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Thursday, January 30, 2014

Microsoft Dynamics GP Not for Profits whitepaper and fact sheets

I was recently asked regarding how Dynamics GP worked with Not for Profits, Microsoft has a whitepaper specifically for Not for Profit Accounting.

This covers the following modules specifically for Not For Profits -

Encumbrance Management allows obligations for goods, materials, and services that have been ordered but not received can identified and identified as “encumbered.” This module helps prevent overspending by ensuring that total actual expenditures plus related encumbrances (ordered goods, materials, or services) do not exceed budgeted amounts. Purchase orders are “encumbered” if they are under budget or if they are over budget and authorized. Purchase orders that have not been encumbered cannot be printed or received. Get fact sheet here http://www.microsoft.com/en-nz/download/details.aspx?id=31579

Grant Management integrates with Analytical Accounting lets you track accounting transactions relating to a grant, helping to streamline the grant management process and keep a closer eye on daily transactions and expenditures. Integration with Analytical Accounting also lets you create budgets for grants and other transaction dimensions. For example, Grant Management ensures that a transaction is within a grant’s start and end dates and the transaction is within budget. Get Grant Management fact sheet here - http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=31725 

Control Account Management enables companies to operate one general ledger account while also to keeping track of payables per segment ID, where each segment is associated with a different department, fund, or program. Control Account Management can automatically redistribute payables control account balances based on the segment ID of each expense account.

Interfund Management reconciles accounts that are in different companies or divisions. With Interfund Management, “due to” and “due from” transactions automatically are created to help you keep individual fund accounts in balance. When general ledger transactions are posted, they are analyzed to determine if the effects on each fund are balanced. If entries are needed to keep the fund accounts balanced, they automatically are generated. Interfund Management can designate any segment of a Microsoft Dynamics GP account number as the “fund” segment.

In addition, if you are using Workplace - WorkPlace Encumbrance Management interface makes WorkPlace Requisition compatible with the Encumbrance Management functionality in Dynamics GP.


In his book Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Financial Management Ian Grieve covers Encumbrance Management in a detailed chapter.  

Friday, January 24, 2014

Opening PDF Documents with Word

I accidentally discovered this today. In the past for I have used tools and websites like Zamzar.com for converting PDF documents to Word for editing. Today I accidentally opened a PDF document in Microsoft Word 2013 and got the message saying that Microsoft Word is going to covert the PDF file to Word!

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The result was a great looking Word Document !

 

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Has this been out for long, or did I just discover it ? 

 

EDIT : Looks like this was released with Word 2013 http://blogs.office.com/2012/08/09/unlock-pdfs-with-word-2013/

 

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

BizSpark for Start-ups

Microsoft has a great initiative for Start-ups – BizSpark. For Start-ups in their first 5 years, this gives them access to a ton of Microsoft Software (Windows, Office, Visual Studio, SQL Server, SharePoint, CRM) for free. I am in the process of helping a start-up, and was surprised they were not using this great FREE benefit from Microsoft. 

Eligibility - Your start-up qualifies for BizSpark if you are:

  • Developing software or apps
  • Less than 5 years old and privately held
  • Making less than US$1M annually

What you get

  • The MSDN Ultimate subscription (over $13,000 in software) provides the start-ups access to software downloads (over 11 terabytes of Microsoft products) for developer and testing purposes. This includes most of what you can think of: Windows 8 (and older), Windows Server 2012 (and older), Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate (and others), Team Foundation Server, SQL Server, SharePoint Server, etc.
  • Windows Azure hosting credits worth $150 a month which you can use to host your web site, your web app, Windows servers & yes Linux servers as well
  • Free for 3 Years !

Fine print

  • After 3 years, you keep everything you’ve used, get discounts to keep getting new software and benefits.
  • Microsoft might use your website for marketing (See the showcases on the BizSpark Website) – I’d consider this as a great positive!

What about Dynamics GP ? – I haven’t read anything specific about Dynamics GP, but a 90 day trial is available as part of the MSDN subscription which is a part of BizSpark. Dynamics CRM is definitely included. 

Naturally, this is a win for all – the start-ups can focus on investing in their core business in the initial years. Microsoft gets a possible customer when the start-up is a success.

I have put together my notes above, but Microsoft’s BizSpark website and Woot Studio do a much better job at explaining things, so check them out.  Also worth checking out is - BizSpark Program for Technology Startups: Software, Cloud and Developer Benefits.

Another plan worth investigating from  IBM is the Global Entrepreneur initiative. Here's a brief video. This initiative offers free software from IBM to assist nascent startups that focus on the industries covered in IBM's Smarter Planet program, including energy and utilities, health care, telecommunications, and government.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Great New Dynamics GP Blog

Just discovered a new Dynamics GP Blog by Mary Metzler and Todd Froemming.

Well, its new for me – looks like they have been writing for a while. Do check it out, and encourage them with feedback. I am adding them to www.GPWindow.com

Some recent posts -

The Easy and Accurate Return in Dynamics GP Sales Order Processing

Month End Reconciling Process for Accounts Payable

Entering Invoices Paid by Credit Card - Inventory Transactions

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Great Customer Service!

After about a decade, I had a requirement to send over a fax. Its been so long since I sent a fax, and I was too lazy to lookup the instructions to send a fax from the office. I had seen people send faxes online, and a quick google search pointed me to www.hellofax.com

The fax sending experience was nice and easy, but the message below made me smile. This is good customer service by even better programming! Well done guys.

 

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Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Mark Polino’s Dynamics GP Dashboards

In the Dynamics GP world, Mark Polino is the gift that keeps on giving. About 5 years back Mark had posted a few SQL scripts which provided great insight into Dynamics GP  data. I requested Mark to share them, and the next day he compiled and emailed them all. Last year Mark wrote a book around building great dashboards on top of Dynamics GP. Again, people have been requesting Mark to share these goodies. Mark’s worked hard to build generic dashboards that you can plug with your Dynamics GP install. Naturally, something like this takes an incredible amount of time – so please support Mark by purchasing these beautiful dashboards.

For more details check out www.DynamicAccounting.net/Analytics

Simplicity is a key driver in this prebuilt, sales dashboard designed for Microsoft Dynamics GP. The dashboard is plug and play with a very straightforward connection to your company's data. The dashboard includes:            

  
● Top Customers with corresponding costs               
● Top Items with corresponding costs               
● Top Salespeople, Territories and Sites               
● Sales over time with forward looking projection               
● Sales mix over time by item class               
● A full range of data filters to control information
               

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Monday, January 13, 2014

RapidStart Services for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013–Training Course

I have written about RapidStart Services for Dynamics GP before. Its a powerful set of tools which allows you to speed up implementations by providing -

  • RapidStart Services for Microsoft Dynamics GP Migration
  • RapidStart Services for Microsoft Dynamics GP Configuration 

Gloria has written a book on Rapid Implementation which covers these tools – check it out at http://rapidimplementation.com/

Microsoft has also published a 45 minute training course - 80577AE RapidStart Services for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013. Its available via Microsoft Dynamics eLearning or as a separate purchase. An hour spend learning about these tools will save you days during implementation.

For more details check out : RapidStart Services for Microsoft Dynamics GP

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The Rapid Implementation Tools for Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 and Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 and RapidStart Services for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 include two tools designed to shorten deployment time and enable greater Partner productivity by reducing the time required for routine implementation tasks. These tools are also designed to work with the Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step Methodology.

The Rapid Configuration Tool for Microsoft Dynamics GP quickly configures core application setup data to meet specific business needs. By using one of thirteen available industry templates, or a customized configuration template created in Microsoft Office Excel 2010 and/or Microsoft Office Excel 2013, a new Microsoft Dynamics GP company can be configured easily within the intuitive user interface. Settings and data such as the chart of accounts, fiscal years, payment terms, shipping methods, taxes, core financial and distribution module setup, and more can be quickly set up using this tool. New to this release is the ability to select individual Setup Areas allowing configurations to proceed in a phased approach rather than an all or none approach when importing configuration data from another Microsoft Dynamics GP company.

RapidStart Migration Tool for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 supports -

  • QuickBooks Pro (2003 - 2013), Premier (2003 - 2013) and Enterprise (3.0 - 13.0) Peachtree (2009 - 2012) versions of Pro, Complete and Premium, Sage 50 2013

Six Microsoft Dynamics GP Predictions for 2014

Mark Polino shares his Five Microsoft Dynamics GP Predictions for 2014 over at MSDynamicsWorld.com. Its a great list, and if I may add a sixth prediction -

Significantly Increased Adoption of Dynamics GP on Azure

Hosting GP on Azure Infrastructure Services is quick, cheap, efficient and scalable. I have already seen quite a few customers, and partners take the lead on this. If you haven’t yet started looking into it – Microsoft has a dedicated page at Partnersource.

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on Windows Azure

There’s video training, business value – but don’t miss the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on Windows Azure Deployment Whitepaper. The web client is revolutionary technology, and if you have the option – I always recommend going for it. Unfortunately, not a lot of major ISVs are compatible with the web client which has slowed adoption. Meanwhile, on Azure infrastructure services – everything works.

As Partners we have significant benefits with hosting on Azure -

  • Ability to reuse virtual machines
  • So much easier to create test environments
  • Less initial investment costs for small and mid sized businesses.
  • Flexible licensing - there's no need to procure and install hardware locally or rewrite your solutions to deploy to the cloud.