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Dimensions in MicrosoftDynamics NAV

Dimensions provide a way to add to an accounting entry, or transaction,

information that acts as a marker, so that NAV can group entries with

similar characteristics for reporting purposes and easily retrieve these

groups for analysis. The term dimension describes the way the analysis

occurs. or e!ample, a two dimensional analysis could be sales by

territory. "y using more dimensions, a more comple! picture can be

drawn# for e!ample, sales by territory by sales campaign per salesperson.

Dimensions can have an unlimited number of values, or sub$units of that

dimension. This can be particularly useful for %nancial statements, and

has the added e&ect of permitting a very simple 'hart of Accounts, while

providing robust reporting functionality for virtually any form of

departmentali(ation or sub$groupings that you could imagine.

or e!ample, if you set up a dimension called Department, you can use

this dimension and a dimension )value* when posting an entry to see

which items have been sold by which departments. As you add more

dimensions and dimension values, you increase the granularity +or

comple!ity of the picture you wish to paint. Thus, a single salestransaction with multiple dimension criteria could account for where the

sale was posted to, to whom it was sold, where it was sold, who sold it,

and so on.

-ou can also use dimensions to support your business reporting rules, as a

means of inuencing how a dimension is used and posted. As the NAV

documentation e!plains, this might be useful if certain departments are

not allowed to use particular accounts or sell to particular customers.

Dimension types in NAV include/

Global:dimensions available )globally* for use throughout NAV.

Shortcut:dimensions that a user can enter, along with their values,

directly onto lines in 0ournals, and sales and purchase documents.

Budget:dimensions can be de%ned +up to four for budgets. These can

be used to set %lters on a budget and to add dimension information to

budget entries.

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1ow to 2etup Dimensions/To set up dimensions, you must de%ne which dimension and dimension

values you want to use in your company. -ou*ll also want to de%ne which

will be global across the company, and which will be shortcut dimensions

+both de%ned in our prior post. 3ith dimension functionality you can

support your %rm*s business and accounting rules by de%ning, for

e!ample, which dimension combinations are allowed in a 0ournal or

document. 4n this manner you can limit and de%ne that, say, a certain

item cannot be sold in a certain area, or so that certain e!pense types

may only be posted by certain employees. -ou can also de%ne default

dimensions for account types like customer accounts or individual

accounts.

Then, on a 0ournal line, as you enter information about an entry +such as

an account number, or a customer number, etc. you can also adddimension information in the same way +provided you*ve set up your

shortcut dimensions as )%elds* directly on your 0ournal lines. 3hen you

post an entry, all the dimension information gets posted with it.

inally, you can also use dimensions as )%lters* to slice and dice your data

in ways meaningful to you. -ou can then %lter on all 567 entries using the

two dimensions you have de%ned as )global.* -ou can use your budget

dimensions to %lter budgets. -ou can display items for only the dimension

values you re8uest to see.

ilters can contain a dimension value plus 8uali%ers like 9:8ual to; or

9Di&erent rom; plus the typical "oolean operators like And,