In the General ledger section, you define and manage the financial records for your company. These financial records include:

• Company currencies.
  
• Ledger accounts within the chart of accounts.
  
• Fiscal periods and fiscal years.
  
• Sales taxes (for both sales and purchases).
  
• Journals for posting to ledger accounts and accounts in other sections.
  
• System accounts for automatic posting.
  
• Parameters, defaults, and number sequences that apply to ledger accounts and ledger transactions.
  
• Dimensions, dimension sets and hierarchies, and financial statements.
  
• Optional features related to journals and posting.
  
• Sales tax specific to countries/regions.
  
• Vendor withholding tax.
  
• Ledger budgets and period allocation keys.
  
• Fixed assets.
  

For more information, see General ledger.

In the Cost accounting section, you set up and manage cost accounting. You can redirect overhead and indirect costs to the entities that you set up as cost categories and to the dimensions that you define for use within cost accounting.

When you set up cost categories, you can activate a link to the ledger accounts, so that a copy of posted ledger transactions automatically appears in the appropriate cost category. You can then redistribute the costs among other cost categories and dimensions, and analyze the cost structure of your business.

For more information, see Cost accounting.

In the Bank section, you create and manage company bank accounts and the financial instruments that are associated with bank accounts, such as deposit slips, checks, bills of exchange, and promissory notes.

You also create bank groups, bank transaction types, the bank accounts that the company has in each bank group, and check layouts for the bank accounts.

You can view bank data by using a number of standard inquiries, reconcile bank account statements, and print bank data in standard reports. These standard reports include balances, payment lists, summaries, deposit slips, payment advice, and bank transactions that are not reconciled.

For more information, see Bank.

In the CRM section, you enter and track all your business contacts, accounts, opportunities, and relationships. Some of the tasks you can perform include:

• Track activities.
  
• Create and manage campaigns.
  
• Manage sales quotations.
  

For more information, see Sales and marketing.

In the Accounts receivable section, you track all sales and incoming payments from customers.

You also set up customer groups, customers, posting profiles, various payment options, interest notes, collection letters, commissions, parameters concerning customers and sales orders, prices and discounts, charges, supplementary items, deliveries and destinations, and bills of exchange.

Depending on your setup, you can then perform many tasks that are related to customers and sales. Some of the tasks you can perform include:

• Create and manage sales orders, sales quotations, and free text invoices.
  
• Settle customer invoices.
  
• Create reports.
  

For more information, see Accounts receivable.

In the Accounts payable section, you track all purchases and outgoing expenditures to vendors.

You also set up vendor groups, vendors, posting profiles, various payment options, parameters concerning vendors and purchase orders, prices and discounts, charges, supplementary items, deliveries and destinations, and promissory notes

Depending on your setup, you can then perform many tasks that are related to vendors and purchases. For example, you can create and manage purchase orders and planned purchase orders, use various kinds of journals, and settle vendor invoices.

For more information, see Accounts payable.

In the Inventory management section, you track items from receipt to issue, and track their storage and transport.

For more information, see Inventory management.

In the Master planning section, you set up and run scheduling to calculate requirements and generate planned orders. You can use forecast scheduling to calculate gross requirements based on forecasts, and to plan long-term materials and capacity needs. Use master scheduling to calculate net requirements based on actual orders and to control inventory replenishment on a daily basis.

For more information, see Master planning.

In the Production section, you manage the production of items, from creating an order to the finished, manufactured item.

The section is integrated with other sections, including the Inventory management, General ledger, and Basic sections. This integration supports the information flow that is needed to complete manufacturing.

For more information, see Production in Microsoft Dynamics AX.

In the Product Builder section, you set up dynamic configurations for items based on requirements and modeling variables determined by sales order, purchase order, production order, sales quotation, or project quotation.

Based on a configuration, and from these predefined modeling variables, this section automates the generation of standard bills of materials and standard routes—within Microsoft Dynamics AX—for the production of each item. This simplifies the job production process and improves the interaction of sales and production.

For more information, see Product builder.

In the Shop Floor Control section, you set up and manage data collection for a production environment.

You also set up employees, work profiles, indirect activities, various employee groups, parameters for posting on production orders and projects, pay agreements, and registration forms.

You can collect data about time and attendance, production orders, projects, and indirect activities. You can post collected data about production orders and projects, generate payroll data for employees, and schedule shift plans.

For more information, see Shop floor control.

In the Human Resources section, you manage a wide variety of business information and perform a range of actions that are related to the business workforce and its organizational structure.

For more information, see Human resources.

In the Questionnaire section, you design, create, distribute, and complete questionnaires, and then analyze the results.

For more information, see Questionnaire.

In the Balanced scorecard section, you create scorecards to help your company identify its visions and strategies and then translate them into measurable objectives. For more information, see Balanced scorecard.

In the Project section, you set up projects, estimate project costs, use projects to generate quotations, and track project process. Types of projects you can manage include:

• Time and materials.
  
• Investment.
  
• Fixed price.
  
• Time.
  
• Cost.
  
• Internal.
  

For more information, see Project.

In the Service section, you set up and manage service agreements, service orders, and service subscriptions.

For more information, see Service.

The Basic section contains data and functionality that is used across other sections. In it, you manage the data for:

• Employee information.
  
• Work center groups.
  
• Work calendars.
  
• Dimension values.
  
• Companies.
  
• Record templates.
  
• E-mail templates.
  
• Number sequences.
  

You can also manage the following functionality:

• Alerts. For more information, see Alerts.
  
• Document management. For more information, see Using document management.
  
• Batch processing. For more information, see Processing batch jobs.
  
• Reporting. For more information, see Business analysis and reporting.
  
• Application integration framework. For more information, see Application Integration Framework.
  

In the Administration section, you manage users and groups, company accounts, domains and virtual company accounts, system settings, Internet-related settings, and security.

For more information, see Getting Started (Administrator's Guide).

Microsoft Dynamics AX provides multiple tools for viewing and analyzing business data.

• Ad hoc reports offer you the flexibility to create and modify reports using a drag-and-drop feature and a report template. For more information, see Ad hoc reports.
  
• Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) reporting helps you analyze trends in business data. For more information, see OLAP reports.
  
• Standard reports enable you to produce reports and filter data in them. For more information, see Drill down in standard reports.
  

Enterprise Portal provides Web-enabled access to data stored in Microsoft Dynamics AX. From Enterprise Portal, you can manage documents that are attached to records in the Microsoft Dynamics AX database, search for data stored in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, and use SharePoint announcements, surveys, and discussion lists to collaborate with customers, business partners, and other employees.

For more information, see Using the Enterprise Portal.

Application Integration Framework (AIF) enables companies to integrate and communicate with other business processes and partners electronically. As the replacement for the Microsoft Axapta 3.0 Commerce Gateway, it enables more secure business-to-business and application-to-application integration scenarios.

For more information, see Application Integration Framework.