Many of our Dynamics SL clients that are north of 100 million in sales are beginning to upgrade now.  One client is one billion in sales with several years worth of customizations that they did themselves.  Many are only partly interested in staying current due to the impressive performance increases users saw between SQL 2000 and SQL 2005 in their move all the way to SQL 2008.  Most are upgrading due to the impressive array of improvements that Dynamics SL 2011 is delivering.  I’m not going to lie-I’m happy that many of these more challenging upgrades waited six months.  A version with as many improvements as Dynamics SL offers tends to have issues.  In practice, the only major issues we have seen with this upgrade, even before the service pack came out, have been around performance on underpowered hardware.  Dynamics SL 2011 was well tested and is performing well.

If you use the distribution modules and the project modules, you will be happy with the improvements.  A line item on a sales order can now create a project and task if you have allowed someone permissions to do this.  In the past you had to stop entering your sales order, create the project and task, and then go back into your sales order to complete.  If you did not do this, then only the time you billed to the project-not the sales ordered products would appear in your project analysis because the products’ costs and revenues could be missing (if you didn’t have permissions or time to set up the project and task).

One of the main improvements is that every user that has upgraded so far has loved has been Quick Query.  Our Dynamics GP product offers “Smartlists” and has for years.  Smartlists within GP and QuickQuery now within Dynamics SL do the same things-they let you get your data out of data jail without needing a Ph. D.  in Crystal Reports or SQL Server.  Both tools let you use the same name of the field in your query without having to know what table the data is in or what the very technical database name is for the field.  Users have loved it.

Those of you that have used Dynamics GP and changed jobs and switched to Dynamics SL-you miss your Smartlists don’t you? The Dynamics SL community was missing an easy to use query tool but has one now. Just like Smartlists, Quick Query allows you to create your own queries without help as the tool has been made so simple that it does not require that you know database table or field names.   It’s easy and useful.

This example shows Quick Query data viewed from prior years data-before Quick Query even existed.

 

It says a lot for a new version of software any time its user base begins to adopt early a new version.  Dynamics SL 2011 has earned the massive number of clients upgrading to this newest and nicest version.  For a more complete list of reasons people are upgrading from Dynamics SL version 5.5, 6,  and 7 up to Dynamics SL 2011, please download this What’s New in Dynamics SL brochure.  Certainly the impressive link to Sharepoint is one that everyone will love.  From each operational report screen, you have the option to push the report to a specific Sharepoint location.   This is great for non-Dynamics SL users that don’t need an entire ERP user but do want to see the invoices on their projects for example.

For Boyer clients, I would continue to attend our Dynamics GP Year End event each year.  We get very good feedback on this event each year and people consistently provide positive feedback about the use of their time.

For those of you that are not in the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and St. Paul, here are some other great resources.

The Dynamics GP Blog Community created some wonderful posts here: Schedule of Year-End Closing Blog Posts for Dynamics GP.  Here you will find a wealth of ideas on closing GP and straight from Microsoft.  You don’t even need to be logged into CustomerSource or PartnerSource to get access to these great ideas.

There is even a year-end video and niche topics such as payroll, analytical accounting, and fixed assets procedures in this series of blog posts.  If you are reading this from Canada, there is a post on Canadian Payroll too.

I hope this helps you for next year-whether or not you can make our client event at the new Microsoft Technology Center in December of 2012 in Edina, MN.

Analytical Accounting
Canadian Payroll
Fixed Assets
General Ledger
Install & Upgrade
Inventory
Payables Management
Receivables Management
US Payroll

For the 2011 year, there is a Year-End Video!

http://www.microsoft.com/showcase/en/us/details/91697dc7-4926-4144-8626-ca0eb8e284da

The product is one that is developed by long-time Dynamics SL ISV Max Q Technologies.

Here are some of the things that impressed me about John Pavain’s demonstration to our software developer prospect:

• The recurring element can be configured in either or both Accounts Receivable as well as Order Management.
• The product accommodates software firms selling directly to end-users or to software firms selling through a reseller channel.
• Many periodic options were available for billing and revenue recognition including: weekly, bi-monthly, monthly, quarterly and annually, ad-hoc, or a user provided algorithm.
• There is an additional module for encrypted credit card transactions that can accept payments from clients right away.
• Contracts can be created automatically.
• Revenue Types can dictate the schedules for revenue recognition, Contract supply the billing rules.
• The number of days in a month method can make for precise revenue recognition.
• Can process “Bundles” with full compliance with VSOE rules. Each “Bundle” component can have its own revenue recognition rull.
• Contract can have beginning and ending dates there also is a perpetual option, like your cable company to allow billing to continue until the client says “stop”.
• There is a forecasting revenue option that allows you to “discount” the likelihood of getting paid by some percentage amount as the contract gets older. This makes for more accurate guesses at what revenue should come in.

Recurring billing shows a similar billing schedule as you could find in Flexible Billings but, the Software allows the schedule to be linked to a sales order as depicted above. Among the many benefits to an order entry link is being able to use the sales tax of the ship to in the order, as well as the many other nice options in the sales order screen. Sales by item or service reports can be better tracked for example.

This prospect has a self-proclaimed “mish-mash” of billing options where the sales staff can make lots of new and difficult billing options. I’m confident we will win this one due to the fact that MaxQ has Recurring Billing and a seasoned staff to help deal with any new billing or rev recognition methods that get added along the way.

The fact that the MaxQ screens were developed in the Dynamics SL toolset only makes the software that much easier to configure and train as users have a jump on the user interface already. Our prospect was very impressed in only 30 minutes of review of this product.

Nice job MaxQ. I hope this product works as well as other products you’ve sold our clients.

To review the full gamut of Dynamics SL add-on products offered by MaxQ, please click here on MaxQ SL products. I was fortunate enough that our Dynamics SL Practice Manager already knew of this product.

What I see now is Dynamics AX has added tremendous functionality in the project accounting area and multi-company areas.  Two improvements I am especially looking forward to that should come soon are a timecard entry screen using HTML5.  This is slated for 2013.  The other feature already exists in Dynamics AX and that is the capability to schedule resources according to needed skillsets.

Like Dynamics SL, Dynamics AX allows journal transactions and other financial data entry into projects.  Account types of journal type, project, and vendor can be entered at the line item level.  Project types of cost, internal and investment can be assigned for a fixed asset.  Dynamics SL had this functionality but it had to be delivered by a nice ISV program by Progressive System Solutions.    The other similarity is that fixed assets can be both related to a project and also used by multiple companies.

The integration between fixed assets and the rest of Dynamics AX is everywhere.  You want to record the gain or loss on the sale of an asset when you invoice someone for that asset-no problem?  This is built in functionality.  You want to begin depreciating an asset as soon as you enter your PO for the asset-no problem.  Dynamics AX allows you to configure fixed assets such that you don’t need to receive the asset-the PO is enough.  You can set this up so that the receipt is assumed.

Assigning bar code numbers can be done in accounts payable.  The fixed asset program also allows you to track multiple value models and loan out the asset to other departments, companies etc.  The value models are used to track another set of books for foreign companies or subsidiaries where the real value (market) of the asset is more important than the book value.   Want to lend out your fixed asset to another division, location, company, branch, etc.?  No problem simply click on the Lend button within the fixed asset form with the asset up that you want to loan.

Consolidations, eliminations, and dealing with foreign currency valuations all got easier.  Elimination journals for example can be set up as automatic and they also allow you to validate the results of the elimination entries.

I would have to say that Dynamics GP financial modules are a bit easier to use.  This is mainly due to the fact however that Dynamics AX encourages more separation of duties and assumptions that different people are doing different tasks rather than the smaller to mid-market firms where an accounts payable person, for example, could be entering the voucher, selecting the bills to pay, and printing the checks.

What else is tremendous about Dynamics GP?  National Accounts and Collections are modules in the Dynamics GP that really set apart GP from other mid-market accounting products.  Dynamics AX has this functionality built into the A/R module-that’s both Collections capabilities and National Accounts capabilities.  For those of you not familiar with National Accounts, this is the feature that allows you to deal easily with parent/child relationships that exist among larger customers.  For example where you may invoice locations 1, 2 and 3 as different customers but then get paid by a centrally located headquarters.

So we still see plenty of opportunity for Dynamics SL and Dynamics GP, but Dynamics AX is promptly catching up and surpassing the two formerly mentioned products quickly.  Dynamics AX is one product to watch as Microsoft continues to invest heavily in improving this product to make it powerful, agile and simple.

There is one particular software firm we used to lose to larger engineering firms. Engineers love process and workflow. They want to see a product’s whole flow from project scheduling of resources, to timecard, to timecard approval to project draft invoice to invoice to a/r, to g/l to financial report-and don’t skip anything or just show us what’s sexy!

The challenge we always used to run into with Dynamics SL, which has tremendous financial and project accounting modules, unfolded something like this: we have to show the engineers an ISV product for project scheduling, our timecard looks outdated and a little clunky, our timecard to g/l is solid, but here we come with a fourth user interface when we show financial reporting with drill downs. That in itself would not have been terrible because we are smooth, the challenge came in that our competitor delivered all of this within one user interface.

As a firm that has represented these Microsoft products for 17 years, its’ nice to learn that the New Sheriff just happens to be our big brother-another Microsoft Dynamics product-Dynamics AX.

Dynamics AX brings lots of better integration to the table compared to vertical industry packages not developed by Microsoft.

Here are a handful of boxing moves delivered by Dynamics AX in the services industries. A built in project scheduling module in the familiar Outlook style user interface with strong links to Excel and Word. Office Add-ins such as: most competing vertical products in the Services space can only export data out. In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, the Microsoft Office add-ins lets a user export and import data. The four main uses for the Microsoft Add-ins are as follows:

•Lightweight reporting: From any grid in the client or Enterprise Portal, export data, extend and build upon it in Excel, then update as conditions change.

•Editing data in Excel: Update Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 data by using the Excel add-ins.

•Import data by using Excel: Excel can be used as a template to collect reference and master data to be imported into MicrosoftDynamics AX 2012.

• Templates and documents: Incorporate Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 data in Word or Excel documents (for example: collection letter, quotation, sales forecast, project forecast, aging report, and so on.)

What else do I like about AX in the Services Industry? How about this for a good start:

1.  Extended Price Matching in Dynamics AX allows professional services firms to ensure that subs are not overcharging them.  Please see the screen below.

The ability to accept credit cards from customers as a native part of the software.

2. Every report re-created using Microsoft SQL Server’s robust SQL Reporting Services.  This ensures fewer upgrade problems.

3. Many services firms sell stuff but don’t have inventory so drop ships and reconciling those drop ship revenues and costs to the g/l.  AX excels here.

4. Refund checks are part of accounts receivable-no need to set up a vendor when a client wants a refund rather than a credit.

5. Project scheduling (yea!)

6. Impressive EDI capabilities for those service companies that serve an increasingly growing government and need to bill electronically.

7. Easier screen customizations and role tailored menus for an overall sense of extreme ease-of-use.

8. Workflow in accounts payable for invoice approvals (Services firms often have approvers on the road too).

9. Enhanced previews for most fields where hovering provides great examples for how a field is used and what some of the possible values might be in a field that has segments. See below for example.

So you can see, the Dynamics SL big brother has more than just size.  This dangerous character can throw a hook, jab, uppercut, etc.   Let the opening bell ring for Round 1!

January 5, 2012, Minneapolis, MN — Boyer & Associates, (Boyer) a leading provider of business management solutions for mid-sized businesses, today announced that it has won three new ERP projects within the energy, education, and healthcare industries. The new projects include developing and implementing  Microsoft Dynamics GP and  Microsoft Dynamics SL ERP solutions.

Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics SL are enterprise resource planning (ERP) and business software solutions that help integrate finance, accounting, manufacturing, project, and other supply chain management business processes. More specifically, Microsoft Dynamics

GP software delivers comprehensive out-of-the-box business management functionality, from operations management and financial management to human resource management and manufacturing. Designed for project-driven organizations, Microsoft Dynamics SL is designed for project-driven organizations that helps streamline business processes, deliver insight, and connect project management and accounting across company divisions and locations.

Boyer & Associates continues to expand its client base by providing its customers “choice” by offering multiple Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions and deployment options for both enterprise level companies as well as small and mid-size organizations.

“We ended 2011 very strong and are extremely excited to work with these new clients. We look forward to using our ERP knowledge and expertise coupled with Microsoft’s industry leading ERP solutions to help empower and advance these organizations,” said Jack Boyer, president of Boyer & Associates.

About Boyer & Associates

Boyer & Associates, a Minneapolis-based firm, resells and consults on accounting/ERP products including, Microsoft Dynamics SL, and Microsoft Dynamics GP. The firm provides implementation services, custom tailoring, integration, report writing and support services for each product. Boyer’s national awards include Microsoft’s President’s Club, the Accounting Today’s Pacesetters Award, and the 2011 VAR Stars Award. Boyer delivers on their client’s vision by offering the best technology choices, configurable and tailored software, and team collaboration.

VAR Stars award by Progressive Media Group’s Bob Scott’s Insights (www.BobScottsInsights.com). One hundred resellers from across the U.S. are selected each year for this honor and this is the second consecutive time Boyer & Associates was named to the list.

The 2011 VAR Stars on the list have a practice involving the sale of mid-market financial software and while most derive significant revenue from other sources, accounting software is the core to their business. Each of the 100 members has equal standing and is not rated. The selection of VARs included several factors including growth, industry leadership and innovation and representation of a broad range of products. Boyer & Associates sells and supports Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics SL financial management solutions to a variety of industries throughout Minnesota.

“It’s an honor to have our firm be selected as a 2011 VAR Star winner,” said Jack Boyer, president of Boyer & Associates. “We are extremely pleased to be recognized again as one of the outstanding resellers and service providers of accounting software applications.”

About Boyer & Associates

Boyer & Associates, a Minneapolis-based firm, resells and consults on accounting/ERP products including, Microsoft Dynamics SL, and Microsoft Dynamics GP. The firm provides implementation services, custom tailoring, integration, report writing and support services for each product. Boyer’s national awards include Microsoft’s President’s Club, the Accounting Today’s Pacesetters Award, and the 2011 VAR Stars Award. Boyer delivers on their client’s vision by offering the best technology choices, configurable and tailored software, and team collaboration.

Seriously, tomorrow at Microsoft we are offering a year end event for our Dynamics clients.  We expect over 100 people to attend.  For Dynamics SL, there is a bit less to remember and do to close out the year.  There are at times, however where people post transactions to the wrong period and need to learn how to clean that up from both a period and sometimes year end standpoint.  This free class does that.

We are excited to this event at Microsoft’s new offices in Edina, MN.  The ones in Bloomington, MN were nice but these offices have a wow factor.

There is still some room to sign up if you have not yet.  Please register at this link if you are interested.  http://portal.boyerassoc.com/event-calendar  It does not matter if you use Dynamics SL or Dynamics GP.  The events are in adjacent rooms.

We hope to see you and help make your life easier with closing out your periods and especially year end.  We will have a special time at the end for payroll users as well.

Jack Howell worked here at Boyer & Associates in a marketing capacity for a little more than two years. Jack successfully implemented CRM Version 4 for us while doing a host of other useful marketing projects at Boyer & Associates. Now, like most of the PowerObjects staff, Jack lives and breathes CRM.

Jack Boyer: Jack, you were a CRM consultant initially when you first started at PowerObjects. I know that was challenging for you at first because you had less experience than most of the consultants at PowerObjects. How much did that experience help you become a better Pre-Sales Consultant?

Jack Howell: It helped me tremendously. One of the keys to being able to give believable, results-oriented, problem solving presentations is knowing the software. Nothing helps a person to learn software better than being the consultant that people turn to when they can’t figure things out.

Jack Boyer: What else has there been about your move to PowerObjects that you’ve enjoyed?

Jack Howell: I love it that all we do is CRM. Supporting software and even selling software can be so complex that it’s nice to have everyone focused on one thing. It makes it easier to be really good at something when you only do one thing. I love being able to go to an expert in a certain area when I need help preparing for a presentation. We have people that understand the underlying data views (CRM does not encourage direct table writes), how to make screens accommodate the workflow a prospect wants, and industry specialists.

Jack Boyer: What else have you enjoyed? I know PowerObjects core values of always add value, live the technology, think team, do the right thing, and love what you do sound motivating to me. How often and in what ways are you reminded to do these things?

Jack Howell: We really do live the core values here at PowerObjects. It’s not just empty words. In particular the concept of “Think Team” stands out for me. Today we have over 70 employees, but what makes working at PowerObjects great is that everyone who works here is always willing to share what they know. I’m always amazed at the depth of experience of our staff, but it wouldn’t matter if they were not spreading the knowledge around. And the best part is it happens naturally, based in large part on the positive culture at PowerObjects. Our employees are genuinely happy to work here. We all know that sharing what we know helps make the entire team better and in turn makes for happier customers and lots of successful implementations.

Jack Boyer: What about integrations? I know PowerObjects has integrated with almost everything, but to keep this question manageable any thoughts on integrating with the other two Dynamics ERP products, Dynamics GP and Dynamics SL?

Jack Howell: As you know we use the Dynamics SL that you helped us implement here at PowerObjects and we love it. Part of what we love so much is the platform’s ability to allow us to fetch any piece of data we want from Dynamics SL and allow our users to view that in Dynamics CRM. For example, most sales people, consultants, and of course project managers are interested in viewing a project’s budget vs. its actual hours. We don’t however have access to Dynamics SL or necessarily want access to Dynamics SL. We want to see the data in the application we are in all day (CRM) and be able to get what we want from other programs. Dynamics SL allows us to do that.

Jack Boyer: What about Dynamics GP?

Jack Howell: Dynamics GP comes with a number of pre-created integrations with Dynamics CRM. We find that the pre-built integration between those two products works great if that’s what you want to integrate. However with some clients they need additional integrations or need the integrations to function differently then the pre-built connector; in that case we usually build something custom. That being said things like inserting vendors and being able to maintain vendor addresses from either Dynamics CRM or Dynamics GP is quite handy. So there is definitely value.

Jack Boyer: What about tools for integrating the two. I know that in the early days of CRM 3 and 4, PowerObjects was using Scribe a lot for integration. Are web services beginning to replace tools such as Scribe or not?

Jack Howell: Not necessarily. We still use Scribe a lot and really like it. With integrations there are always a lot of different ways to go about it so often it depends on the situation.

When we integrate CRM with GP, we will almost always use Scribe. But when we integrate CRM with other systems we are using SSIS or custom development. On occasion we will use the CRM-GP connector from Microsoft like I mentioned earlier. 

When we interact with CRM using custom development or SSIS, we use web services.

Jack Boyer: I’ve heard talk of PowerPack items. What are they?

Jack Howell: PowerPack items are Dynamics CRM add-ons that PowerObjects develops based on feedback and suggestions we receive from our clients.

For example we have a tool that allows you to search for information across all entities in Dynamics CRM (PowerGlobalSearch ) and display all the information in an easy to navigate and configurable reading pane. Another tool we’ve developed allows companies to create surveys from within Dynamics CRM and send them out to specific groups or marketing lists (PowerSurvey)– and of course as the surveys are completed the responses automatically get tracked back to CRM and associated with the corresponding contact or lead record.

The last one I’ll touch on is PowerMailChimp. This is another PowerPack item we are really excited about. It integrates Dynamics CRM and the email marketing service MailChimp. MailChimp allows you to create really nice email templates to use for something like a newsletter or event invitation. But now with this integration, you create your marketing lists in CRM and then just use your MailChimp Email templates for your campaign. And again, like the survey tool, all the track back statistics, like click- throughs, opens, bounces etc. get tracked back to the corresponding CRM record. It’s really a huge time saver for Marketing Departments because now you don’t have to manage two lists.

One of the best parts is all PowerPack items are packaged as solutions so they are easy to import into your organizations’ Dynamics CRM instance. You can check out these components and others as part of free 30 day trials available for download in the Dynamics Marketplaceor on the PowerObjects Website.

November 29, 2011, Minneapolis, MN — Boyer & Associates, (Boyer) a leading provider of business management solutions for mid-sized businesses, announces the completion of an ERP financial management project for  Sajan, Inc. (Sajan), the leading global provider of translation services and software. Boyer & Associates implemented Microsoft Dynamics GP for Sajan to help meet public company financial compliance requirements, manage multi-currency transactions, and consolidate and streamline financial reporting.

Due to a merger with a public company, Sajan needed a more robust financial management ERP solution that would help meet regulatory compliance and financial reporting requirements. To help Sajan meet these needs, Boyer & Associates implemented Microsoft Dynamics GP, an industry leading financial accounting ERP solution.

“As we moved our business from a private to a public sector company, we knew our existing accounting solution wouldn’t meet our requirements. We looked to Boyer & Associates to deploy Microsoft Dynamics GP due to its extensive functionality, improved internal controls,  and in-depth reporting capabilities, said Lori Bechtel, Controller, with Sajan, Inc. “Having an industry leading solution like Microsoft Dynamics GP coupled with Boyer’s expertise in implementing ERP solutions, gave us the functionality and efficiency we needed.”

The new solution from Boyer offers accurate real-time reporting of financial information across the organization and provides the financial controls needed from an auditing perspective. “We are really impressed by the robust reporting capabilities and the intercompany consolidation features.  ,” she added. “The strong financial controls help us track, trace, and report information in order to manage financial processes and meet external reporting requirements. Overall, the in-depth reporting has given us the insight and confidence we needed across the entire organization.”

Sajan is a global company and needed a solution that would also allow them to take control of their multi-national operations and manage currency transactions smoothly and efficiently. “By extending multi-currency capabilities with Microsoft Dynamics GP, we have optimized our productivity and eliminated many manual processes,” said Bechtel.

Since deployment, the organization has not only met their compliance requirements but they have significantly improved productivity and operational efficiency. “From an accounting perspective, we have eliminated about 40 hours a week in manual data entry which allows our staff to focus on other core needs,” she said.

Overall, Sajan has experienced significant benefits with the solution. “Working with the Boyer team has been a great experience. With their ERP knowledge and capabilities, the new solution has definitely met our expectations and has given us the efficiency that we needed. We are very excited by functionality that Microsoft Dynamics GP brings to our organization now and as our company continues to grow in the future,” Bechtel added.

About Boyer & Associates

Boyer & Associates, a Minneapolis-based firm, resells and consults on accounting/ERP products including, Microsoft Dynamics SL &  Microsoft Dynamics GP. The firm provides implementation services, custom tailoring, integration, report writing and support services for each product. Boyer’s national awards include Microsoft’s President’s Club and the Accounting Today’s Pacesetters Award. Boyer delivers on their client’s vision by offering the best technology choices, configurable and tailored software, and team collaboration.

About Sajan

Sajan is a leading provider of global language translation and localization services, helping clients around the world expand seamlessly into any global market. The foundation of our solution is our industry leading language translation management system technology – GCMSTM – which provides process automation and innovative multilingual content reuse to provide schedule predictability, higher quality and cost efficiencies to our clients. By working closely with our clients, Sajan’s experienced team of localization professionals develop tailored solutions which provide flexibility to any large or small business who truly desire to “think globally, but act locally.” Based out of the United States, we also have offices in Ireland, Spain and India. Sajan is publicly traded on the NASDAQ under the symbol SAJA.OB. Learn more about Sajan at  www.sajan.com.