In my last post, I went into some detail about default dimensions in NAV and options for value posting. I also showed how the system reports posting errors when values don’t match the choices made in default dimensions.
Fortunately, you can work around this by controlling how your dimensions post, using dimension combinations.
I’m going to give you an error example first and then explain why it happened (and how you might be able to fix it). As in my precious posts, I’ll use the standard Cronus USA database for my examples.
Let’s start by looking at an invoice similar to the ones used previously. We’ll use one for Customer No. 01121212, Spotsmeyer’s Furnishings:
We chose Salescampaign Code WINTER. (I had to enter WINTER manually. All other dimensions filled in automatically.)
And we get this error message:
The error message tells us that we can’t use BUSINESSGROUP = OFFICE and SALESCAMPAIGN = WINTER at the same time.
If we check the dimensions for line 10000, we see that BUSINESSGROUP is set to OFFICE:
But it was actually set on the customer and defaulted in.
Indeed, if we check default dimensions for the customer, we can see it:
Because the value posting isn’t same code, we can remove this code from the invoice line and the invoice would post successfully.
In this example, we have Businessgroup Code shown on our line. So, we can just remove it:
Once we delete “OFFICE,” everything should work. (And it does when tested with my data.)
So that’s an example of an error and why it occurred. Now, let’s look a how to deal with these errors using dimension combinations.
Setting Up Dimension Combinations
Let’s start by navigating to “Dimension Combinations”:
And this page appears:
On this page, we see our dimensions. (By the way, this screen shows all the dimension on the system, not just the ones chosen on General Ledger Setup as per my first post in this series.)
Each box in the matrix represents the logic that will apply when a transaction has both dimensions set.
For example, let’s take a closer look at the line for Sales Campaign:
We can see that it’s set to “Limited.”
When we click on the box with the three dots (i.e. “…”), we see that we have three options:
The options are:
- No limitations
- Limited
- Blocked.
No limitations means no checks are performed.
Limited means some combinations are okay and some will fail.
Blocked (as used with purchaser and customergroup) means these dimensions can never be used in combination. (Which makes sense. We generally don’t have purchasers associated with customers.)
If we click on the drop down arrow, we can see the combinations:
The options for each cell are “Blocked” and open.
And here, we can see that Sales Campaign won’t work with businessgroup industrial—it’s blocked.
As you can see, NAV dimensions can be powerful. They can also get you into big trouble.