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This is part three of a three part series where we consider the perspective of an existing customer on traditional Great Plains, and the benefits of using Great Plains with SMB Suite as an alternative to having to learn another cloud ERP system.

The challenge every business faces today is finding a user friendly way of getting a clearer picture of what’s happening in their business. Many businesses rely on Excel for analysis, but it’s hard to get valuable business intelligence because Excel is not designed to do this by itself. The ideal solution would be an easy-to-use solution like Excel that makes it easy to access the right data.

SMB Suite makes achieving this goal much easier because the business intelligence function is built in. The reporting and planning tool is based on Excel with seamless integration into Microsoft Dynamics. The drag and drop reporting design makes it easy to find the data needed with full visibility of the Dynamics data tables built in. The analytics tools help to better understand the financial data by transforming it into easy-to-understand graphs and charts. The results? Employees are more productive, less reliant on IT, and they’re able to build customized reports of the data needed, thus empowering them to make better decisions.

Today employees are connected to the office by mobile devices. However, if the answers they are looking for can only be accessed from the office, it causes the “when I get back to the office I’ll get you that” syndrome.  This can put your business at a competitive disadvantage and at best reduces productivity for everyone. Running Microsoft Dynamics in the cloud helps to solve this problem because information access is no longer confirmed within the walls of the business. The cloud makes it possible for employees to securely access company information using a web browser from anywhere. Of course, just like the on-premise version of Microsoft Dynamics GP, users can only access the data they have permission to see.  The cloud also eliminates the fear of data falling into the wrong hands, because the data is not stored on their device. Moving to the cloud makes the system more accessible, helping to improve customer service and employee productivity. 

As discussed earlier, moving Great Plains to the cloud with SMB Suite also has the added benefit of automatically upgrading your business to the latest version of Dynamics GP. Running on the latest version of the software gives you access to the latest features and capabilities, plus it eliminates the need for application of security service packs and patches.

Compared to traditional on-premise applications, cloud application are easier to upgrade. Unfortunately, many cloud providers can make upgrades problematic. This is because many providers force a mass upgrade on a rigid schedule, which may not be ideal for everyone. For example, your business could be forced to upgrade during the busiest time of the year.

SMB Suite upgrades are less disruptive to business. New version upgrades are scheduled by working closely with the customer to determine the best time for the upgrade. In addition, SMB Suite provides the upgrade in a new instance with a backup copy of the company’s data. Customers can then test drive the new environment before going live. This allows for any customizations to be tested and gives extra time to learn new features. Once the tests are complete and the customer has signed off, everything is moved to new environment. Businesses are much happier with this design because they are able to control the upgrade schedule themselves.

The final benefit of moving Great Plains to the SMB Suite cloud is perhaps the most overlooked: support. Many cloud providers make business application support optional and it is often outsourced. SMB Suite’s Business Success Desk believes critical application support is the key to success. Support for mission critical solutions such as Dynamics ERP are included in the basic subscription price. The support is provided by local Business Success Concierges, with unlimited cases, who are available 24 X 7.

This concludes the three part series examining the benefits of moving from an on-premise Great Plains solution to cloud based Microsoft Dynamics GP. The benefits of the cloud are many -- including accessibility from anywhere, plus elimination of IT support and hardware costs.  It’s even more affordable and predictable with subscription pricing.  SMB Suite has the advantage of a fully integrated Microsoft solution with a single monthly subscription that includes all of the benefits of the cloud, plus the implementation, support, and upgrades.

This is part two of a three part series where we consider the perspective of an existing customer on traditional Great Plains (Microsoft Dynamics GP) and the benefits of using Microsoft Dynamics GP with SMB Suite as an alternative to learning a new ERP system.

You may be a business with an older version of Great Plains. Your business would like to go to the latest version of Microsoft Dynamics GP, but it’s currently not on the maintenance plan. Of course there is an option to upgrade, but your business is faced with heavy fines for being behind and fees for upgrade services.  That’s not all -- your hardware may be outdated and in need of replacement. Your business might also be constantly patching and upgrading the operating system to protect from data compromise and viruses.  If your business is like many others, it may be running on Windows XP, of which Microsoft is ending support for soon, leaving your business at risk.  Traditionally, the fix for this problem requires a lot of upfront capital expenditure.  Many consider this to be a dark cloud hanging over them; one they just can’t escape from.

However, there is another cloud subscription worth considering: SMB Suite.  The cloud is “the new way of doing business” and many businesses are finding that this is indeed the answer to their problems.

Consider the advantages that SMB Suite brings to existing Great Plains customers. First, customers get to keep Great Plains, and are automatically upgraded to the latest version. SMB Suite brings business into the modern cloud world where businesses can forget about patching, updating, and performing daily backup of critical data. It’s all done securely at a cloud datacenter with 24/7 monitoring. Businesses no longer have to worry about buying or maintaining server equipment and the outdated operating system will be a thing of the past. In fact, SMB Suite customers are able to log into the latest version of Microsoft Dynamics GP with just a web browser.

The new way of doing business in the cloud includes monthly subscription pricing. With subscription pricing, customers only pay one fee per month, making it is easier to plan and budget for. This fee includes all of the software licenses, including the database and operating system licenses; along with the Microsoft Dynamics GP upgrade licenses, upgrade services and cloud services. This is possible because the cloud only requires a subscription, not a full purchase of the licenses. SMB Suite offers a full 36 month subscription for the entire core offering of Microsoft Dynamics GP & CRM solutions, without any upfront fees. This innovative, single-fixed payment also includes unlimited support and all future upgrades and upgrade services. This eliminates the need for a large investment of capital upfront, since all fees are spread over 36 months.  Most importantly, businesses don’t have to switch to an unfamiliar new system. SMB Suite customers are able to keep Great Plains and enjoy all of the benefits of a modern cloud solution.

Another big benefit of the moving to SMB Suite is the ability to continue using Excel. A leading cloud provider of a non-Microsoft ERP would not only move your business off Great Plains, they would prefer to move your business off of Excel.  Most businesses use Excel every day for business analysis. Dynamics GP allows for a seamless integration with Excel. In the latest version, most reports can be easily exported to Excel -- not just in a CSV or flat file, but in a fully formatted Excel worksheet. Because Excel is so popular for business, users are even able to produce a budget in Excel and bring it directly into Dynamics for budgeting.

SMB Suite takes this a step further by including an Excel based reporting tool. This acts as add-in to Excel, giving Excel new capabilities, and is fully integrated into Microsoft Dynamics. This brings together the best of both worlds -- the new capabilities provide access into the Microsoft Dynamics database, where the user can create a report by simply dragging and dropping the fields into Excel.

We’ll explore more about how this helps a business gain insight, plus more on how the cloud makes it possible to access your system from anywhere, and much more in the third and final part of this series.

Leading ERP companies would like you to believe that they are the best cloud ERP option for your business. However, to take advantage of their cloud offering, you’ll have to make some tradeoffs -  including giving up much of the Microsoft platform. SMB Suite has a better solution. Enjoy all of the benefits of a modern cloud solution with a proven Microsoft based platform, all for one low monthly subscription.

In this three part series, we will take a look at the benefits of using SMB Suite solutions as an alternative to other cloud ERP offerings. We’ll examine the benefits of using a cloud based solution, discussing what to look for when reviewing Cloud ERP offering, and why SMB Suite offers the most value.

A major advantage of the cloud offering of SMB Suite is that it is built on the proven Microsoft platform. Microsoft is widely used by professionals worldwide, as it is the most predominant business productivity application. Microsoft has made extensive on-going investments in the Microsoft platform, including Dynamics ERP, to add more robust functionality.  At the same time, they have improved the user experience with streamlined and personalized menus, role based home pages, and tools to help businesses gain greater insight with easy-to-use reporting and advanced business intelligence. It is important to look for one publisher for all of the critical foundation components of a cloud solution, because this helps to ensure seamless integration. With SMB Suite, the database is Microsoft SQL Server, the productivity apps are Microsoft Office, the document storage is Microsoft SharePoint or Microsoft SQL Server based, reporting tools include Microsoft SQL Reporting Services as well as Excel, and the ERP and CRM solutions are built on Microsoft Dynamics. By design these solutions work together better than components assembled from different publishers. Compare the Microsoft platform with cloud ERP solutions that piecemeal together their solution with Google docs, BoxNet, and a database from another publisher.

Another consideration to look for is fully integrated applications. This will greatly reduce the duplication of data and the risk of errors. SMB Suite features a fully integrated suite of products that will increase your productivity, reduce cost, and save time. As many traditionally deployed businesses know, the cost of implementation, integration, and on-going application maintenance of typical on-premise environments can be many times the cost of the software itself. However, with SMB Suite you’ll never have to worry about an approach that requires costly integration to get different applications to work together. Each application of the SMB Suite works together.  Gone are the days of separate on-premise software packages—one for accounting, one for sales force management and automation, one for ecommerce, one for service management, and perhaps one for warehousing.  SMB Suite has combined Microsoft Dynamics with solutions that add value, all designed to take advantage of the proven Microsoft platform. These fully integrated solutions include customer relationship management with sales automation, service and marketing solutions, ecommerce for both business to business and business to consumer transactions, human resource and payroll solutions, service management, job costing, distribution and warehousing, plus unique Excel based business intelligence.

A great benefit of moving to the cloud is the elimination of on-premise IT costs. The cost of using on-premise software includes purchasing and maintaining of computer hardware, operating systems, software upgrades, service packs, virus protection, plus daily backup and recovery. Not to mention taking care of equipment breaks, password resets, and training employees. For most small to medium businesses, having an IT department is an expensive luxury. Yet without at least one IT person, there is a very real risk of costly viruses, loss of data, and downtime. Using a modern cloud based solution eliminates this concern. All of the purchasing and maintenance of the hardware and software is taken care of by SMB Suite. SMB Suite keeps your data secure by protecting your business from viruses, maintaining required service packs, and performing daily backups. Additionally, your business won’t be tying up funds in server hardware or paying for charges for additional hardware upgrades as your business grows. This greatly reduces risk, gives more bandwidth to IT for strategic projects, and allows your business more time to focus on what you do best to serve your customers. 

In part two we’ll explore how you can move to the cloud for one monthly subscription, how Microsoft Dynamics works seamlessly with Excel, and how to gain greater visibility into your company with business intelligence.

When it's bring your K-9 to work day, the dogs come inside to play!

The pups may not have given award winning service or signed any new customers, but they sure generated a surplus of laughter to be had by all!

Meet the furry characters that stole the show today at our office.

The Dream Team :

• Devo the Whippit
• Mary the Labrador 
• Dallas the Vizsla
• Kingston the Goldendoodle

Happy National Bring your Dog to Work Day! :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moving Dynamics to the Cloud will allow you to provided truly integrated, anytime access to company data

• Have financials on-demand while providing access to more users
• Position accounting for expanded Dynamics GP functionality
• 24/7 Live Premier Help Desk at no additional cost

Alter your Financial Reporting Model in a positive way

• No upfront investment
• Eliminates the burden of technology management
• Locks in pricing with a predictable monthly fee

Grow your Business

• Slash IT Budget and reallocate to more strategic areas
• Avoid recruiting or maintaining staff to support infrastructure
• Move CAPEX to Operating Expense

Benefit from the Managed Service Model

• Lower Total Cost of Ownership per user
• Quicker deployment with flexible scalability
• Integrated extra layer of security that reduces risk

Take the SMB Suite challenge! 

Compare the cost of on-premise Microsoft GP vs. Cloud ERP and see why more companies are trimming their technology budget and lowering IT expense by moving their ERP to the Cloud. SMB Suite’s flexible pricing plans allow you to choose exactly what you need for a predictable and easy-to-budget monthly fee. No surprises.

For a LIMITED TIME ONLY, Microsoft is providing a 60% discount on Dynamics 365 for Sales Enterprise licensing until June 29th!

Dynamics 365 for Sales Enterprise licenses are regularly priced at $95 per user.  The promotion available until the end of June is offering the discounted licensing at $38 per user license.  Subscription is renewed at the standard rate after year one. 

Below are demo overviews of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales solution.

 

Grow Your Business Faster

Streamline your business processes and gain insights with embedded intelligence.

 

Stay Focused 

Predict customer needs and provide the right solution at the right time.

 

Identify Leads Using LinkedIn

Identify and focus on leads who are most likely to turn into a sale.

 

Use Real-Time Data to Close Deals

Gain insights, understand customer needs, and close deals more efficiently.

 

Intelligent Onboarding

Streamline seller onboarding with real-time suggestions and contextual help.

 

If you are interested in learning more, we are happy to assist!

 

 

Many small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) use pieced-together spreadsheets, applications and other tools to maintain their financial information. This kind of patchwork system requires a lot of manual effort and duplicated data entry.

Fortunately, streamlining your financial processes is as simple as using a cloud ERP solution. Such all-in-one platforms are robust enough to track all the data you need without limitations. After all, it’s better to maintain one system than five, right?

Here are four ways that cloud ERP systems help to reduce manual and duplicated tasks.

1. Cloud-based platforms are integrated: This means one system handles everything from entering an order or reporting that something’s been shipped and delivered. When you have all your invoice information in several different systems that don’t talk to each other, the risk of mistakes is significant. Maintaining many financial spreadsheets is also time-consuming. To maintain accuracy between the sheets, accountants must take multiple steps to transfer data and verify changes are made at every location. For companies that want one source of the truth or one set of numbers that’s accurate, cloud-based ERP systems are the clear choice.
2. Quality cloud ERP systems help ensure that proper audit trails are produced in your accounting system: If someone changes something in the system — adds a figure, delete funds, move accounts around, etc. — the action is tracked. The system tells you who made the change and when the change happened. This way, when something harmful happens, you can restore an earlier version of the system and determine how the error occurred.
3. Cloud ERP systems are great for disaster recovery efforts: If your data is in the cloud, it’s getting backed up at least every day. For companies using an on-premises solution, which are not automated to back up data, the risk for error is significantly higher. Even if these legacy systems are programed to make backups, the data is still located in the same place as your office. That’s a problem if your office is damaged or destroyed. With the cloud, data restoration can be nearly instantaneous.
4. Outsourcing your financial processes to the cloud means you have fewer IT issues to worry about: Service pack applications and patches, virus protection, data management and application upgrades are all included in your cloud subscription costs. If you take those tasks off of your internal IT department’s plate, it can focus on core business issues rather than day-to-day maintenance tasks. Cloud programs keep your limited resources from being constrained. It allows everyone to focus on big picture revenue-generating processes.

At the end of the day, cloud services free your company to spend more time building the business, and focusing on what you do best as an organization.

Growing businesses often don’t realize how crucial business software is to company expansion.
This is especially true for a company’s accounting department, an area of business in which even
the most subtle increase in productivity can mean an exponential growth in workload. Today, many small to medium sized companies are using QuickBooks, a valuable accounting system for the right company. QuickBooks is a solid starting point but many times organizations struggle to
recognize when their business needs have outgrown this simple solution. To help decipher whether or not your company is ready to transition away from QuickBooks, I have identified the 5 major signs that indicate that it might be time to consider a scalable ERP solution.

1. Transactions
The number of financial transactions your company handles on a daily basis should be a good
indication of whether QuickBooks is still the right solution for you. For example, if your bookkeeper handles a few simple daily transactions QuickBooks may be your best option. If your company requires detailed revenue and expense tracking, a more robust ERP system may be a better fit to handle your growing needs.

2. Users
If your accounting department consists of 5 or more employees QuickBooks may not be the best fit for your company. Most versions of QuickBooks tend to become problematic at 5 users. Typically this much activity causes the database manager to get bogged down resulting in the disconnectionof users from their sessions. If you experience these problems, consider moving to an ERP solution like Microsoft Dynamics GP. According to a performance benchmark test Dynamics GP successfully performs at 500 users and millions of transactions, perfect for a growing organization.

3. Accountability
Growing companies need a double-entry accounting system that allows them to comply with
government regulations, industry standards, and corporate quality initiatives. Unfortunately,
QuickBooks is a single-entry accounting system meaning it doesn’t feature “audit controls.” Audit
controls keeps record of every transaction entered into an accounting system so the account
balance can be traced back to the transactions that make up that balance. Dynamics GP, a
double-entry accounting system, ensures transactional integrity by providing an audit trail for
every change or transaction. This compliant ERP solution helps management monitor and protect company assets from inappropriate use or loss.

4. Data
Eventually QuickBooks users may begin to notice a decline in performance, including a delay in
the solution’s menus and reporting functions. Most companies using QuickBooks tend to notice
such problems when the file size reaches 250 MB or when the total number of transactions
exceeds 32,000. Significant performance problems usually occur when any list (customers,
vendors, employees) exceeds 10,000. An advantage of moving to an ERP system like Microsoft
Dynamics GP is its scalability. This solution is built around Microsoft’s SQL Server database
platform enabling it to house several Terabytes of data without a decrease in performance.

5. Reporting
The simple reports available in QuickBooks may not provide you with an accurate view of your
organization. Oftentimes, QuickBooks users have customer and revenue data in supplemental
systems such as, Excel, and a CRM system. Creating a detailed report that provides you with all
the information you needed requires a lot of time spent manually entering data from one source to another. So if you discover that valuable employee productivity is being wasted on mindless data re-entry, it may be time for an ERP solution. Dynamics GP features several ways for management to gain insight on real-time financial status and operational performance. Reporting tools include Dashboards, FRx, and Management Reporter plus GP’s ability to integrate with SharePoint allowing reports and analyses to be shared across an organization.

For more information on how an ERP solution can help your business grow contact SMBSuite.com

Empowering your employees is all about making their jobs easier and more efficient. It’s about having tools that provide them the ability to make better decisions and improve the company.

While there are a million different ways to empower your workforce, using a cloud ERP system to manage your financials may not seem like the obvious answer. But make no mistake, giving your team the power to work from home, be more productive and obtain critical information to boost the effectiveness of their decisions is absolutely empowering.

Here are four ways that cloud ERP can empower your employees to drive organizational success.

1. Have access to better information, faster: Thanks to a myriad of reports, business intelligence tools and dashboards, every member of the company is able to have the power to make better decisions. From a management perspective, data can be captured and measured, allowing leaders to make adjustments for the future. Furthermore, managers can monitor progress in real time. This visibility is very powerful and empowers employees.
2. Become more efficient: Companies save money when they have an all-encompassing system that has accountability and efficiencies built into the fabric of the software. For example, when companies upgrade from spreadsheets and QuickBooks to a cloud ERP offering, they are able remove the need for manual data entry and duplicate record keeping. They obtain one source of truth. The sales and marketing teams also become more efficient. With cloud ERP, they have the ability to build in predefined business processes that help them streamline the way they work. They’re able to gain more visibility into their work and are able to make adjustments when something goes wrong. Armed with powerful information, people across the entire company are more accountable for their actions.
3. Monitor their own performance: Companies must have measures to ensure success. Cloud ERP allows employees to do regular checks — daily, weekly, etc. — to see how they’re performing on those metrics. This helps employees to make adjustments as needed to ensure they’re delivering. Without that information in users’ hands, your employees often don’t have a good idea where to make improvements. Reporting and performance measures allow them to fix what’s not working.
4. Work from anywhere at any time: Have access to the information not just when you’re sitting at your desk in your office, but also while you’re at home or traveling for work. Being able to access your system or functional area within the system from a mobile device is changing the way — for the better — that companies interact with each other departmentally and between individuals. Companies are increasingly using remote workers and employees are looking for remote work. Gen Y employees often make decisions about working for companies based on whether they’re allowed to work remotely. If you’re interested in hiring in the Gen Y employee group, this software feature is a huge advantage. Allowing workers to telecommute is a win-win. Happy employees work more and are more productive.

Armed with a cloud ERP solution, your employees will have the reporting tools, business intelligence and real-time data they need in order to respond to critical issues with confidence. The result is better productivity for the organization as a whole and more freedom for employees to work from anywhere.

 

Microsoft has worked with Jet Reports to provide a free, out of the box reporting solution for Microsoft Dynamics GP and NAV users. Jet Express for Excel is an extension included with Microsoft Dynamics GP to create basic reports directly inside of Excel.  Join us to learn about the Jet family of products and the answers to our most frequently asked questions about converting from Management Reporter.

Jet Reports delivers unparalleled access to data through fast and flexible reporting and business analytics solutions that are cost effective, provide rapid time-to-value, and are built specifically for the needs of Microsoft ERP users. 

What is Jet Express for Excel?

 An extension included with Microsoft Dynamics GP and NAV to create basic reports inside of Excel. 

• Build simple financial statements
• Basic business queries in Excel on your desktop
• Created in collaboration with Microsoft
• Provides flexible reporting foundations for GP and NAV out of the box

What is Jet Professional?

 A fast, flexible financial and business reporting solution inside of Excel. 

• Allows Microsoft Dynamics ERP users to get all the operational data they need.
• Eliminate errors by accessing and pulling all your data directly in Excel.
• No more copying, pasting or manually exporting.
• Cut the cost of hard-coding and programming reports to zero.

What is Jet Enterprise?

A corporate analytics and reporting platform delivering fast, flexible dashboards and financial reports in Excel and on the web. 

• Eliminates any need to understand the underlying data structure when viewing data inside Excel or Microsoft Power BI.
• Provides accurate, governed data for one version of the truth.
• Rapid time-to-value through turnkey installation in hours, not weeks or months.
• Pre-built cubes, data warehouse, and dashboards.
• Low cost of ownership – includes unlimited users and
  a drag-and-drop customization platform.

What is Jet Reports Financials?

Quickly build and run custom financial reports for Dynamics 365 Business Central, directly in Excel. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central makes ordering, selling, and invoicing easier, but like all ERPs, it isn’t built to get the data out the way you want to look at it. You need to get financial reports today, from multiple dimensions and companies, in the format that works for you.

• Achieve Instant Success
• Build Custom Reports in Minutes
• Real-Time Answers You Can Rely on
• Report and Drilldown from Any Combination of Data

 

Register for the webinar today!

Tuesday, May 29th @ 1:00pm CST:

Jet Reporting Webinar