Microsoft Great Plains is now targeting large and midsize businesses and being matured ERP has advanced, but still very simple in use modules and features: Lockbox Processing for Accounts Receivables, Customer/Vendor Consolidation, Multicurrency etc. We'll try to cover these features in the series of small articles to help decision maker and end user understand the feature and how does it work to make a decision to purchase additional nice modules. In our opinion large corporation, which had to use ERP with rich functionality in the past, doesn't have to do it in our new time. There are few reasons to switch to cheaper ERP, the most important are: database platform reliability improvement - nowadays MS SQL Server does excellent job and has most of the former instability and maintenance issues resolved. The second reason - MS Windows server is now close to be considered as a solid rock and you do not have to reboot it on the regular basis to fix all the types of "memory leaks", etc. OK, lets review Lockbox processing:

? Customer Matching. This is rather the question about generic lockbox application - which basically imports text file, received from your bank and matches them with customer invoices, debit memos and miscellaneous charges. The question typically sounds like this - in our Great Plains CustomerID is different from bank customer ID. This is right, but each check has Bank Account Number and Bank Routine Number, identifying the customer, all you need to do is - carefully review first processing and enter this customer info, or open it here: Cards>>Sales>>Lockbox Bank Details - and next time you get check from this customer - lockbox will catch and identify it. This is true even in the case of hand written check.

? Invoice Number Matching. This is a bit tricky question, and you can't catch invoice number from hand written check. However when we are talking about large businesses - these checks have invoices printed. If you bank has so-called Automatic Clearinghouse (ACH) lockbox file format - it can provide invoice number line if the check is issued by corporate or midsize established business. In the case of ACH header will have prefix 6 and line prefix 4.

? No Invoice Number Matching. This is still OK if you have a lot of small customers with one or few outstanding invoices. In this case - use autoapply method. You can have variety of apply criteria: None, Document Number (when you have ACH), Due Date/Oldest Document, Due Date/Oldest Invoice (other than invoices you apply manually), Document Date, Specific Invoices (and you specify them in the list)

? Additional Considerations. Virtually if you have corporate account in any bank - lockbox processing module does the job - because you map lockbox file at your will in Lockbox Maintenance screen: Cards>>Sales>>Lockbox

? Customization Options. Lockbox is Dexterity piece, so it is in the hand of Dexterity Developer, if you need to improve it for your corporation. VBA Modifier and Continuum are also available. Also feel free to use new tools, such as Extender or eConnect.

Good luck and you can always seek our help in customization, implementation, integration and support. Call us: 1-866-528-0577 or 1-630-961-5918, help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies - USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving Chicago, California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York, Australia, UK, Canada, Continental Europe, Russia and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer