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 the Push release is to view the release webinar “What’s New in Spring ‘23” recording below:

Accounting Seed is excited to inform you of our Spring ’23 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

Our Spring ‘23 release was deployed to all sandbox environments on Sunday, February 12, 2023. To benefit from the Spring ‘23 release in your production environment sooner, click here to access the installation links.

Configuration Changes

This release includes a configuration setup, which existing Accounting Seed users must perform prior to installing it. There are also several optional configuration changes that can be performed by existing and/or new Accounting Seed users. For more information, refer to the Spring ’23 Configuration Changes article. 

Contents

New Features

• Plaid Integration with Bank Direct Connect
• Bank Direct Connect APIs
• Delete Archived Source Documents
• Default GL Accounts by Ledger

Enhancements

• Customer Requested Enhancements
  
  • • 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
    • New Bank Rules Conditions - Base Type and Type
    • Check now supports longer Payee Names
    • User-friendly Naming on Journal Entries from Bank Direct Connect
    • Tax Settings record on New Installs

Software Corrections

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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. For more information, refer to the Bank Direct Connect Implementation Guide in the API section of our Knowledge Base. 

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.

Default GL Accounts by Ledger

Default GL Accounts
Design Your Chart of Accounts

When using Multi-Ledgers, you now have the ability to configure default GL Accounts by Ledger. The Default GL Accounts screen includes a new Ledger drop-down list, which allows you to select a specific Ledger, and add default GL Accounts for the selected Ledger.

For new Accounting Seed users, the Transactional and Budget Ledgers that are automatically created will now be available in the Ledger drop-down list. For existing users, your Transactional Ledgers and Budget Ledgers will be available in the Ledger drop-down list with the default GL Account records automatically created. If you want different GL Accounts for a particular Ledger, select it from the Ledger drop-down list, and update the GL Accounts, as necessary. If you use the Consolidations feature, GL Account Default records will automatically be created for all your existing Ledgers as part of the upgrade.

Important: For new and existing Accounting Seed users, once the Spring ’23 release has been installed, you should review the values on the Defaults GL Accounts screen to make certain that default GL Accounts display correctly for each Transactional Ledger. If no default GL Accounts display in this screen, the Create GL Account Defaults button will be available. Click Create GL Account Defaults to have the system automatically add default GL Accounts. For new AS users, once this button is clicked, the system will create default GL Account records based upon “out of the box” GL Accounts and populate the fields on this page with those values. For existing AS users, if this button displays and is clicked, the system will create and populate default GL Account records based upon the values that currently exist on the Default GL Accounts screen. When you add a new Transactional Ledger, the “out of the box” default GL Accounts will automatically be set on the newly added Transactional Ledger. You will need to review them by going to the Default GL Accounts screen, and then selecting each Ledger.

As you review the GL Accounts for each Transactional Ledger, ensure that for the Ledger being reviewed the GL Accounts are unique across all fields. For more information, refer to the Default GL Accounts article.

The Ledger screen includes a new Ledger GL Defaults button, which provides direct access to the Default GL Accounts screen. This allows you to view and/or edit default GL Accounts for the selected Ledger.

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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, 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

Issue a Refund Cash Receipt

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.

New Bank Rules Conditions - Base Type and Type

Bank Direct Connect – Bank Rules

As part of the “if” statement for creating Conditions on a Bank Rule, two new Conditions have been added, which are Base Type and Type. Both of these new Conditions are included as fields by your Aggregation Service Provider (Plaid or Yodlee) on the Bank Transaction record. From the Unmatched Bank Transactions tab, when you click the arrow to expand the drawer on a Bank Transaction line/row, a hyperlink will be available in the Bank Trx Name field. Click the hyperlink to display the Bank Transaction record to view the Base Type and/or Type field.

The Base Type field is included to identify how a transaction displays on the Financial Institution site. The Type field describes the nature and the intent for a transaction. Examples might include types such as payments, purchases, charges and fees.

Important: The Type field on a Bank Rule, which is the Type field on the Bank Transaction record from your provider (Plaid or Yodlee), is NOT related to the Type drop-down list that displays on the expanded drawer with selections such as Cash Receipt, Cash Disbursement, or a Journal Entry.

Check now supports longer Payee Names

Create a Manual Cash Disbursement

The Alternate Payee Name field and the Check Print intermediate screen on the Cash Disbursement have been adjusted to accommodate longer names of up to 140 characters. The information from the Alternate Payee Name field will display on the printed check and PDF file (on a single Cash Disbursement or a Cash Disbursement Batch), wrapping and adjusting the font size accordingly based upon the number of characters.

Important: If you have Alternate Payee Names with more than 60 characters, please test the check print alignment before printing on actual check stock.

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

Tax Settings

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.  

Bank Direct Connect - Plaid Error Messages

Bank Direct Connect – Connection Messages

For Plaid users, when connecting to banks with foreign currency, two new error messages might display depending upon your existing setups.

• Error: This Currency is not supported for (bank name):(currency name). Please add the currency – this message will display if you attempt to connect to a bank account that does not use the default currency, and the currency has not been added to your org. The currency code will need to be added to your org. Refer to the steps in the Bank Direct Connect – Connection Messages article to add the currency code.
• Error: You cannot connect to foreign bank without multi-currency enabled. Please contact your Accounting Seed Customer Success Manager to enable multi-currency – this message will display if you attempt to connect to a bank with a foreign currency that is not the default currency without multi-currency being enabled. Please contact your Customer Success Manager.

Multi-currency Ledger change on a Billing

Create or Clone a Billing

If using multi-currency, the Ledger field on a Billing can be changed to select a Ledger with any currency. However, if you are using AvaTax as your Tax Settings method, when changing to a different Ledger on a Billing record, the new Ledger can only be a different USD Ledger.

Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable Period Sensitive Aging Setting

Enablements

On new Accounting Seed installations, the Accounts Receivable Period Sensitive Aging and the Accounts Payable Period Sensitive Aging setting on the Enablements screen will now default to “On.” Most customers will want this turned on so that they are able to view retrospective Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable Aging reports.

Recurring Journal Entry Line - Field Sets update

Recurring Journal Entries

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).

Sales Order Line old Validation Rule Deactivated

The validation rule “Product_Is_Required” on the Sales Order Line object was removed in the Hibiscus release, since this logic was added to the code (trigger). In order to deprecate this from the Orders & Inventory package in a future release, we have set this as inactive in the Spring ’23 release.

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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.

Delete Archived Source Documents Job

The Delete Archived Source Documents job has been enhanced to delete older Accounts Payable Disbursement records that did not have a value in the Applied Accounting Period field and Journal Entries that were created at a time when there were no line limits.

Purchase Order created from Sales Order

When a Purchase order is created from a Sales Order and the Purchase Price on the Product was zero (0), the Create Purchase Order intermediate screen showed an incorrect value in the Total field. This issue has been resolved.

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