Global Number Sequences for Vendors & Customers in Dynamics 365
A recent client inquiry regarding a requirement to share selected vendors between legal entities within Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain spurred discussions on formalizing the process of setting up global Number sequences. The client had the same vendor list across companies in AX 2009. However, the requirement in D365 is to have the list split between legal entities so that each company has only its vendors. Some vendors are to be shared and some not. Obviously, the more legal entities are involved in a particular Dynamics 365 deployment, the more valuable this setup can be.
One approach to this task is to set up a shared number sequence for a Vendor account number and copy vendors from one company to another if they work with the same vendor. It doesn’t allow the list being too long in all companies, and it makes IDs the same for the same vendor in different legal entities.
The number sequence for the vendor accounts is setup under the Account payable parameters > Number sequences:
Let’s call the company we want to copy the vendor account from the “originating company”, and the company where you want to have the vendor copied to the “destination company”.
Non-manual number sequences
The number sequence has to be set as non-manual. Then a vendor created in one company can be copied from one to another with the same number. To copy, navigate to Accounts payable > Vendors > All vendors in the originating company, find and select the desired record. Then on the Action pane, click Vendor > Add vendor to another legal entity to open the drop dialog. After the group, currency and a vendor status are selected, a vendor record is generated in the destination company, with the same ID.
If the companies have the Vendor account setup with different number sequences, the same copy can be performed but the vendor will have a different account number in the destination company – the one that corresponds to the company number sequence for the vendor accounts.
Manual number sequences
For vendors with a manual number sequence, the copy procedure is a bit different. Navigate to All vendors form in the destination company, click New. In the New record form, enter the same vendor ID as in the originating company:
When you start typing the name, the record from the Global address book for the existing vendor with the name pops up allowing to select an existing record. There is an option to copy an existing vendor:
When Yes is answered to the “Existing vendor. Copy vendor?” question, the user is required to select an originating company from a dropdown list of all companies with the vendor record exists:
Then the vendor is copied to the current company (destination) with the ID as is in the originating company.
Number sequence for vendor groups
In addition, Dynamics 365 provides a more recently added functionality to assign number sequences by a vendor group. It is similar to the same feature in Fixed assets – every FA group might have its own number sequence. This way, furniture can be numbered differently from computer equipment.
The same approach is in place for number sequences for the vendor groups: if vendors are divided in, let’s say, vendors and employees, each group is assigned a separate number sequence. It could be manual for employees and system-assigned for vendors if desired:
The same functionality exists for customers sharing.