When consulting with Dynamics SL and Dynamics GP, we often find ourselves in the position of being asked to setup certain modules on a fixed fee or fixed price basis. From the user’s standpoint, this is extremely understandable. They want to know what they are going to pay. They don’t want to pay more than what they have agreed to-kind of like a purchase order where the client is in control of how much is spent. There are lots of good things about fixed price engagements. They make the consultant give the higher part of the estimate-should you be doing business with someone you don’t know. After all, if we give the client a low number, they are still going to hold us to that, so we have no … [Read more...] about The Fixed Fee Engagement
Dynamics GP Excel Refreshable Reports-Ditch the Spreadsheets?
One of our favorite missions used to be getting people to stop using spreadsheets with Dynamics GP and Dynamics SL here with clients in Minneapolis and the surrounding areas.We would see people keying data in 3 and 4 times to different worksheets because they wanted the data to be in the exact format they were comfortable seeing it or that their boss wanted it. More often than not the data was keyed differently to one source than the other and very difficult to reconcile.Now with web services and Microsoft’s Refreshable Excel Reports-we find ourselves telling people “Ditch the Spreadsheets!” far less. We still do not want people keying the same data more than once, but Excel now can be the viewing tool for extremely useful … [Read more...] about Dynamics GP Excel Refreshable Reports-Ditch the Spreadsheets?
Currency Basics and Dynamics SL
For those of us that work in the middle of the country, like Minneapolis, with no foreign shore close to us, currency is still a factor for our larger clients and clients doing business with a not-so-far-from-Minnesota Canada.We find that many middle-market companies are finding recently that they are having to deal with currency issues. Teaching people how currency modules work is not easy when the people being taught are not ready to learn what the software does yet. Typically most accountants in this position need a refresher on what they should want it to do.Mostly we find people don’t understand the different types of currency gains and losses. So here are your basics below if currency is new to you, yet you’ve been … [Read more...] about Currency Basics and Dynamics SL
Comparing FRx to Management Reporter
If you attended our Dynamics GP or Dynamics SL events (the 2 events attracted almost 100 people) last month here in Minneapolis, you already learned these things. You might still like the refresher course or having these items documented for you rather than “in one ear …”. Before the session, many of the attendees were concerned about having to move from the comfort of FRx to the newness of Management Reporter.From a user’s perspective, there are big technical improvements and nice features such as the long awaited “undo” capability, but for the most part the rows, columns and trees are the same. Catalogs with FRx are now called Report Definitions with MR. That’s not a change that anyone is going to have a hard time … [Read more...] about Comparing FRx to Management Reporter
Time, Time, Time is on My Side (Yes it is)
I selected this title because I felt a bit out of touch when I read this morning that 96% of people under 50 (I’m 49) have Facebook accounts that have been used in the past month. I don’t have one.Ok, my wife Kate reminds me that I’m a little uptight even by accountant standards-but are there that many people really wasting that much time?You can’t reclaim time spent so why is everyone goofing off so much? I have to admit that I cringe when I see my kids on Facebook. Really-you have nothing better to do than look at pictures of your friends and post “updates”?Perhaps managing a professional services firm, where our main asset is time, makes me sensitive about this. In a good post by Synergy Business Solutions in Seattle, Michael … [Read more...] about Time, Time, Time is on My Side (Yes it is)
Comparing Dynamics Products
When would you opt for Dynamics GP, rather than Dynamics AX? What about Dynamics SL? What features and capabilities does that product have making it a better fit? Is Dynamics NAV sometimes a better fit?Full disclosure, our business sells and supports both Dynamics GP and Dynamics SL. Not only do we sell and support those products, we love them.For Dynamics SL, this product still has lots of capabilities that the other 3 have some of but not with the depth and ease of use that SL can deliver. Most of these capabilities are in the project series.For example, a Dynamics SL user can enter a sales order for product that is part of a project and have the lines on the sales order go to different tasks on a … [Read more...] about Comparing Dynamics Products
Boyer & Associates Helps Walker Methodist Improve Financial and Operational Efficiency with Microsoft Dynamics GP
May 25, 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 Walker Methodist, a nonprofit organization founded in 1945 that serves seniors throughout the Twin Cities with senior housing communities, assisted living, skilled nursing, transitional care, and rehabilitation therapy.To update the non-profit’s antiquated financial management system, Boyer & Associates implemented Microsoft Dynamics GP , an industry leading financial accounting solution. “Our old software was difficult to maintain and keep updated with newer operating systems, and we knew Microsoft Dynamics GP was the right … [Read more...] about Boyer & Associates Helps Walker Methodist Improve Financial and Operational Efficiency with Microsoft Dynamics GP
Software as a Service and IT Professionals
ZDNet published an interesting post on a blog that is linked here toward the bottom of this post.The article is about how some IT Professionals see Microsoft providing them less “love”, that is free services, convenient user interfaces, free software, etc.As Dynamics GP and Dynamics SL partners and consultants, our MSDN memberships and Gold Status have not changed in ways that favor our developers more than our infrastructure support person for these platforms. Here in Minneapolis, not much has changed in terms of how Microsoft treats us perhaps in part because we have developers and an IT Professional to support our Dynamics products.The argument is that Microsoft sees the cloud as a development platform and is beginning to court … [Read more...] about Software as a Service and IT Professionals
Dynamics GP and Dynamics SL-Making and Testing Backups
If you make bad backups for 6 consecutive months and your system doesn’t crash-are you lucky? …or does it depend on whether or not you learn that you’ve been making bad back ups and change your behavior?As Dynamics Consultants based here in Minneapolis, we try to check clients’ SQL backups each time we go out. It’s not always possible. Sometimes the list of things clients need help with doesn’t fit in the time for ensuring clients are getting a good backup.More often than we would like to admit, our Dynamics GP and Dynamics SL consultants learn the database maintenance plan has stopped running for a variety of reasons, for example: ran out of disk space, the owner of the backup job had a password change, a configuration change in SQL … [Read more...] about Dynamics GP and Dynamics SL-Making and Testing Backups
Dynamics GP and Dynamics SL Reporting Reflections
Boyer & Associates staff just held two well-attended Dynamics events at the Microsoft office in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) area.Many of the presenters prepared for more than 8 hours to present what they had to show despite most already having over 10 years in experience with their chosen product-Dynamics SL or Dynamics GP.What surprised me the most about the surveys and thoughts on the minds of our (mostly) Minnesota based clients? The focus that clients still have with getting the data out in a format that is useful to them.For both events-Dynamics GP clients were focused on Smartlists, Smartlist builder and some nice add-on tools from Rockton software. They liked seeing Management Reporter and what those … [Read more...] about Dynamics GP and Dynamics SL Reporting Reflections