SytelineMaster

Infor is really terrible sometime when it comes to documentation.  For example, for the application event system to work, you have to make your site name exactly match with your configuration name, and this basic and critical information is not listed in installation guide and event system guide.

You can only discover this when running Log Monitor on the Utility Server for event service (run  infor\Syteline\LogMonitor.exe, then filter with “MGEvent”).

Beside sigh, what can you do?

I have found the Syteline Financial Excel Addon a handy tool for building financial statement, much better than the financial statement writer inside Syteline.  Many long time Syteline user still have hard time understand the old financial statement writer, ever after using it for years.  But the Excel add on is really straight forward, especially for accounting people.

But before it’s latest update, the Addon has two major problems.  One is missing the must need Net Income function; another one is a bug in calculating year-end figures.  The latest update get them both fixed. 

Now the only problem for the Addon is performance.  Since each function, like SLGLBAL() is actually a query to DB, if you are constructing a multiple years detail balance sheet comparison, the report can easily has hundreds of function calls, and it will take time to run.  And if you don’t have direct DB connection, say you are Infor SaaS hosting customer,  you need to rely on web service connection, the performance would ever worst. 

But anyway, for most of user that can run report within LAN, the performance is pretty acceptable.

Just for reference, the following tables are used by the Excel based financial tool:

Ledger
Pertot
chart_bp
periods

parms
chart
site

Product Version

In SyteLine < 8.02.00

unitcd{1..4}

In SyteLine > 8.02.00

chart_unitcd{1}

PO Receive (INV PRCV)

Item ABC current on-hand qty = 100, cost = $1.4

PO purchase price $1.17, with 17% VAT tax, material cost = $1. Receive qty = 100

After received, qty = 200, average cost = $1.2

AP Voucher Generation (APV)

AP Payment (APP)

Misc Receive (MRCP)

Current onhand qty = 100, unit cost = $1.4

Misc receive qty = 100, unit cost = $1

After received, qty = 200, unit cost = $1.2

Misc Issue (MRCP)

Current unit cost $1.2, misc issue out 100 pcs

Job Material Issue (INV JOI)

Current unit cost $1.2, issue qty 100 pcs

Job Labor Posting (INV JOL)

Job Completion (INV JFIN)

Order Shipment (INV CSH)

Order Invoicing (INV JOL)

AR Payment (ARP)

Today, many, if not most, US manufacturers have operation in China.  They either build out manufacturing facilities to take advantage of global supply chain, or setup sales/marketing operation to catch China market potential, and may be both.  With US headquarter and operation running in Syteline, it is nature to put Syteline into China branch as well.

But what do you need to know in order to have a successful Syteline implementation in China?

From 1996 to 2004, I was the country manager for Symix/Frontstep/Mapics in China.  I had involved in over 130 Syteline implementations in China, many of those, especially the early ones, are US manufacturing companies.  I was also leading the major Chinese localization project in Syteline, like Chinese Financial Module, which is still the central part of Syteline Chinese country pack today.   After coming back to US in 2006, my Syteline consulting practice still crosses Pacific ocean often.  Just last year, I completed three Syteline 8 implementation projects for US companies in China.  With all that said, I think I am in a good position to talk about what you need to know for a successful Syteline implementation in China.

Let’s run down the list.

1) What additional software components you will need?

If you need the Chinese user interface, and/or if you want to keep your financial book in Syteline, you will need the China Country Pack, which is an extra software component you need to purchase from Infor.  The Country Pack includes the Chinese UI and a Chinese Financial Module to handle the special regulation requirement for accounting system in China.

2) Where should you put your servers?

You have options of centralizing servers in your US headquarter, or putting server locally in your China branch.  They both have pros and cons.
With centralized servers, you can utilize knowledge and resource in US HQ for system administration, so you don’t need a dedicated IT person in your China branch.  You may also leverage your hardware/software investment that you already made in US HQ.
The biggest drawback for centralizing server is performance.  In general, the remote access from China to your US HQ will be slow.  Increase the internet bandwidth in both of your HQ and China branch would help, but may not fully resolve the problem, due to the bottleneck may be in the internet connection between the two countries.  Also, the so called “Great Wall” firewall setup/controlled by Chinese government may sometime block your connection without reason.  Recently, one of my client even experience connection problem with Infor Saas hosting server.  By the way, proxy server is not a solution to get around the Great Firewall, since Syteline would not work at all with Proxy.

So if you do want to centralize your servers in US HQ, do set it up and have your users in China try it out first, to see if they are OK with the connection and performance.

3) How should you setup your multi-sites environment?

The multi-sites structure would of course be based on your company situation.  Normally, if you need to consolidate financial statement, you will need to setup a site DB and an entity DB, both of them are in CNY currency, for your China branch.

When creating DB for your China site, just remember to use CNY as domestic currency and select proper China time zone for it.  By doing that, your China user will see the correct local time zone, even though your server may located in US.

If you are going to do data replication between your US site and China site, ITAR compliance may need to be taking into consideration.  You may need to modify your replication rule.

4) Multi-currency is a must.

You would most likely need to setup multi-currency for your China branch DB, with CNY as domestic currency and USD/others as foreign currency.  When setting up USD currency, make sure to check the “Rate is Divisor” box.  This will reduce the transaction rounding error.

5) What do you need to know about the China VAT tax system?

In some extent, China VAT tax system may be considered simpler than US sales tax system, since there are not that many differ tax jurisdictions as US does, and tax rates do not change as often as US.

But you do need to setup VAT tax system in both sales and buy side.  Tax paid with your purchasing will be credit against to your tax liability in sales side.  Please check out my another post for detail in setting up China VAT tax system.

In that nature of China VAT tax system, a VAT tax invoice you collected from your supplier actually has cash value, just like bank notes.  And that is why Chinese government has tie control on VAT Invoice.  VAT invoice can only printed out from a dedicated tax control machine that issued from government, and the invoice# is pre-assigned and controlled by government.  Syteline invoice# can only used for internal control, not really the one that you can present to your customer.

So, to help accounting people reconcile Syteline invoice# and official VAT invoice#, a modification would be required to put VAT Invoice# into various AR forms, like “Invoice, Debit/Credit Memo”, “AR posted transaction”, and “AR payment quick application”, and may also need in AR reports like “AR Aging”.

6) What is the Chinese Financial Module, and what is that for?

Chinese accounting regulation requires an unique voucher number for each accounting transaction (combined multiple debit/credit entries), something similar to control number today we have in Syteline 7 & 8.  But the early version of Syteline (before and include SL6) don’t have that function, and that was the major driving force for developing Chinese Financial Module back in 2001.

Today, Chinese Financial Module is still crucial for any Syteline implementation in China.  It is pretty much a GL system that allow user to enter/maintain voucher, to print voucher form, and to print Chinese accounting book.  Those are generally required for compliance with Chinese accounting regulation.

In terms of Financial Statement, local Chinese government do have some standard format requirement.  But I have found that with Syteline Excel Addon, it is quite easy to fulfill whatever format requirement is.

7) Other special consideration during implementation.

There are some other special considerations that need to be taken into account during your Chinese implementation.  Here I list a few.  The solution to each of them may vary, depend on company situation.

• Chinese accounting regulation has some standard on top level chart of account setup.  In most case, you company will need to follow that standard.  If you are going to consolidate financial statement to US headquarter, some sort of account mapping will need to setup properly before hand.
• Duty free imported material keep in bound location.  Custom regulation requires that those duty free imported material to be kept in special bound location, and has full tractability to prove that they are only used on products that will export out later.
• Company may be required to declare their earning and pay income tax in monthly base, instead of yearly based in US.  That means you may need to do GL adjustment to move P/L to retain earning in monthly base.
• It is normal accounting practice in China to fully allocate your actual overhead cost into COGS in monthly based.

8) Implementation, local support consideration.

Needless to say, a suitable consulting team is crucial to your implementation project success.  Capabilities you should look for are,

• Understand both western and Chinese business culture and best practice.
• Deliver training and consulting service in both English and Chinese.
• Able to facilitate better communication between US headquarter and China local team
• Provide long term local support.

During Syteline installation, you provided a domain account (normally it would call something like SLService, and belongs to domain admin group), to install all the Syteline service.  If later on, you somehow change the password for this account, you would have problem access to Syteline.  Error message likes below would popup. 

It may also happens when user preview a report, below “access denied” message show up

Here are the steps for fixing this,

First, in Utility server, go into IIS, check into IDORequestService

Open the Authentication windows, right click on Anonymous Authentication and select “Edit”.  In “Edit Anonymous Authentication Credentials” window, click the “Set” button, then provide userid/password there.

Repeat the steps for SLClientDeploy, InforInbox, InboundQueue, fsdatacollection。

Now, you are ready to test it out from client side.

Let say you have an AR payment applied to an incorrect invoice. And you need to remove the payment from incorrect invoice and apply it to a different invoice.

If you do not need to change the check number, then you can update the applied to invoice number in the AR Posted transaction Detail form. Pull up the record for the payment and change the apply to invoice number from the incorrect invoice number to the correct invoice number. 

If your check numbers are tied to the invoice numbers and you need to create a new payment to apply to the correct invoice, you will need to adjust the AR payment.
1) Open the AR payment form and add a new record for your customer.
2) Type will be adjustment and you will  need to enter your original check number in the number field. Save.
3) Enter the amount as a negative number and save
4) Click on the distributions and type in the invoice number that the payment was originally applied to.  Enter the amount as a negative amount. Verify that the amount remaining is 0
5) In the AR Adjustment Posting, post the payment adjustment.
6) In AR payments, create the new check and apply to the appropriate invoice

With various reason, such as foreign currency conversion, you may see small outstanding balance resident in AR for some customer account, and the customer truly didn’t owe that money.

One option is to write off small outstanding balances (either positive or negative) to either Discounts Allowed or Allowances.   To do this, you will need to create a zero dollar payment.   The steps are as follows:
1.  A/R Payments
New
Enter the Customer Number
Type = Check
Number = (new check number)
Save
2.  Click Distributions
Enter the invoice number with outstanding balance
The amount left open on the invoice will default in Dist Amount field on Amounts tab
Transfer this value (either positive or negative) into either the Disc field or Allowance field
Then set the Dist Amount = 0.00
Post the payment
Another option is to enter credit or debit memos to offset any remaining balances

In Syteline 8, there is an utility program called Void AP Posted Payments Utility, which you can use to void an AP posted payment.  But if any of the following conditions exist, you can’t use this utility. 

1) Multi-site environment

2) You compress Journal transactions

3) You are trying to void a manual type check

4) The same check number has been used in multiple bank codes

You will need to void using a manual negative check when any of these conditions exist.

The steps to enter a negative manual check in SL7 and SL8 are as follows:

1. Open Bank Reconciliations Form
Filter for Bank Code
In lower grid, filter for type Manual
Identify a manual check number that has NOT been used

Note:  If  you are trying to void a standard check, you can use the check number on the standard check

2. Open A/P Payments Form
New
Enter Vendor Number
Payment Type = Manual
Check Number = Available Manual Check Number
Bank Code = Bank Code on original check
Payment = Enter negative check amount
Save

3. Distributions
Type = Voucher
Vch/Seq = Voucher Number that was paid on original check
Accounts Tab:
Amount Paid = Enter negative payment amount
Disc Taken = Enter negative amount if discount was taken on the original check
Save

NOTE: If more than one voucher was paid on the original check, follow step 3 for each voucher paid

4. Activities – A/P Check Printing/Posting
Verify Bank Code is correct
Click Final Register And Post
Process

If your user has processed a customer order shipment incorrectly and needs to do Credit Return or needs to change the invoice date on an invoice generated from Order Entry then follow the steps below…

IF THE ORDER HAS BEEN INVOICED:

1. Ensure that the invoice has been posted through the Invoice Posting form first.  Then go to the Order Shipping form and set the CO Line/Release to Filled and filter on the customer order in question.

2. The line(s) for the customer order you filtered on should appear at which point you will need to select the lines in question and ensure you tick the CR RTN box.  Put in the qty to be returned (as a positive amt) and a return reason code. If you need to reverse your Freight and/or Misc Charges then go to Actions – Edit Freight Charges and type in a positive dollar amount for what you want to give as a credit to this customer (an alternative is to go to the Customer Orders form under the Amounts tab and type in the positive dollar amount in both the Freight and/or Misc Charges fields that you want to credit to this customer prior to step 1).  Lastly on the Customer Credit Return tab select the invoice for which the Credit Memo should be matched to once generated.

3. You will then need to ship the line(s).

4. Once the lines have been shipped if you go to Order Invoicing/Credit Memo and print the credit memo (ensure that you set Invoice or Credit Memo field to Credit memo).

5. Once the credit memo has been generated and printed go onto the Invoice Posting form and post the credit memo.

6. The last step (only if you have forgotten to select the invoice for which the Credit Memo should be matched to on the Order Shipping form) is to match the Credit Memo to the Invoice which was generated incorrectly and this is done by going on the A/R Posted Transaction form and filtering on the customer and then selecting the Credit Memo which was generated by selected the Detail button.  You will then need to set the Apply to Invoice field to the Invoice which was incorrectly generated, doing this will ensure that the Invoice is not outstanding on the customers account.

At this point you may want to make changes to the line before it is reshipped and you can do that in Order Line Maintenance.

7. Go to the Order Shipping form and and filter on the customer order in question and the line(s) should appear with the quantity on it.  You can update any information on the line here if required.

8. Select the line(s) in question ship them as normal.

9. Once the lines have been shipped if you go to Order Invoicing/Credit Memo and print the invoice.

10. . Once the invoice has been generated and printed go onto the Invoice Posting form and post the invoice as normal.

IF THE ORDER HAS BEEN INVOICED AND WAS SHIPPED THROUGH A DELIVERY ORDER
An RMA return and credit must be performed. Return cannot be processed on the Order Shipping screen for these.

IF THE ORDER HAS NOT BEEN INVOICED:

1. Go to the Order Shipping form and set the CO Line/Release to Filled and filter on the customer order in question.

2. The line(s) for the customer order you filtered on should appear at which point you will need to select the lines in question and enter in a negative quantity and a return reason code.

3. You will then need to ship the line(s).

When doing an AR payment posting, if there are multiple payments from same customer or differ customers, the cash account entry will be consolidated into single one.  So in Bank Reconciliation, there will be single total line cash record, instead of check by check.

For example,

1. Create Payment
Customer 1 : Cheque Amount = USD 200 ; Date :1 December 2010; Bank : BK1
Customer 2: Cheque Amount = USD 300 ; Date : 2 December 2010; Bank : BK1
2. A/R Payment Posting
3. GL –> Journal Posting
4. Bank Reconciliation
Transaction appear as 1 line ; Amount USD500 ; Date : 1 Dec 2010

If you do not want an A/R payment (Adjust, Check, Wire) or a returned check (check entered as a negative amount) included in a summarized Bank Reconciliation record, you will have to do separate AR payment postings.

When you have a single check posted, the customer number, check number, and customer name will be seen in the Bank Reconciliation form.

When you have more than one check posted, for different customers, a "summary" deposit is created. Since there is more than one customer here, the customer number, customer name, and check cannot be specified in the one line bank reconciliation "Deposit".  If you want to see specifics for each check, then you have to post them separately, one at a time.

The detailed payment information which is used to calculate one of these summarized bank reconciliation records can be obtained by looking at the A/R Distribution Journal.