Overview
Important: Existing Accounting Seed Users must enable Track Activities (Allow Activities) on 3 custom objects before upgrading to the Spring '23 release.
Release Frequency and Schedule
Updates to our release frequency and schedule include doing our best to have three major (Push) releases each year (Spring, Summer and Winter). These releases will be automatically pushed to sandbox and production environments. Each Push release will be preceded by two Preview releases that will be made generally available and are not automatically pushed. Since all our releases (previews and pushes) are cumulative, the latest release will contain all the changes from the prior releases.
Our Release Notes for each Push release will be updated with the changes from each Preview release as they become available. Before the Push release is automatically pushed to sandboxes, these Release Notes will be updated with the changes made in that release as well. A good way to see incremental changes in each Preview and Push release is to view the respective “What’s New” in the release video(s) below:
As part of the Spring ‘23 release, Accounting Seed is excited to inform you of our Spring ’23 Preview 2 release. This article presents information about the new features and enhancements available in this release. To print a copy of the Release Notes, right-click and select Print. In the Destination drop-down list, select a specific printer name or select Save as PDF. Then, click Save.
Installation Notes
This preview release is now available to be installed in your org. We recommend that you first install the release into your sandbox environment and test it before installing it into your production environment. For more information on best practices with testing sandboxes, refer to Sandboxes: Staging Environments for Customizing and Testing and Considerations for Creating Sandboxes with Accounting Seed Data.
When you are ready to install this release, click here to access the installation link.
Configuration Changes
This release includes a configuration setup, which existing Accounting Seed users must perform prior to installing it. There is also an optional configuration change that can be performed by existing and/or new Accounting Seed users. For more information, refer to the Spring ’23 Configuration Changes article.
Contents
- Plaid Integration with Bank Direct Connect
- Bank Direct Connect APIs
- Delete Archived Source Documents
- Customer Requested Enhancements
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- Sales Order – Clone w/Lines
- Purchase Order – Clone w/Lines
- Billings included on a Filed Tax Return in AvaTax
- Refund Cash Receipt populates with GL Variables and Project/Project Task
- Amortize Revenue/Expense – Validation changes
- User-friendly Naming on Journal Entries from Bank Direct Connect
- Tax Settings record on New Installs
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New Features
Plaid Integration with Bank Direct Connect
BDC – Bank Settings
BDC – Unmatched Bank Transactions
BDC – Connection Messages
This release includes Plaid integration with our Bank Direct Connect. When you register and add your Financial Institution Accounts (FIA), Plaid will be available as an Aggregation Provider in our Bank Direct Connect screen. You have the ability to select Plaid and/or Yodlee as your Aggregation Provider from the Bank Direct Connect – Bank Settings tab.
For new Accounting Seed users, when you access the Bank Direct Connect – Bank Settings tab, you will need to click Manage Providers to register with Plaid and/or Yodlee. If you are an existing user with banks already connected to Yodlee, when you select Manage Providers in the Bank Direct Connect – Bank Settings tab, Yodlee will automatically display as a registered provider. You can also register Plaid as an Aggregation Provider.
Note: For existing Accounting Seed users, the Bank Direct Connect functionality for Bank Rules, Unmatched Bank Transactions, and All Bank Transactions is exactly the same as it is for Yodlee. Therefore, you will not have to learn a new process after your banks are connected with Plaid. However, if you would like to migrate your Financial Institution Accounts from Yodlee to Plaid, first review the Migrate a Financial Institution Account(s) from Yodlee to Plaid section of the Bank Direct Connect - Bank Settings article.
When the Manage Providers registration process is completed, you can click New to add a new Financial Institution Account for Plaid (and Yodlee, if necessary). Information to add a new FIA is available in the Bank Direct Connect – Bank Settings article. When you have the Aggregation Provider(s) registered and the FIA(s) added, the Select Aggregation Provider drop-down list on the Bank Settings screen will include Plaid and Yodlee (if both are registered) and the Select Financial Institution drop-down list will include the FIA(s) that is associated with the related Aggregation Provider. From here, you can map the Financial Institution Accounts to the Bank GL Accounts. For assistance with completing this information, as well as the remainder of the fields on the Bank Settings tab, refer to the Bank Direct Connect – Bank Settings article.
After completing the Bank Settings information, you can access the Bank Transactions tab to select the newly added FIA from the drop-down list, and then click Update All to immediately download the latest available transactions. For more information, refer to the BDC – Unmatched Bank Transactions article.
Best Practice: It is recommended that you schedule the Bank Download job to automatically update Bank Transactions each day at a selected time. For more information, refer to the Schedule the Bank Download article.
Bank Direct Connect APIs
When Plaid or Yodlee does not support your banks, you can now write a custom integration using our new Bank Direct Connect APIs (Application Programming Interface) to drop in another Bank Aggregation Service. Stay tuned for the Bank Direct Connect APIs article information coming soon to our Accounting Seed API documentation.
Delete Archived Source Documents
Delete Archived Source Documents Guidance
With this release, we have included the new Delete Source Documents feature. Businesses that generate high volumes of transactions could benefit from the Delete Source Documents process, which provides the ability to reduce overall storage costs by deleting older documents.
Before the Delete Source Documents process can be enabled on your org, it is very important to understand what it will do and the implications from a business perspective. Therefore, we have put together the Delete Archived Source Documents Guidance article, which details items that need to be considered before deleting documents. Please review this article thoroughly to learn about measures that should be taken prior to deleting documents, the step instructions for the process, as well as to view a complete listing of records that are eligible for deletion and documents that will not be deleted.
Enable Track Activities (Allow Activities)
For existing Accounting Seed Users, prior to installing this release, you must enable Track Activities (Allow Activities) on the following 3 objects:
- Billing Aging History
- AP Aging History
- Uncleared Bank Reconciliation Lines
For information on how to enable this setting in your sandbox and production orgs, refer to the Enable/Disable Field History Tracking and Allow Activities article.
Enhancements
Customer Requested Enhancements
Sales Order - Clone w/Lines
Create or Clone a Sales Order (Average Cost)
Create or Clone a Sales Order (Standard Cost)
The Sales Order object Clone with Lines feature provides an efficient way to manage your Sales Order records. This is a quick and easy way to duplicate a Sales Order record without having to create one from scratch. Once the clone has been created, information can be updated to reflect the new Sales Order record, as necessary.
Purchase Order - Clone w/Lines
Create or Clone a Purchase Order (Average Cost)
Create or Clone a Purchase Order (Standard Cost)
The Purchase Order object Clone with Lines feature provides an efficient way to manage your Purchase Order records. This is a quick and easy way to duplicate a Purchase Order record (along with its lines) without having to create one from scratch. Once the clone has been created, information can be updated to reflect the new Purchase Order record, as necessary.
Billings included on a Filed Tax Return in AvaTax
Calculate Tax on a Billing with Avalara’s AvaTax
If you need to make changes to a Billing that has locked transactions (tax return filed in AvaTax), you can now unpost it, make your modifications to a permitted set of fields, and then re-post the Billing. In this situation no API callouts are made to AvaTax, and the transactions remained locked, while allowing you to make some updates to the Billing/Billing Line.
Refund Cash Receipt populates with GL Variables and Project/Project Task
If any or all of the GL Account Variables 1-4 and/or the Project/Project Task fields were included on the original Cash Receipt, these fields will automatically be populated on the Refund Cash Receipt with the information from the original Cash Receipt.
Amortize Revenue/Expense – Validation changes
Amortize Revenue for a Billing
Amortize Expense for a Payable
On Straight Line - Prorated Monthly or Straight Line - Full Month, the Number of Accounting Periods field cannot be blank. An error/validation will display if this field is left blank. Additionally, on Straight Line - Daily, the End Date field cannot be blank. An error message will display if this field is left blank.
Note: The validation message changes/checks have also been updated when using Amortizations via the API (Application Programming Interface). For more information, refer to the Accounting Seed API Documentation.
User-friendly Naming on Journal Entries from Bank Direct Connect
Create or Clone a Journal Entry
Bank Direct Connect – Unmatched Bank Transactions
If a Journal Entry is added from Bank Direct Connect, the naming convention for the Journal Entry Name will automatically display on the Journal Entry record in the following format: BDC-<Source>-<Bank Transaction Name>-<Journal Entry Creation Date>. For example, if the Source is Plaid as the Aggregation Provider, the Journal Entry Name will display as: BDC-Plaid-BT-00065-12/12/2022. Another example would be if the Source is from a Financial File Import, the Journal Entry Name will display as: BDC-FinancialFileImport-BT-00047-12/13/2022.
Tax Settings record on New Installs
The installation process on new installs now defaults to AS Native Tax by automatically creating a Tax Settings record and setting the Tax Settings Method to “Accounting Seed Native Tax,” and this record will be assigned to the default Ledger. This is similar to the existing functionality during an upgrade, where a Tax Settings record of AS Native Tax or AvaTax is created based upon the existing tax setting on the org.
Recurring Journal Entry Line - Field Sets update
The Advanced Line Manager Columns field set (collapsed drawer) on the Recurring Journal Entry Line has been updated to add the Product field and the Product field was removed from the Advanced Line Manager Drawer field set (expanded drawer).
Software Corrections
Bank Direct Connect APIs Feature
We made a change to use the Transaction Date of Bank Transactions rather than the Yodlee Date. However, there are some banks that do not populate the Transaction Date, which left unimported transactions. We have now addressed this issue by adding a validation that if the Transaction Date on a Bank Transaction is blank, the system will use the Yodlee Date to set the Transaction Date. This will allow such Bank Transactions to be imported as before.
Bank Direct Connect – Base Type on Depository Accounts
An issue that caused the Base Type to be set incorrectly on “Depository” accounts connected via Plaid has been resolved. Deposits are now shown with Base Type set to “Credit” (Cash Receipt/Debit Journal Entry Line) and payments as “Debit” (Cash Disbursements/Credit Journal Entry Line).
Note: Credit Card Accounts continue to have these values set correctly.
Bank Direct Connect – Canadian Banks via Plaid
The Bank Direct Connect issue with connecting to supported Canadian banks via Plaid has been resolved.
Bank Direct Connect – adding a new Cash Receipt
When trying to add a new Cash Receipt from Bank Direct Connect, if the system found a potential match, the selection to Add a new record was ignored while still attempting to create a Match. This issue has now been corrected.
Financial Reporter
The error message “Currency value missing” that displayed on the Financial Reporter on single currency orgs has been corrected.
Ledger Inquiry Report
The Ledger Inquiry Report would display the incorrect Accounting Period when drilling down from a Custom Report. This issue has been corrected.
Advanced Line Manager
When a lookup field was added to the Advanced Line Manager drawer, and the object to which it looked up to did not include a Name field, this prevented the page from loading properly. This has been resolved.
AvaTax Endpoint
An issue that caused the system to use the older AvaTax endpoint on Accounting Settings has now been resolved. The endpoint specified on the associated AvaTax License record is the one that will be used.
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