Posting layers in D365FO

The concept of posting layers in the general ledger isn't a new feature in D365FO. But because in trainings or consultancy I speak to a lot of consultants or (key)users that doesn't know about this functionality, it seems good for me to write an article about it.

Therefore in this article I explain the concept of the posting layers. Also I give some examples by posting journals and the effect of reporting the general ledger in the posting layers.

The concept

The concept of posting layers is to have multiple 'levels' in the general ledger to report your amounts. With this option you have several different angles to look to the amounts presented here.

In the AX versions with posting layers before D365FO there are three main posting layers, each with a different purpose:

1. Current: the default layer, used for transactions as part of the periodic (external) financial reporting.
2. Operations: used for other transactions then default that needs to be presented for periodic financial reporting on internal purposes.
3. Tax: transactions not part of external or internal reporting, but for specific tax transactions.

You can see each posting layer as a different floor to post your amounts in the general ledger building. In the reporting you can choose from what floors you want to present the amounts based on the purpose of your reporting. Mostly this is necessary based on differences in local and group reporting requirements or specific tax reporting.

The current posting layers

In D365FO the posting layers are extended in relation to the older AX versions. Where you still have the older financial Current, Operations and Tax posting layers, you also have seven custom posting layers:

There are also a posting layer 'None' and 'Dual Warehouse', I will come back later to this.

How to post in these posting layers?

By creating financial journals, you have to setup journal names. In these journal names you setup the posting layers where the postings need to be posted in. In the journal names from type 'Daily' the other posting layers then 'Current' can be used. If you change the posting layer of another journal type, the system will inform you that this isn't possible:

Example

As example I create a journal name from type 'Daily' and select the posting layer 'Operations':

To have a random example of posting layers, I post two times an amount on January 2nd 2024:

100 USD from account 112000 to account 112010 in the Current layer.

25 USD from account 112010 to account 112000 in the Operations layer with the new created journal name.

When I run the trial balance now, first I calculate the balances for only Posting layer 'Current'. Here I see the posted amounts for only this posting layer:

Now I run the trial balance again, but with Posting layers 'Current' and 'Operations' both selected:

Now the outcome of the same period is different, based on the fact that both posted journals are taken together now:

So with the example of floors of the General ledger described above, in the first step I only looked to only the Current floor and in the second step I looked to both the Current and Operations floor together.

And that's the purpose of the posting layers, to get several levels in the general ledger to present the amounts based on different needs based on different angles (like external reporting angle, internal reporting angle, vat angle).

The posting layer 'None'

When using fixed assets it can be that also the valuation of your fixed assets needs to be presented from multiple angels, mostly based on tax purposes. Therefore in D365FO you can add multiple books to a fixed asset (in AX 2012 the value models). By each book that you have to setup, you have to select the posting layer where the postings will be made in. The standard posting layer will be 'Current', but you can select another layer when necessary. When you open the Books option on a fixed asset, for each book the related posting layer is mentioned:

In this example you also see the posting layer 'None'. In the book setup you can select to not Post to general ledger and in that case the Posting layer will be set to this value:

With this option you can calculate several different depreciation amount on each fixed asset, but for all books where posting layer 'None' is used, the amounts can only be presented in the Fixed Asset module and will not be posted in the General Ledger. To be able to make the postings you can create a 'Post fixed assets' journal name with this posting layer 'None':

In that case you can use the options in the Fixed Asset module to present the different amounts on each fixed asset, like the 'Valuations' option on a fixed asset:

Normally transactions cannot be deleted because they are posted in the general ledger. For all fixed transactions in posting layer 'None' you can use the periodic task 'Delete transactions not posted to general ledger' to delete the posted transactions:

After running this task for the fixed asset used above in this article, the transactions for both books in posting layer None are deleted:

The posting layer 'Dual warehouse'

In the list of posting layers also the posting layer 'Dual warehouse' is mentioned. This posting layer is a country specific posting layer for Russia. In Russia a specific functionality for inventory closing is created to have inventory postings in the reporting currency.

The ledger transactions created here are posted in the posting layer 'Dual warehouse' if on the Item model group from the related Released Items the field 'Post secondary financial' is enabled:

In the Control name information of the print screen above you also can see that this field is a Russian localization option and therefore in other administrations you will not see this field and these postings.

The posting layers in Financial Reports (Management Reporter)

For reporting directly from the general ledger you can use the 'Financial Reports' option (former Management Reporter). Standard the amounts of the posting layer 'Current' are presented.

In Financial Reporter you can change this behavior by using the 'Attributes', so you can add or filter on posting layers to report on:

Be aware that in this list only the posting layers are mentioned which are used in the concerning D365FO environment. If you only having postings in the 'Current' layer, you will only see this layer:

With my example posting described above with Financial Reports I can also present this difference by the use of these posting layer Attributes in the Column Definition: