Decimals: A fraction of the story for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

Posted on: December 14, 2015 | By: Jarrod Kraemer | Microsoft Dynamics AX/365

We all know that a lot of configuration goes into getting a business up and running on AX.  Financial decisions have to be made, business processes have to be finalized, and from a system perspective, functional specifications have to be written by a business analyst and executed by a developer. 

Often lost in the shuffle is a small configuration that sets up the amount of decimals that are displayed and stored in different areas of AX.  This configuration is not setup in the front end of AX, but rather in the AOT and you will require a developer to make the change to base EDTs.   An EDT is an abbreviation for the term Extended Data Type which is a primitive data type or container with a supplementary name and some additional properties.   Microsoft lists the benefits on their MSDN website https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa884607.aspx

If a decision is made to increase decimals, the NoOfDecimals on your Extended Data type will have to be modified.

 

Why would I want to increase decimals?

1.      If your business inventories small quantities of product you may want to think about increasing the amount of decimals you track to improve inventory precision.

2.      If your company orders fractional quantities of product in large volumes, fractions of pennies can make a huge difference.

These are just a couple examples of why a company may opt to increase decimals on extended data types, and clearly not all of them.  As with all back end modifications that are made with AX there are a couple notes we would like to point out.

Note:

1.      Financial amounts will ALWAYS be rounded two decimals since it is impossible to pay or bill in fractional pennies

2.      Testing your version of AX and its EDT changes is imperative

Let us know if you would like to discuss how we have addressed EDT requirements at other clients.

For additional information please feel free to reach out to us at info@loganconsulting.com or (312) 345-8817.

All the best!

Logan Consulting
www.loganconsulting.com

 

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