How Microsoft Dynamics GP Will Handle the Phasing Out of Canada's Penny

The Canadian government is phasing out the use of the lowly penny. In fact, as of February 4, the Royal Canadian Mint will no longer distribute pennies. 

Apparently, it cost more than a penny for the mint to produce the penny.  And the handling costs to deal with pennies for retailers, financial institutions and the economy, in general, amounted to more than the face value of the pennies. The Canadian government has estimated taxpayers will save $11 million annually by doing away with the penny.

So the Canadian government bid adieu to the lowly once cent piece.

However, phasing out pennies only applies to cash transactions; there is no impact on payments made by cheque, er, check, or electronic transactions. And pennies can still be used in cash transactions indefinitely with businesses that choose to accept them.

The Microsoft Dynamics GP team "has researched the situation and is aware that Canada is phasing out distributing new pennies," writes Angela Melhus, a partner tech lead at Microsoft. "From what we have discovered at this time, we do not have to make any changes. Electronic payments can continue using pennies. Customers may want to evaluate their item pricing structure but that is also not required."

In her post, Melhus offers some tips on how to set up pricing structure changes in Dynamics GP.

If you want more information on the demise of the Canadian penny, check out this toolkit from the Canadian Department of Finance.