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Watch your user names in Analytical Accounting

October 19, 2011 GP / Products
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Sometimes the obvious is not so obvious. A few days ago we ran into an error on a test systems for an AA implementation in GP 2010. The user could “type” in a transactional code, but was thrown this error when they changed the code before validating.

After tinkering here and there in SQL 2008 and not getting any joy, we set up another test user but this time did not include the . in the user name.  (This particular customer has a policy where the user name is the same name as the domain name for a user, hence the . in the GP users name, see the red boxes)

The result…. no more errors.  A real quirky issue.

Belinda, the GP CSI: Want your GL Trial Balance in Excel?

October 15, 2011 Excel / GP
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Belinda, the GP CSI: Want your GL Trial Balance in Excel?.

Slicing Dynamics GP 2010 Data in Microsoft Excel Dashboards

April 3, 2011 Excel / GP
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If your a GP user, here’s a little creative use of a few tools that you possible already have.
It’s a demo of a simple interactive Excel Dashboard using one of the data connection files that ships with GP2010RTMCoreMR.(Ask your Partner About this).

What we have is an excel file which uses a pivot table to display the Price, Margin and GP% (Gross Profit Percentage) of Sales Documents. For this Pivot I choose to set the rows as “Item Classes”, and I used the Excel “Slicer Tool” to select the customers.

I am able to select different customers in the slicer tool and review the numbers that appertain to that customer in reference to the Item Class Rows and Price,Margin and GP% Columns. In this next screenshot, this particular customer has only order products in one item class.

The Pivot will also show you when there are no records as in the example below.

This all took about 10 mins. to set up, execute and be fully functioning in my demo VPC machine. If you want to know more drop me a line.

Available to Promise. Helps you keep your promises!

March 17, 2011 GP / Products
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Available To Promise (ATP) can calculate the MFG promise date. This shows when we can make a Finished Good based on the component inventory that is or will be available. This is a great tool for busy Sales Desks especially if you make complex Finished Goods that are configurable. The alternative to using ATP would be numerous phone calls, emails and other communication methods to “chase” down component inventory.

ATP

In this screen the Red Box shows the date of when we can next reliably produce another 5 chairs based upon the components that are required for this Finished Good. The blue box shows us the date that we can “Promise” the customer that the required number (5) will be available. How is it that the Available Date is before the Manufacturing date? Well, we have a MO (MO0007) completing on 3/12/2011 and that is where the “Available to Promise”  date comes from.

ATP is a  great and powerful time saver inquiry for the team that uses it.  It’s easy to deploy and learn and provides that 30,000 ft birds eye view of how well you can keep your promises.

Executive Dashboards in Business Portal 5.1

March 8, 2011 GP / Products
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Recently we have implemented Dynamics GP 2010 and Business Portal 5.1 to fulfill one of our customer demands. The main thing in this implementation was the whole infrastructure designed in 64 bit environment. 

Business Portal 5.1 and Share Point Foundation 2010 gave a new pretty look to Executive Dashboards which is not available in 32 bit environment 

I am sharing some screen shorts for those who had not seen this combination yet. 

  Financial Dashboard in Executive Center

  

  Financial Dashboard Drill Down through Reporting Services  

 

  Inventory Dashboard

Sales Dashboards and Drill Through  

Excel Dashboarding in GP 2010

January 14, 2011 Excel / GP / Products
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A few days ago I met a prospective client, who was very exact in defining his requirements :-)

During our first meeting, one the requirements that was consistently mentioned many times was:

“We need Dashboard capabilities for quick view on cash, payables, and receivables”

Well Dynamics GP 2010 has capabilities that can fulfill this requirement.

 

We can see that there a 7 boxs of data. 4 boxs contain excel based charts and 3 boxs contain colum data from GP.

This example use the default “dummy data” that comes with all installations of GP and is been used here as an example. (It would be unethical of us if we were to show you a “real live” dashboard of another customer.

The example above uses “built in out of the box” data connections to the GP Data that resides inside SQL.

What that means is if you already use excel in your organization the you can extend the use of excel to include “Live” data out of GP 2010.

In a later post, we’ll explore some other dashboard options that are available with GP 2010.

Here’s a related Video that shows  how to publish Refreshable Excel Reports in Dynamics GP.

Simple Customizations

December 27, 2010 GP / Products
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One of the great things about GP 2010 is the simple “no coding” of the user interface. There are several methods that can be used, but by far the quickest and simplest is to use Modifier tool. For example, this is how the default employee screen looks when you use the default setups for GP Payroll:

Default Employee Main Screen GP 2010
Now with a little bit of work in the built in GP modifier tool, we can rename/hide and adjust any field names that appear in the form: Take a look at this simple localized customization for Pakistani Payroll Customers:

 Employee-Main-Modified

Notice, how simple cosmetic changes can bring a much more localized personel experience to your user.

As a policy, Axone Business Solutions, has a number of localized screen modifications which are offered to all our customers on a “no charge basis”.

Why Should I Sign a Cheque Blindly?

October 18, 2009 GP / Products
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why-should-i-sign-chequeOne of the great benefits of GP 2010 is the flexibility that you can build into the business process design. You can have quite literally “no controls” or lots of “checks and balances”. It’s really up to your business policy and vision of how you want to run your organization. Lets look at this diagram.

The concept behind this simple flow chart is to illustrate the checks and balances that you could design into your Purchase Order and Cheque Signing processes.

 The green boxes represent GP functions and transactional entry screens. The red boxes represent “approval stages” in the process and the blue boxes represent some type of physical activity. Taking this further, the diagram demonstrates that, if desired, the cheque signing authority can literally sign Vendor related payment cheques blindly as no cheques can be presented without first going through each of the routines and tasks. The key features of GP 10 that can bring this all together are Workflows, Security, Roles and Integration. Let’s look at each of these features to see how it impacts this “PO to Cheque” process.

  • Within GP,Workflows are the rules for an approval system. (Read more on the subject here)
  • Security set up enforces who can do what on various documents and transactions. GP has a very sophisticated security model which can be tailored for groups of users or right down to an individual user. 
  • Roles, introduced in GP 9.0, are a set of pre-defined configurable, screens, reports, tasks, business rules etc, that can be linked to users of the ERP application. GP contains 32 roles out of the box. EG. CFO, AP Clerk,Warehouse Manager, Bookkeeper etc.
  • Integration. One of the key advantages that define an ERP is “Integration among different functional areas to ensure proper communication, productivity and efficiency and preserving data integrity in one shared database”

So, signing cheques blindly, maybe not for you. However, can GP support you if you wanted to yes it can.

Quickbooks- Beginners Software

September 29, 2009 GP / Products
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Most small businesses in Pakistan want a simple package designed for a small business. Sometimes they end up using QuickBooks. And why not. It’s quick, easy, and affordable to most local businesses that are just starting out and have limited financial resources. As those companies grow it makes sense for them to “squeez” as much functionality as possible out of their current Quickbooks, in the hope that their Quickbooks investment, would not be “wasted”.
One side effect of this tatic, is not comming to the realization that a “Beginners Software” like Quickbooks can only take you as far, as the functions that are built in to it. There is a massive gap between even Quickbook Enterprise and Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Take for example the recent findings from the 3rd party company The Accounting Library where they found that Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 out of the box includes a great deal more functionality than QuickBooks Enterprise 9.0.

quickbooks-comparisons2

Considering the functionality gaps shown to the left, the fast ROI customers experience when moving to Microsoft Dynamics GP, along with gaining powerful out of the box interoperability with the Microsoft Office products they use every day, it is no surprise that customers continue to make the Smart Move to Microsoft Dynamics GP!

What Can GP Do? – Cash flow forecasts and transactions

August 15, 2009 GP / Products
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You can use Cash Flow Management to predefine an opening balance for a forecast, based on a single cash management transaction or a specific General Ledger account balance. You also can base a forecast on one or more checkbook balances with or without work / adjust transactions, such as deposits, payments, and reconciliation adjustments that are not part of the checkbook balance.

Cash Flow Management is installed automatically when you install Microsoft Dynamics™ GP.

You also can use Cash Flow Management to complete the following tasks:

Create an unlimited number of cash flow forecast definitions.

  • Forecast cash flows in different ways
  • Create scenarios without actually recording transactions
  • Summarize daily inflows and outflows of cash in the calendar window
  • View the summary of any given day’s cash inflow and outflow
  • Obtain weekly—detailed or summary—and monthly calendar reports

Cash flow forecasts and transactions

You can create and keep an unlimited number of cash flow forecast definitions. The cash flow forecasts that you define will be displayed in the Cash Flow Calendar and the Cash Flow Explorer. “What if” transactions (external inflow and outflow transactions that are not actually entered in Microsoft Dynamics GP) let you see what effect actual transactions will have on your cash flow.

Entering “what if?” cash flow transactions

Cash Flow Management allows you to enter “what if” transactions (external inflow and outflow transactions that are not actually entered in Microsoft Dynamics GP) to see what effect these transactions will have on your cash flow.

Using the Cash Flow Calendar window

The Cash Flow Calendar displays inflows and outflows based on the default forecast you set up in the Cash Flow Forecast window. You can use the Cash Flow Calendar to scroll to different months, or to open to a specific day and view your transactions.
In the Cash Flow Calendar, outflows appear in red, inflows appear in blue, and the balance to date is shown in black.

cashflow-calendar1

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