Steven Bragg is the author of “Fast Close” and 18 other accounting books including one of the most best read accounting books in the U.S.-“Accounting Best Practices”.Some of you may be thinking that you would prefer to watch a Minnesota Twins game where the club makes their annual come back from a slow start into an exciting pennant contender. If you are more consumed with getting the books closed faster, this post is for you.Each year it seems there is more and more pressure to close quickly with Sarbanes-Oxley requirements and organizations eagerness to find out early how they performed due to the economy.Some of the bullets from Bragg’s book on closing your books more quickly are the following:Shifting the timing of closing … [Read more...] about Closing The Month Faster with Dynamics SL and GP
Dynamics SL Contract Management
Construction seems to be coming back. Before the state of Minnesota government shut down last Friday, I was hearing from both existing client construction firms and prospective client construction firms about improvements they wanted to make. I would assume that outside of Minnesota, this wake-up in the construction community is happening since other states don’t have the unfortunate shut down in state financed projects that many of our construction firms are seeing here. (Our income tax is 8% here and the state would like to increase that-so there is plenty of state money to spend on construction and everything else.)This post is about a Microsoft ERP product called Dynamics SL and what it can do for construction firms … [Read more...] about Dynamics SL Contract Management
A Project’s Task Net Profit-Dynamics SL
The Task Net Profit drilldown from the Project Net Profit screen in Dynamics SL provides net profit and budget analysis for all or selected tasks of a project.A partial task value may be entered for selection purposes. Matching tasks may be rolled up into one line per account category by entering a number in # of Summary Characters.If this value is zero, the display shows one line for each account category (An account category is similar to a PM’s chart of accounts) of each task.Also available in this screen is a graphical representation of the data and, in conjunction with the Analyzer module, the ability to export the contents of the grid to a Microsoft Excel® spreadsheet for further analysis. Subtotals of the revenue and expense … [Read more...] about A Project’s Task Net Profit-Dynamics SL
Dynamics SL and Project Net Profit
The Project Net Profit screen in Dynamics SL provides net profit and budget analysis for a project or a group of projects, showing one line of information for each account category. As account category to Dynamics SL is like a project manager’s chart of accounts-just easier to read (not numbers). Also available in this screen is a graphical representation of the data and the ability to drill down to supporting detail.In the Project Net Profit Screen, you can see that Commitments created by Purchase Orders and Timecards are also reflected in this screen-making the screen itself quite useful to project managers who have made commitments (cut purchase orders or had crews working on projects).Only account categories with an account type of … [Read more...] about Dynamics SL and Project Net Profit
Dynamics SL Project Allocator
One of the things that true project accounting professionals love about Dynamics SL is that the software has not one by many project accounting modules.There is a module for time and expense as expected, there is a module for creating customized billings by project, there is a module to track goals against utilization goals, and there is a module to track multiple iterations of project budgets rather than simply the original project budget and current budget.These modules set Dynamics SL apart as a superior project accounting solution as does the software’s design of project-related prompts through financial and distribution modules as well.One of the truly unique modules within the Dynamics SL project series is the Project Allocator … [Read more...] about Dynamics SL Project Allocator
What’s Really Happening “In the Cloud” ERP-Wise?
Here are Minneapolis-based experiences so far “in the cloud” as a Microsoft Dynamics SL and Dynamics GP partner, and conclusions from this experience.First, it doesn’t matter how you define “The Cloud”. People have defined the cloud in 3 different ways that I’ve heard recently. First, some think that SaaS (Software as a Service) is the cloud. Second, some think that anything running in a browser whether on premise or off-site is the cloud. Third, some think that the cloud is simply moving any legacy program to having it hosted elsewhere-regardless of how this is deployed.Does it matter for small to medium sized businesses how the cloud is defined? I used to think that it does matter. But does it? … [Read more...] about What’s Really Happening “In the Cloud” ERP-Wise?
Dynamics SL Funds as Projects?
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?
“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
