in the service process

• Set advanced pricing and posting options using functionality from Project Accounting in Microsoft Dynamics AX

Service Subscription Support The new service subscription system is built onto the Project Accounting in Microsoft Dynamics AX Fee/Revenue transaction, project invoice, project periods, and ledger integration.

Based on a periodic code, it is possible to create a Subscription/Fee–transaction. Four different types can be generated:

• Regular – Exactly matches the start/end date of the invoice period

• Non-regular – Starts or ends within a period (used at the start or at the end of a subscription)

• Reduction days – Creates a credit note of a previous invoiced subscription, for a specific number of days

• Price change – Based on a previously invoiced fee/subscription–transaction, it is possible to add or reduce the price by generating a new transaction

Two pricing systems support the subscription system:

• Setup – The price is established by project, category, or subscription number per currency.

• Index/base price – The subscription is priced by multiplying an index with a base price.

By using work in progress accounting in the Project Accounting in Microsoft Dynamics AX, customers can accrue revenue in a shorter interval than the invoicing interval. For example, a subscription can be invoiced on a yearly basis, and the revenue can be accrued monthly.

Customer Relationship Management The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in Microsoft Dynamics AX module is significantly enhanced with redesigned sales quotations, sales management statistics, and Microsoft Outlook integration.

Sales Quotations In Microsoft Axapta 3.0 the user could use two quotation features: CRM quotations and sales order quotations. In Microsoft Dynamics AX, CRM quotations, sales order quotations, and

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project quotations have been combined into a new quotation feature set. This feature set is part of the standard Accounts Receivable sales process.

New features have been introduced in quotations, including the following:

• Templates that reduce repetitive work

• Quotations that can be periodically deleted and updated

• Mass creating quotations for use in campaigns

• Printing quotations and quotation confirmation reports

• Full integration with BOMs defined in Product Builder in Microsoft Dynamics AX

• Support for new supply chain management features such as enhanced delivery dates, RFID, multiple ship-to and an alternative address on a line-by-line level

Some features have been kept in Customer Relationship Management in Microsoft Dynamics AX, including the ability to:

• Record pipeline information (such as prognosis, type, and SWOT analysis)

• Record competitor and alternative quotations (formerly known as competing quotations)

• Provide probability-driven master scheduling of quoted items

• Run price simulations. This feature has been redesigned to let users run a price simulation on a quotation header, which allows a sales rep to grant a discount for an entire quotation, instead of working on a line-by line basis.

Sales Management Statistics Sales management statistics have been significantly redesigned, including the following:

• Improved adaptability based on full user access to underlying queries

• Improved design of data-capturing functionality, allowing users more control over the values returned

• Improved data rendering with an option of batch processing and load/save functionality for large data calculations

Microsoft Outlook Integration The integration with Microsoft Outlook has been redesigned to included enhanced tasks and activities synchronization, and Contact Person synchronization with rights management and rule-based synchronization.

The distribution of tasks within a campaign or telemarketing initiative is improved to let users distribute tasks according to the assigned contact or another employee.

The Contact Person data table and form are restructured to align with the data in Microsoft Outlook Contacts, allowing Microsoft Dynamics AX to store Microsoft Outlook Contact data and synchronize the data with Microsoft Outlook. The administrator can define on a field-level basis the synchronization between Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft Outlook by mapping Microsoft Outlook fields to Microsoft Dynamics AX fields. The administrator can also choose to use the default field mappings between Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Dynamics AX. Synchronization is performed between the Microsoft Dynamics AX application and the local Microsoft Outlook client on the user’s local computer.

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General Enhancements to Customer Relationship Management

Automatic Activity Generation The default creation of activities that remind users of impending deadlines for sales quotations, campaigns, and telemarketing initiatives is enhanced. Using parameters it is now possible to enable, disable or prompt the user if activities are generated. It is also now possible to generate activities automatically for Campaign and Telemarketing targets.

The Enterprise Portal CRM Role License Functionality Has Moved The functionality associated with the Enterprise Portal CRM role license has been moved to new locations:

• Web Quotation is part of the Trade license

• Business relation is part of the Sales Force Automation license

Sales Targets Have Been Redesigned The Sales targets functionality under management statistics has been redesigned to align with the General Ledger budget structure. It has also been changed to enable for Sales budgets that follow a fiscal year that does not align to a calendar year.

CRM Financials Shown by User-Defined Periods The financials information available from the Business Relation form has been redesigned to let users set user-defined periods to view customer turnover.

Target Distribution The target distribution for campaigns and call lists for employee groups has been moved to the Campaign and Call list forms to improve speed and usability.

Workbook Form Has Been Removed The Workbook form has been removed because the information that is stored in the form was similar to the data found in the Activities form. The special date filters from the Workbook form have been added to the Activities form.

Call List Form Has Been Extended The Call list form has been extended so that it now allows access to generated calls. Individual calls can be manually added and deleted.

Business Relation and Contact Person Table and Form Redesign The Business Relation and Contact Person forms and tables have been redesigned and aligned for improved performance and adherence to the Microsoft Dynamics AX data model.

CRM Business Relations The Business Relations form has been modified in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 SP1 to include a lower pane with tabs that enable access to line item information for contacts, activities, mailings, documents, quotations, responsibilities, business sectors, projects, and a log. This interface is similar to that of Microsoft Dynamics AX 3.0, prior to Service Pack 3.

Human Resources Human Resources in Microsoft Dynamics AX has been improved in the following key areas:

• Working with contractors 42


• Recruiting

• Absence management

• Hiring and ending employment

• Employee exit and transitions

Improved Support for Work with Contractors The introduction of a new contractor employee type makes it easier for customers to manage sub-contractor information by hiring contractors as employees with a contractor designation. This allows customers who use contractors on a regular or long-term basis to use functionalities, such as absence management, when managing the contractor.

Expanded Recruiting Functionality Restructured and expanded recruiting functionality improves management of recruitment initiatives with the use of a single tool. Recruitment projects are streamlined by removing recruitment lines to help increase focus on individual projects. Additional enhancements include new e-recruitment features that enable customers to create and post job advertisements to Enterprise Portal in Microsoft Dynamics AX, and then receive, filter, process, and store incoming applications for employment.

Improved Support for Absence Planning Improvements to absence management include the introduction of absence requests, which enable employees to request future absence dates in Microsoft Dynamics AX, and managers to accept or reject requests.

Enhanced Hiring Functionality Mass-hire projects help customers reduce administrative costs involved in managing employment affiliations for groups of employees by providing the ability to create, hire, and assign settings to groups of people using a single process. This is especially useful for customers who frequently hire (and later end employment as necessary) multiple employees, for example, on a temporary, seasonal, or special project basis.

Improved Control Over Employee Exit and Transition Scenarios A new employee responsibilities report makes it easier to manage employee transitioning and exit scenarios by producing a list of all items and activities for which a selected employee is responsible. This helps reduce the risk of lost items or equipment, and helps ensure follow-up on current activities.

Balanced Scorecard Balanced Scorecard in Microsoft Dynamics AX has been improved in the following key areas:

• Access and visibility

• Terminology and structure

• Performance drill-down

• Result posting

Improved Access and Visibility The Balanced Scorecard in Microsoft Dynamics AX functionality is now in a single module located on the main Navigation Pane, instead of within Human Resources in Microsoft Dynamics AX.

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Realigned Terminology and Structure To help make Balanced Scorecard in Microsoft Dynamics AX features more intuitive and user-friendly, the terminology and structure have been realigned with those associated with traditional balanced scorecard concepts, such as perspectives, scorecards, objectives, and measures.

More Robust Performance Drill-down The new performance overview helps increase the speed at which customers can identify performance levels, and make comparisons between actual and targeted results. This helps companies make better decisions faster, and identify possible process adjustments.

Overviews of Country/Region-specific Features The following information provides a short description of features for several specific countries/regions that are included in Microsoft Dynamics AX, but that are not documented in Help.

For descriptions of the features, procedures, and additional information for each country/region, select Help, and then click the link in the topic titled “Country/region-specific features for Microsoft Dynamics AX.”

Austria

Cross-border Report Services Quarterly Reports A report is available to support a new legal requirement that became effective on January 1, 2006. Companies must report – per country – incoming and outgoing cross-border services on a quarterly basis to the Austrian government. Each company must also submit a yearly report that has detailed information about the types and amounts of services received

Belgium

Interbank Clearing Code A new interbank clearing code has been added to the Bank accounts form that lets you request urgent processing of payments from banks.

INTERVAT You can use INTERVAT to complete electronic tax declaration. There are two types of INTERVAT declarations – test and official.

Enterprise and Branch Number You can use an enterprise and one or more branch numbers to identify your company. The number will be printed on invoices, tax declarations, several reports, Intrastat declarations, the EU sales list, the PRODCOM declaration, and the BLWI declaration.

BLWI Reporting You must create a BLWI (Belgisch Luxemburgs Wissel Instituut) declaration report monthly. The report is a declaration of the foreign trade of goods and the state of bank accounts outside of Belgium, and includes customer transactions, vendor transactions, and financial transactions for specific bank accounts and currencies.

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PRODCOM Reporting Companies that create industrial products are required by law to report quantities and values of the products delivered, and also some employment data, to the Belgian authorities.

Asset Report Specification You can print a report that groups assets by their groups and includes information about investments, depreciation, rest value, and profit information for a year that you specify. Assets that have been sold are not included in the report.

Electronic Tax Declaration You must submit an electronic VAT declaration on a monthly or quarterly basis to the Belgian government if your company uses EDIVAT for VAT declarations. The data that is used for the EDIVAT declaration is based on the data for typical sales tax reporting.

Import Zip Codes You can import up-to-date postal codes from files provided by the Belgian Postal Service.

Intrastat Archive Every time that you create an Intrastat file, the data is stored automatically in an archive file that you can access to view the Intrastat declarations. You can use the Diskette – BE form to send an Intrastat declaration to the National Bank of Belgium on a disk.

Journal Reports Each company is required by law to create journals to post transactions and changes to general ledger accounts. You can print financial journals, sales journals, purchase journals, and other journals that include the required information.

Canada

New Check Format Starting in June 2007, all check images for Canada must comply with new specifications and standards (CPA Standard 006) to ensure that data is captured for image-based clearing systems. You can select the check format for Canada in the Check layout form.

Reuse Check Numbers You can select to reuse check numbers. For example, if a check is damaged while it is being printed, you can print the same check number on a new check. The original check information is voided and replaced with the reprinted check information.

Payment Format for Electronic Payments and Withdrawals The standard payment format for sending payments or requests for withdrawals electronically is used by many banks in Canada. You can select RBC as the method of payment in the Generate customer payments form or the Generate vendor payments form.

National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA) File Format You can use standard NACHA file formats to send electronic payments to and receive electronic payments from financial institutions in the United States.

General Index of Financial Information (GIFI) Codes for Canadian Financial Statements

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The General Index of Financial Information (GIFI) is a list of accounts and information that is found on financial statements. Each item on the GIFI account list has a unique code that you


can match up with ledger account numbers from your chart of accounts. For example, the GIFI code for cash is 1001.

You must use GIFI codes when you submit financial statement information to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) for both paper returns and returns that you file electronically.

Calculate Financial Statement Balances for GIFI Codes when Multiple Fiscal Years are Open If you are using General Index of Financial Information (GIFI) codes for Canadian financial statements and more than one fiscal year is open, you must create clearing accounts to simulate the closing of the prior fiscal year to calculate accurate balance sheet amounts for the current date on financial statements. For example, if the current date is March 21, 2007, and you have not closed the 2006 fiscal year, you can simulate closing the prior fiscal year.

China

Chart of Accounts The account codes that have more than two tiers and that are longer than ten digits can be displayed in a tree structure in the chart of accounts.

Chinese Voucher System In China, the classification method of a voucher type is regulated. Each voucher type has its own continuous numbering sequence, which will be displayed on most of the ledgers and in inquiries. Various voucher types can be printed by using different paper forms.

The following enhancements are also included in this feature:

• Copy and reverse vouchers

• Approve journals

• Display debit and credit amounts

• Display negative amounts in red

Legal Reports To comply with the accounting system requirements for business enterprises, the ability to set up and use the following four external financial statements has been added:

• Balance sheet

• Profit and loss statement

• Tax report

• Cash flow statement.

Monthly Closing You are required to complete a validation check at the end of a fiscal period to ensure that all transactions are finalized before you close the period. You must complete this process to post transactions in the next fiscal period.

Chinese User Interface The user interface has been updated so that the date (year, date, time), font (family, weight, style, size), length of field descriptions, name and address fields and numbers are in Chinese style.

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Chinese National Standard (GB/T 19581-2004) Support The functionality for the standards that are defined in GB/T 19581-2004 “Information technology – Data interface of accounting software” has been added.

Tax Integration You can connect with the local tax system to import and export VAT invoices.

Bank Reconciliation You can reconcile your banking accounts, which is an important function for business in various markets.

Finland

Intrastat Intrastat is the system for collecting statistics on the trade of goods between European Union (EU) countries. You can set up information about the various authorities that Intrastat information must be submitted to in the Intrastat service point form.

Åland Island Taxes The Åland Islands are not a part of the EU and have a special treatment of taxes. You can print a tax declaration of import report that displays transaction information about each customer, each invoice, and each VAT code, and also a summary of the import tax declaration and tax amounts for import transactions.

Include Additional Information About Sales Customer Invoices You can select to print additional information about sales invoices and on project invoices that explains the tax code that is used on the invoices. The information can be activated per company.

Customer payment import format for Finnish payment You can select a file format to import and export customer and vendor payments.

Print Reference Numbers on Customer Invoices You can select to include reference numbers on sales invoices, free text invoices, and project invoices. The information can be activated per company.

Print Reference Numbers on Vendor Invoices You can select to include reference numbers on vendor invoices. The information can be activated per company.

Import Ledger Transactions You can import accounting transactions into the general ledger journal using a format that is specific for Finland.

Select payment formats for accounts payable

You can select export formats to use when you make domestic and foreign payments to your vendors.

Validate Bank Accounts Use the Bank accounts form to create and validate your bank accounts.

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Print the Finnish Giro Money Transfer on Invoices You can print the Finnish giro money transfer slip at the bottom of a project invoice or a sales invoice. The payer transfers the giro slip to the bank, and payment is transmitted to one of the bank accounts listed on the giro money transfer slip.

France

NAF Codes and Siret Numbers You now can use French Nomenclature des Activités Françaises (NAF) numbers, which are common codes that are used by the French government to display and track economic statistical data. For example, if your company manufactures computers, the NAF code for your company might be 300C, which is the NAF code for manufacturing computers and other computer hardware.

The siret is a 14-digit number that identifies a business, a branch of the business, and a person associated with the business activity. You must obtain a siret number at the time of registration with the French government. You can use the siret number to verify that an enterprise is registered correctly and authorized to do business with you.

Print Customer and Vendor Account Statements You can print accounts statements for customers and for vendors that display information for a time period that you select.

French Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes The standard French banking format for remitting for bills of exchange and promissory notes and that meets the requirements of the Comité Français d'Organisation et de Normalisation Bancaires (CFONB), which is the French committee for bank normalization and organization, is available. The commerce registration of the company – where the company is registered, such as the Registre du commerce et des sociétés (RSC) – is included in the French remittance file.

Germany

Elektronische Steuereklärungen (ELSTER) All German companies must provide their monthly and quarterly VAT sales and purchases information to the tax authorities electronically. The German tax authorities offer their own approved interface – Elektronische Steuereklärungen (ELSTER) – for submitting electronic tax declaration. You can use ELSTER to submit several types of tax documents electronically, such as payroll tax declarations, income tax declarations, and several VAT statements, including the Sales VAT Advance Notification information.

GDPdU Data Export The principles for accessing data and testing digital documents are referred to as GDPdU. Tax auditors are allowed by law to digitally access and verify data from electronic bookkeeping systems during the statutory archiving period. There are three different ways to access the data for the tax authorities – direct access, indirect access, and surrender of data media. Microsoft Dynamics AX uses the surrender of data media using the GDPdU data export feature.

DTAZV Payment Format Changes for 2006 Microsoft Dynamics AX supports four payment types that you can use to create foreign payment files for Germany. They are the EU standard transfer, Express transfer in Euro, Euro counter-value payment, and Foreign payments.

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For 2006, if the amount for the EU standard transfer payment type exceeds EUR 12.5000, you can create declaration records. You can also create an EU standard transfer up to the amount of EUR 50.000.

India

Sales Tax Every dealer of goods must pay taxes on the sale or purchase of goods in the course of the following types of trade:

Local trade (sale within a state) when the amount during a financial year exceeds the specified turnover limits prescribed under the state tax laws.

Inter-state trade, regardless of the turnover limit for sale or purchase and liability for tax under the state tax laws.

Rate of tax on sales is dependant on the type of trade, classification of goods, and concessions through forms. The various setup options for tax for sales let you set up taxes for the diversity and volume of the master information.

Structures You can use structures, which are templates for calculation of taxes and charges to handle the various changes of taxes and charges that are associated with business transactions. There are user-defined, standard, and reusable templates. Using structures addresses the complex and hierarchical computation of each of the taxes and charges that are used to build the formulas for computing taxes, and the requirements of excise, tax on sales and service tax. Structures also determine the sequence of how the taxes and charges are applied and their impact on inventory.

Excise tax Excise tax is levied at the time of the sale of goods or transfer of goods. All business enterprises in India are expected to pay central excise duty, if the following events take place:

• Goods are produced or manufactured.

• The goods that are produced or manufactured are excisable goods.

Excisable goods are specified in the schedule to central excise tariff act, 1985

Direct debit in the Personal Ledger Account (PLA) occurs when input or capital goods are removed without using them in the manufacturing process for reasons such as rejection, quality problems, or excess supply. The manufacturer can clear the input goods from the factory after payment of a certain amount. The payment is debited to the PLA directly at the time that the goods are removed. PLA is the record of amount deposited by the manufacturer with the excise authorities, in advance, for the payment of excise duty.

Service Tax Under the Service Tax Act, service providers are required to pay taxes on the amount billed, and is payable only when services are rendered against fees. Service receivers must pay service tax on the amount of taxable services received in a particular period. Free services are not taxable.

Usually service tax is charged through an invoice by the vendor or from the customer.

At the time of this publication there are 71 services that are covered under the taxable service for computing service tax. Examples of taxable services are telephone services that

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are provided by a telegraph authority and advertising services that are provided by an advertising agency.

Under the new Credit of service tax and E-Cess on service tax (CENVAT) credit rule (2004), a manufacturer can claim CENVAT credit for the service tax paid on input services that are used directly or indirectly in manufacturing finished goods.

Service Transactions for a Goods Transport Agency (GTA) Services provided by a goods transport agency (GTA) that issues a consignment note for the transport of goods by road to a customer are taxable. The person making payment for the transportation – the either consignor or consignee – is responsible for the tax. The consignor or consignee pays only the value of the services to the GTA and must pay the service tax directly to the government.

Stock Transfer Stock transfer is for movement of goods or inventory from one warehouse to another in the same company.

Stock transfer is a process to be performed at two locations:

• Receiving warehouse, where a request is created and goods are received.

• Dispatching warehouse, where the request for goods is approved or rejected, and then dispatched if approved.

Stock transfer results in depleting inventory from the dispatching warehouse, remaining in transit, and then adding to inventory at the receiving warehouse.

Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) The Indian Income Tax Acts require that income tax is deducted at source by the receiver of a service. Tax is deducted for advance payments or can be invoiced for the service at the rates that apply to the relevant year or period.

Tax Deducted at Source requires organizations to deduct tax at the time of crediting the account (bill processing) or payment; whichever occurs first.

TDS now includes education cess (E-Cess), which is levied on income tax that is paid or is payable, plus the surcharge on the tax (TDS rate + surcharge on TDS).

A Statement of TDS (Report 26Q) is a quarterly report that must be filed within 15 days from the end of the quarter starting April 1 of each year. The quarterly statement is submitted in Form No.26Q for TDS on payments other than salary transaction to a resident. You can also file Form No.26Q electronically.

Tax Collected at Source (TCS) Each person who sells certain goods, as prescribed, to any buyer is required to collect tax at source. The seller collects tax at the time of debiting the amount payable by the buyer or when the amount is received, whichever occurs first. Taxes are collected at source on the income of the person who the goods are sold to. The provision applies to importers, wholesalers, and distributors at every stage of sale.

Each collector of tax at source must file TCS Reports (27EQ) on a quarterly basis with the income tax department. Form 27EQ can also be filed in the electronic format. Collectors who submit returns in the electronic form must provide a control chart (Form 27B for e-TCS) in the paper form, together with the e-TCS return.

You can view the details of the customer certificates that are issued.

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Third-party Invoice Charges on the purchase of goods might be payable to a third-party, instead of the supplier of goods. For example, freight charges might be posted to the account of the third-party vendor and not to the vendor account.

Fixed Assets – Schedule VI (Financial Statements) Indian companies are required to generate the financial statements of fixed assets in the balance sheet per the Schedule VI of Companies’ Act 1956. This can be done through the Depreciation Schedule report.

Fixed assets are also required to be presented as per the Fixed Assets Schedule provided by the Companies’ Act.

Italy

Posting Layer Impact on the Fiscal Journal The Italian fiscal journal prints general ledger transactions in chronological order. Some types of transactions, such as accruals and deferrals, are considered out of fiscal accountancy so they do not have to be printed on the report. You can select the posting layers to print on the Italian Fiscal Journal report so that specific transactions can be printed or excluded from the report. Transactions that are considered out of fiscal accountancy can be posted to a different posting layer and that posting layer can then be excluded from the fiscal journal.

Goods Discounts The invoice displays an indication when items are completely discounted for a customer.

Verify Packing Slip Date The invoice date must not be less than the packing slip date. If the invoice date is equal to or greater than the packing slip date, the invoice will be included in the invoicing process.

Document Date on Purchase Invoices If the invoice date is blank or the invoice date is greater than the posting date, a message is displayed and you cannot post the invoice.

Intrastat Statistical Value The statistical value is calculated differently depending on the terms of delivery. The following calculations can be used:

• Amount + miscellaneous charges

• Amount – miscellaneous charges

• Amount

Posting Date in the Payment Journal When you use the “Proposal by due date” function in the payment journal, you can select the posting date as the suggested payment date when a payment is generated before the due date.

Inventory Journal You can print a fiscal report of the inventory physical transactions in chronological order. You can also sort the information in either of the following ways:

• Physical transactions date, then Item number, then Warehouse number

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• Warehouse number, then Physical transactions date, then Item number

New Records in the Payment Vendors Export File There are changes for the Italian promissory note remittance file, format, including the addition of the BBAN code, which identifies the bank, the agency, and the bank account number.

Competence Date for General Ledger Transactions In Italy, companies must track two dates on transactions. One date records when the company gains knowledge of the transaction, and the second date records when the transaction impacts the balance in general ledger. This functionality was added to selected transactions where a difference in the two dates is the most likely. The dates are displayed on the necessary financial reports.

Remittance File and Report in the Payment Journal The capability to print a remittance file and report has been added to the payment journal. The same file and report are available with the promissory note, but the process to issue is much easier. It is no longer necessary to draw or redraw promissory notes or to wait and post the remittance until the company is notified by the bank to do so.

Fixed Assets Book You can print a yearly fiscal report that includes Italian fixed asset information, including the values of the company’s assets, or group of assets. It is sorted by acquisition year and by class and it also includes subtotals.

Bills of Exchange Remittance Report You can print an updated bills of exchange remittance report that includes the invoice number of the original invoice transaction and the draft ID.

Regulatory Update for the Bills of Exchange Electronic File Format The tax exempt number is included in the electronic remittance file.

Malaysia

Post-dated Checks You can issue and receive post-dated checks to make payments and receive payments in Asia.

Mexico

Mexican Check Format You can print checks that follow the standards required for checks in Mexico. You can select the check layout for Mexican checks in the Check layout form.

The Netherlands

Audit File Report You can use the Dutch audit file report to view information about ledger transactions, ledger accounts, customer accounts, and vendor accounts for a selected fiscal year. Transactions on the report are grouped by ledger posting type.

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Import Postal Codes You can import up-to-date postal codes from a file, and then import and update additional information, as needed, at a later date.

You can also enter a zip code and a street number and the street name, city, state, and county are displayed.

Electronic Value-added Taxes (E-VAT) You can submit your turnover statement that shows value-added taxes (VAT), sales tax, and turnover tax – omzet belasting (OB) – and your Intra-Community Deliveries (ICL) tax declaration to the Dutch tax authority electronically.

Norway

Vendor Organization Number on Account Statements You can print the vendor’s organization number on the vendor account statement.

Norweign Tax Report You must complete a registration form and submit it to the County Tax Office if you sell taxable supplies that exceed an amount that is specified by the tax authorities.

Payments Abroad All payments abroad must be reported to the Norwegian customs officials. All payment transactions must include an approved payment type code and specific information about the amount to Norges Bank, the Norwegian National Bank.

Singapore

Bank Cash Flow Report You can print a cash flow report that shows transactions and details of the cash inflows and outflows for a specific date range for selected bank accounts.

Goods and Services Tax Report You can print a sales tax return report (GST – Goods & Services Tax) for Singapore that includes all the taxable transactions for a specific quarter and grouped by sales tax groups.

Local Currency on Invoices You can print the total amount and the sales tax in the local currency on foreign currency invoices.

Spain

349 EU Statement Changes The 349 statement includes information about transactions, such as invoice and credit notes posted from the general ledger and from Accounts receivable, Accounts payable, and Project. However, not all transactions should be included. You can select credit notes to exclude, and create a sales tax group to assign to the transactions that should be excluded from the 349 statement.

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347 Statement Changes You must submit a 347 statement to legal authorities. The statement must display all deliveries and receipts of goods and services from other companies when the total yearly amount is greater than 3000 €.

Summarized Journal List Changes The totals of all ledger transactions that are posted in the same ledger account within a specific period of time are printed in the summarized journal list. Open transactions and closed transactions are displayed separately. Total debit and credit amounts are printed for each monthly period and page, and accumulated debit and credit amounts are printed at the beginning and end of each page.

Cash Discount Calculation A cash discount is calculated when an invoice is paid and also when an invoice is being updated for the following processes.

• Purchase orders

• Sales orders

• Project invoices

• CRM quotations

• Ledger journal

• Invoice journal

• Free text invoices

Value-added Tax (VAT) You must submit a value-added tax (VAT) declaration to the Spanish tax authorities. VAT transactions must be listed in periodic reports and included in the appropriate VAT book, such as VAT receivable, VAT payable, and capital allowance.

Correct Invoices To correct an invoice, you can create a corrective invoice, instead of issuing a credit memo or credit note. You can use the Select for credit note form to select the documents to correct and the Credit invoicing form to enter a reason for correcting the documents. Then you can create credit notes for the customer and project in the Create invoice form.

Spanish Check Format You can print checks that follow the standards required for checks in Spain. You can select the check layout for Spanish checks in the Check layout form, and then select the Spanish check format in the Vendor methods of payment form.

AEB Remittance Formats In Spain, the Consejo Superior Bancario (CSB) payment formats are used to send remittance files to the bank for customer payments and vendor payments. The content of these formats is determined by the Asociación Española de Banca (AEB), also known as the Spanish Banking Board.

You will use the following formats for customer payments:

• Remittance format “Cuaderno 19-Adeudo por domiciliaciones” (direct debit)

• Remittance format “Cuaderno 32-Remesas de Efectos” (remittance)

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• Remittance format “Cuaderno 58-Créditos para su anticipo y gestión de cobro” (advanced payments)

You will use the following format for vendor payments:

• Remittance format “Cuaderno 34-Emisión de ordenes de pago” (payment orders)

Promissory Notes You can print promissory note documents that are in compliance with the standards required for promissory notes in Spain.

Cartera Report Changes You can print several Spanish bill of exchange and promissory notes reports to display cartera transactions for Accounts receivable and Accounts payable.

Cartera Changes Journal validations and changes in cartera processes and reporting have been updated. Additional data validations will occur in the remittance journal of bill of exchange for customers and the settle promissory notes journal for vendors. The due date will be displayed as the transaction date for the following journals:

• Redraw bill of exchange journal

• Protest bill of exchange journal

• Remittance journal

• Settle promissory note journal

Intra-community Value-added Tax (VAT) You can set up your system to calculate and post Intra-Community VAT information automatically. When you post an EU purchase invoice, two VAT transactions will be created with the same invoice amount – one for sales tax payable and one for sales tax receivable.

Sweden

SIE Standard Export of Financial Data You can export financial data by using the formats specified by SIE, the organization in Sweden that develops standard formats. You can set up a three-digit SRU code, which is the Swedish tax authority’s code for standardized accounts, for each general ledger account.

The following export format types are available:

• Export year-end balances and period balances

• Export period balances and transactions

• Export dimension balances

• Export transactions

Multiple Interest Rates You can set up and use multiple interest rates for an interest code. For each interest rate, you can assign a start date, a debit percentage to be used for interest that represents revenue, such as an invoice or interest note, and a credit percentage must be used for interest that represents an expense, such as a credit note or payment. When interest is calculated, a separate interest note is created for each interest rate that is in effect during the time that the payment has exceeded the transaction due date.

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Retrieve Single Invoice Number It is now easier to enter information about payments received from customers. In the Customer payment proposal form, you can enter the invoice number that is shown on the payment receipt that you received from the bank. A new journal line is created using information for the corresponding open customer transaction, and the open customer transaction is marked automatically for settlement.

Electronic Banking: Postgirot to Bankgirot Vendor invoice payment files are sent to two payment clearing services, Postgirot and Bankgirot. You can include Postgiro payments in a Bankgiro payment file, which means that you can send one file that contains both types of payments to Bankgirot.

Sales Order Entry Statistics You can print reports that show changes that are made to sales order entry lines from one date to another date. When you select to activate sales order statistics the Accounts receivable parameters form, each change to sales order lines is tracked, including new lines that are created, changes that are made to existing lines, and lines that are deleted.

Switzerland

Swiss LSV+ Electronic Payment Format The Swiss electronic payment system allows companies to deduct customer payments directly from a customer’s bank, also known as direct debit or LastSchriftenVerfahren (LSV). You and your customers must sign contracts in advance. To deduct customer payments, you will send a file to the bank and the bank collects the payments requested in the file. You can then download a file that has received customer payments and a reference number that corresponds to the invoice for the payments.

You can generate a debit direct (LSV+) payment file directly from Microsoft Dynamics AX. This payment file format replaces the earlier LSV format and is required for compliance with Swiss banking standards starting November 1, 2006.

The LSV+ format provides the following advantages over the previous format:

• Payments can be submitted for Euro currency.

• Payment reference numbers are included with the customer payment file, also known as an ESR file.

Thailand

Daily Depreciation You can calculate the depreciation amount for the daily depreciation method using one transaction for each day. When you set up a straight-line or reducing balance fixed asset depreciation profile, you can select Daily in the Period frequency field in the Asset Depreciation Profile form, and the depreciation of fixed assets that are assigned to the depreciation profile is based on the service life of the asset.

Unrealized Value-added Tax (VAT) A tax invoice must be generated when VAT is realized. For the purchase or sale of goods, VAT is realized at the time of invoicing and you must create a tax invoice at that time. For the purchase or sale of services, VAT is not realized at the time of invoicing and a tax invoice is not created. However, when a payment is made or received for services, a tax invoice is required, and the unrealized VAT is posted. You can print the Input/Output VAT report after you have settled the VAT transactions.

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Withholding Tax Thailand requires businesses to calculate withholding tax on services rendered. This is tracked by the revenue type of the service on periodic that are required by law to be submitted to the relevant tax authorities and also on receipts to vendors. The reports must be separated by the vendor’s withholding tax type: Domestic, Foreign, or Individual.

Upgrade Path

The following are the most important features for planning to upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics AX. For more information about the upgrade process, see the Implementation Guide. In order to improve the clarity of the following section, the full release name including release number is used (Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0):

• Operating system requirement - The Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 object server must run on the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system. Client computers can run on Microsoft Windows XP.

• Unicode - Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 supports all languages by running Unicode and the database must be upgraded to handle Unicode data types. Unicode upgrade is handled as part of the upgrade process.

• Record ID - To support larger customers, Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 uses 64-bit per table record ID representation. Record ID upgrade from 32-bit global is handled as part of the upgrade process.

• 3-tier - Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 supports only 3-tier installations in production environments. 2-tier architecture will no longer be supported.

• Upgrade from Microsoft Axapta 3.0 to Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 SP1 directly - Customers can upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 SP1 from Microsoft Axapta 3.0. This means that customers running Microsoft Axapta 2.5 must upgrade to Microsoft Axapta 3.0, and then to Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 SP1.

Conclusion

This information is accurate as of the publishing date of October, 2006. It is provided for planning and general informational purposes.

For questions, contact your Microsoft Dynamics AX representative or local subsidiary.

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Appendix: List of Features Added in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 Service Pack 1 (SP1)

Below is an overview of new and enhanced features in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 Service Pack 1 as compared to Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0. Feature descriptions have been incorporated in existing sections.

Feature Description in this section Oracle support Database Access and Server (AOS) Improvements

Load balancing Load Balancing (new section)

AOS account AOS Account (new section)

BizTalk adapter Document Exchange Updates (Application Integration Framework)

Enterprise Portal on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Beta

Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies

Support for perimeter networks that use double firewalls (traditional perimeter networks)

Perimeter Network Configuration Tool Integration

High Availability High Availability (new section)

Changes to support performance Database Access and Server (AOS) Improvements and Performance Improvements in the Application

Navigation Pane controls User Interface Design Improvements

CRM Business relations CRM Business Relations

Product Builder in Enterprise Portal Product Builder in Enterprise Portal (new section)

Version Control: Support for Oracle Team Server

Version Control

Language Support Language Support (new section)

Upgrade path Upgrade Path

RFID Server Validation BizTalk RFID Infrastructure and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

Country/region-specific features Overviews of Country/Region-specific Features

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The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, this document should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication. This White Paper is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT. Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written permission of Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject matter in this document. Except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from Microsoft, the furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property. © 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Microsoft, The Microsoft Dynamics Logo, Excel, MorphX, SharePoint, SQL Server, Windows and X++ are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation or Microsoft Business Solutions ApS in the United States and/or other countries. Microsoft Business Solutions ApS is a subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation.

Microsoft Dynamics is a line of integrated, adaptable business management solutions that enables you and your people to make business decisions with greater confidence. Microsoft Dynamics works like and with familiar Microsoft software, automating and streamlining financial, customer relationship and supply chain processes in a way that helps you drive business success. U.S. and Canada Toll Free 1-888-477-7989 Worldwide +1-701-281-6500 www.microsoft.com/dynamics

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