New Features and Enhancements in Accounting Summer 2024

The following new features have been introduced in the Summer 2024 release of Accounting.

If you are upgrading from a previous version, see Upgrading to Accounting Summer 2024. This provides a summary of the items that have been added for each feature and details of any required upgrade steps.

Dependencies on other Certinia Packages

Accounting Summer 2024 requires the following Certinia packages to be installed in this order:

  1. Foundations Summer 2024
  2. Reporting Spring 2020

You must install these packages before installing or upgrading to Accounting Summer 2024.

Playbooks

Year End Accounting Playbooks

We have introduced the Year End Playbooks functionality to enable you to perform various year end activities in one place. To help you create your year end playbooks and tasks, we have provided you with a default year end playbook template. The default year end template contains a number of task templates that cover the default tasks that you must complete before running the year end process. This default template can be generated from the Manage Accounting Playbooks tab. You can also use this functionality to restore default templates. For more information, see Year End Playbook Templates

We have also added a validation process, so that, if you have generated a playbook from the default year end playbook template, you can validate the default task requirements. Only the default tasks can be validated and they must be in "Not Started" status. Any customizations that you make to accounting playbooks generated from a default template will not be validated. You can run the validation multiple times, if required. For more information, see Year End Playbook Templates.

As part of the introduction of Year End Playbook functionality, we have renamed the Period End Playbooks tab to Manage Accounting Playbooks and included the new year end playbook functionality on the page. You can now use this page to generate both period end and year end playbooks from this page.

We have added the Year and Year End Date fields to the Accounting Playbook and Accounting Playbook Task objects. You can use these fields, when creating year end playbooks and year end playbook tasks to specify the year that these playbooks and playbook tasks are associated with. For more information, see Managing Accounting Playbooks.

As part of the automated management and validation of year end templates, we have added a field, Auto-Generated, to the Accounting Playbook Template and Accounting Playbook Task Template objects. This field is automatically updated and cannot be amended. It is not displayed on any page layouts or Lightning components. This field is used by the system when validating your playbook templates and playbook task templates.

Additionally, we have updated the validations to ensure that you can only assign approvers with year end permissions to year end playbook tasks and year end playbook task templates. For more information, see:

Finally, we have added the Year field to the Playbook Task Field Set, so that it displays on the Playbook Task Portfolio Grid and can be used to filter tasks. For more information, see Playbook Task Field Sets

Accounting Playbook Types

We have introduced accounting playbook types, so that you can easily create playbooks for period end and year end activities. You can now create specific accounting playbook templates for period end and year end activities and associate template tasks with those templates. You can then generate specific period end and year end playbooks from these templates. You can also create period end and year end playbooks manually.

We have added the following list views to the Accounting Playbooks object so that you can filter the page lists by playbook type:

  • Period End Accounting Playbooks
  • Year End Accounting Playbooks

We have also added similar list views to the Accounting Playbook Task object so that you can filter the page lists by playbook type:

  • Period End Accounting Playbook Tasks
  • Year End Accounting Playbook Tasks
Note:

We have also updated the All list view on Accounting Playbooks and Accounting Tasks objects for new customers. Existing customers must manually update those list views. For more information, see Enabling the Accounting Playbook Enhancements Feature.

Additionally, we have updated the Filter component on the Accounting Playbook Task Portfolio Calendar and Accounting Playbook Task Portfolio Grid pages so that you can now filter by Playbook Type.

For more information, see:

Finally, we have added a new step to the Accounting Playbook Enhancements feature in the Feature Console, that enables you to update the Type field on playbooks created before the Summer 2024 release. For more information, see Enabling the Accounting Playbook Enhancements Feature.

Year End Process Validations

We have added a new custom setting, Year End Validations, that allows you to control the number of previous years that are checked for pending adjustments prior to running the year end process. You can use the Pending Adjustments Validation field to specify the number of years, in whole numbers. If you leave this setting blank or enter 0, all years are included in the pending adjustments validation. For more information, see Year End Validation Settings

Intercompany Cash Matching Enhancements

The following are the new features and improvements that have been implemented in Accounting - Cash Matching in Summer 2024.

Selecting Intercompany Accounts for Cash Matching

We have introduced intercompany cash matching of different accounts between companies belonging to the same organization. If a customer of one company makes payment to another company within the same organization, then the intercompany accounts cash matching helps to manage the cash matching and avoid manual matching.

To do so, you need to configure the Enable Matching to Intercompany Cash custom setting. This setting allows you to select an intercompany account for the company in the Select Filters window. The cash entries of the selected cash entry account and the intercompany account is retrieved and can be matched to the account lines. Also, you can manually add an Account field to the cash entries side of the Cash Matching page so that it lists the single accounts and intercompany accounts for the selected company.

For more information, see:

Cash Matching in Multi-Company Mode

Cash Matching in Multi-Company Mode

We have improved the cash matching feature to support both single and multi-company mode. The Search Filters and Manual Match cash matching flows have been modified to support multi-company mode. You can now select a company from the drop down list to proceed to the next Search Filters window.

For more information, see:

Balance Based Currency Revaluation

We have introduced a new currency revaluation method, "GLA Balances and Dimension 1-4", that allows you to include the dimensions specified on general ledger accounts when you perform balance based currency revaluation. You can select this method from the list in the Currency Revaluation Method field on the Currency Revaluation Template page.

When you select the GLA and Dimensions 1-4 Balances based template while creating the currency revaluation criteria, retrieve the data, and generate journals, the currency revaluation journals based on cumulative GLA and Dimension 1-4 balances are generated.

To use this new feature, you must enable the Balance Based Currency Revaluation feature in the Feature Console.

Additionally, we have added the Bank Account Balance Revaluation field to the Currency Revaluation Template object. If you select this, the bank account values on bank account general ledger accounts are used for the revaluation. This allows you to revalue your bank accounts. Note bank account general ledger accounts must have the Trial Balance 3 field set to "Bank and Cash", for revaluation.

We have added new fields to the Accounting Settings custom setting that allow you to control the number of transaction lines that are retrieved and the maximum number of journal lines when creating balance-based currency revaluation journals. For more information, see Accounting Settings.

Creating balance-based currency revaluations can create multiple journals, We have added the Total Journals field to the CRV History object so that you can view the number of journals created. The CRV History now displays the number of the first journal created. If there are additional journals you can view these on the Journals page. For more information, see Currency Revaluation History Fields.

Additionally we have added support for Multi-Book Accounting to the Balance Based Currency Revaluation and Translation methods. Transactions in revaluation and translation journals are grouped by accounting book and separate journals are created for each accounting group.

For more information, see:

As part of the performance improvements for this release we have updated the balance based revaluation process to support up to 9000 journal line items per journal. This line volume is supported in all cases, including entering a reversing period and posting the journals. Additionally, we have updated email notifications, so that instead of receiving a single email for the success or failure of the process, you now receive a single email for the success of the process and an additional email if the reversing or posting processes fail. You can receive up to 3 email notifications.

Additional Currency Revaluation Reports

We have added the following reports to the Currency Revaluation Reports folder:

  • In Progress Currency Revaluation Journal
  • Currency Revaluation Journal Transactions

The currency revaluation reports contain information on the transaction lines in a currency revaluation journal. You can use the In Progress Currency Revaluation Journal report to view the transaction lines before you post the journal. You can use the Currency Revaluation Journal Transaction report to view transactions in posted journals.

Note:

These reports are limited to 2000 lines for display, filter and export.

For more information, see Currency Revaluation and Translation Reports.

Additionally we have added two new buttons to the Currency Revaluation History page, so that you can access these reports directly from a currency revaluation history page For more information, see Currency Revaluation History Fields.

Conga Support for Statements in Automated Collections

We have updated customer statement rules to support the use of Conga attachments when sending customers statements using Automated Collections.

We have added a new field to customer statement rules, Use Conga Attachments, that you can select when creating your statement rules. This field enable you to use Conga to create statement attachments. For more information, see Customer Statement Rule Fields.

For more information on sending customer statements using Conga attachments see Automated Collections.

We have also updated Conga Connector so that you can manually add a button to the account object to attach statements to accounts. For more information, see About Certinia Conga Connector

This work completes the implementation of automated collections.

Lightning Experience for 1099-MISC and Support for 1099-NEC

The FF 1099-MISC Export and 1099 Details packages have been deprecated. We have enabled the existing 1099-MISC and the new 1099-NEC functionalities, along with the 1099 reports, in the Tax Reporting package. As part of this work, we have introduced the following enhancements.

For more information, see New Features and Enhancements in Tax Reporting Summer 2024.

Income Tax Type

We have renamed the existing picklist values on the Income Tax Type field for the form 1099-MISC on the following objects: Account, Payable Invoice, Payable Credit Note, and Transaction Line Item. This enables you to distinguish the existing values from the newly added values for the form 1099-NEC.

We have also updated the 1099 Income Tax Type Picklist Update Feature Console feature to automatically update the picklist values of the Income Tax type field on the objects mentioned above. Additionally, we have added a manual step that you must perform to replace the picklist values so that they are updated for existing records.

For more information, see:

1099-MISC Payments Report in Accounting Reporting Expansion Pack

Following the deprecation of the FF 1099-MISC Export and 1099 Details packages, we have deleted the 1099-MISC Payments report from the Accounting Reporting Expansion Pack. We have replaced this report with the 1099-MISC Payments report in Tax Reporting. This enables you to have all your tax-related data centralized in Tax Reporting.

For more information, see 1099 Reports.

Sending and Receiving Attachments in Electronic Invoicing

You can now send and receive attachments in PDF format along with your invoices and credit notes. This enables you to send and receive services-related data, such as time spent and usage.

For more information, see:

Following Storecove's recommendation to not include primary images, we have updated the mappings for sales invoices and sales credit notes to electronic invoices to prevent the sending of primary images of your sent sales invoice or sales credit note. For more information about Storecove's recommendation, see Storecove's API documentation.

For more information, see:

Automatically Populating the PSA Project and Dimensions in Scanned Payable Documents

We have improved the Accounts Payable Automation process. When you receive an invoice with a project name, the Project and Dimension 1-4 fields are automatically populated on the scanned payable document. For this, we have added the following fields:

  • The Dimension 1-4 fields on the Scanned Payable Document for the Accounting package.
  • The Payable Invoice field on the Scanned Payable Document for the Accounting package.
  • The Project field on the Payable Invoice object for PSA – Accounting Connector.

For more information, see:

Allocations in Lightning Experience

We have implemented the use of Salesforce Dynamic Forms in the New Allocation window when creating and editing allocation templates and allocations. This means that:

  • In the Information section of the New Allocation window, only the Allocation Template field is now visible.
  • In the Retrieving Details section of the New Allocation window:
    • There is a Retrieve Transactions By picklist field for Period and Date.
    • Mandatory fields are marked with a red asterisk.

For more information, see:

For information about Salesforce Dynamic Forms, see the Salesforce Help.

Billing Document to Sales Invoice or Sales Credit Note Feature Console Enhancements

We have renamed the Billing Document to Sales Invoice Feature Console feature to Billing Document to SIN or SCR. For more information, see Enabling the Billing Document to SIN or SCR Feature.

Mandatory Steps to Upgrade Payments Plus

In the Summer 2024 release, Payments Plus requires additional mandatory upgrade steps to be performed. For more information, see Upgrading to Accounting Summer 2024.

Release Content

We want to help you find all of the information and resources that you need to use our products effectively.

In-App Guidance

Certinia in-app guidance uses Salesforce user engagement features to deliver Certinia content, such as tutorials and walkthroughs, directly from our products.

In this release, we've updated our in-app guidance. For more information, see Accounting In-App Guidance.

Certinia Trailhead

If you want to learn more about the new features in this release, see the ERP Cloud - Summer 2024 Release Highlights Certinia Trailhead module. This module will guide you through the new features in ERP Cloud.

Fixes

Fixes are listed on the Known Issues page of the Certinia Community. You can access this page from the Community Support Hub. For a brief description of the issues that have been fixed in this version of Accounting, see the relevant section of the Known Issues page.