Typically when many non-profits configure Dynamics SL for their organizations, they configure accounts as gl accounts, subaccounts as divisions, departments or locations and then projects as, well, projects. One of our consultants, Bud Brenneman, successfully worked with a client on a different approach. The organization is Community Action Partnership of Ramsey & Washington Counties here in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Together we were able to be creative in coming up with a better way to earmark and preserve money for what their donors originally intended. By configuring projects as funds, the organization is able to better track and “quarantine” money meant for a specific purpose so that it does not get spent … [Read more...] about Dynamics SL Funds as Projects?
Virtualizing Dynamics GP and Dynamics SL
Three years ago a large national medical association here in the Twin Cities (Minnesota, USA) shared with us that they had been running Dynamics SL in a virtual environment for the past year. We were surprised. That environment was not supported by Microsoft, yet here they were running in this environment for a year, without incident, and casually mentioned that this was working fine on their SAN. Since then, we’ve had many Dynamics GP and Dynamics SL clients running our products on virtualized environments. Mostly people have chosen VMWare, but occasionally we run into Hyper-V as well. Most picked VMWare because they were the leaders in the market, the “standard” option for virtualization. Microsoft just came on the market with … [Read more...] about Virtualizing Dynamics GP and Dynamics SL
What Makes Dynamics SL Superior for Project Accounting?
Although Dynamics SL has incredible multi-company and distribution features, SL’s project accounting feature depth seems to continue to be the way that Microsoft positions this product.Why is that?Below are 6 reasons why Microsoft likes Dynamics SL in this project-centric space for consulting firms, construction firms and just about any other type of firm that lives or dies by the success of their projects.1. Projects are woven into the design of most modules. You can make a journal entry to a project with the project and task fields prominently displayed in the Journal Entry data grid just as you can in any of the data entry screens in Dynamics SL. You can issue inventory to a project, you can buy inventory for a project, … [Read more...] about What Makes Dynamics SL Superior for Project Accounting?
Upgrading SQL 2005 for Microsoft Dynamics GP
An excellent marketing firm out of Fargo, ND, The Partner Channel, offers a useful magazine to partners. In their most recent magazine, is an article many of you on the Dynamics GP side of our business would find helpful. It’s written by a user, not a consultant-but clearly a user that could do consulting work.He discusses the following 3 options:1. Upgrading your Current Instance2. Installing a Side-by-Side Instance3. New Install on Different ServerThese ideas of course would work for Dynamics SL also or any of the Microsoft Dynamics products running on SQL Server such as Dynamics AX, Dynamics NAV, or Dynamics CRM. If you are considering this database upgrade, please read the post when you can at … [Read more...] about Upgrading SQL 2005 for Microsoft Dynamics GP
“Nothing Succeeds Like Success” in ERP Implementations
My mother was very smart because she was smart about things that mattered. Oh, she could do the hard math, the Latin, and the pain-in-the-neck late night questions from the high school kids (my sisters and I) without complaining, but mainly she knew how to have success at most endeavors.She used to say “Nothing Succeeds Like Success” a lot.While she was no where near as entertaining or flamboyant as my father, she always pushed us to have small successes first in any larger undertaking. …and it usually made a difference.It works at home too. I have one child that has an amazing backhand in tennis. She is more tentative with her forehand. If we start with nothing but backhands for her (instant success), the rest of the … [Read more...] about “Nothing Succeeds Like Success” in ERP Implementations
Accounting Software Change Questions to Ask
The challenge for most organizations in upgrading or improving their accounting software or ERP platform is that they do this kind of thing so rarely that they don’t have the experience to ask themselves the right questions.The purpose of this blog post is to help you if you are in this position and want to actively do things that will help ensure your success with this change.1. Ask yourself “Should we change or simply upgrade?” Currently there is a lot of good debate about moving to the cloud. Some vendors that do not have true cloud solutions are defining the cloud as “hosting” the software at another site. For many, what makes a change worthwhile are substantive changes such as better features that you can not get with … [Read more...] about Accounting Software Change Questions to Ask
Microsoft Dynamics SL 7.0 and FRx 6.7 64-bit Operating System support
Not everyone is ready yet to move to Dynamics SL 2011. There are SQL database upgrades that need to take place that some Dynamics SL users are not ready yet to make. For the many users out there that have bought 64-bit computers that run Windows 7-this post is for you.The below information was provided to me by Jeff Larson, an environment specialist for both Dynamics SL and Dynamics GP. Microsoft Dynamics SL 7.0 From the Microsoft Dynamics SL 7.0 System Requirements document from Microsoft: “Note: On 64-bit operating systems, Microsoft Dynamics SL 7.0 FP1 and later will install in the “Windows on Window” folder and will run in 32-bit mode. Earlier Microsoft Dynamics SL versions do not support 64-bit operating systems.” To … [Read more...] about Microsoft Dynamics SL 7.0 and FRx 6.7 64-bit Operating System support
Fund Accounting and Dynamics SL
Often Non-Profits need to use fund accounting--a method for recording resources whose use may be limited by granting agencies, donors, or governing boards.Funds consist of self–balancing sets of asset, liability, net asset, revenue and expense accounts. Fund balances should be classified on the statement of financial position as permanently restricted, unrestricted, or temporarily restricted based on the existence of restrictions.Using a fund accounting system allows an organization to segregate financial resources between those dollars available for operations and those dollars intended for a specified use. A fund accounting system provides an audit trail as the dollars are spent for their purpose and released from the … [Read more...] about Fund Accounting and Dynamics SL
The Fixed Fee Engagement
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?
