Month: September 2014

Acumatica, The Cloud ERP that truely is Automagic!

We have been an Acumatica partner now for approximately three (3) years and have attended the Partner Summit every year. It has been a fantastic journey with such a progressive, forward-thinking company like Acumatica. As a Microsoft Dynamics Partner for many years, we were forced to look for a cloud solution to compete in this changing market place. KTL vetted several vendors including Netsuite, Intacct, and Force.com. We ultimately chose the Acumatica platform for several reasons, but ultimately their strong ties to Microsoft and the Microsoft Technology is what won us over. It just made sense for us to adapt such a transition tool to the Cloud ERP. Since our decision, the Acumatica solution and team have not let us down.

September 15, 2014

A Comparison of On-Premise vs. the Cloud

Most organizations are dependent on fast, accurate, and reliable information that their ERP systems provide. Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics CRM are just two of these that may be hosted On-Premise or in the Cloud. With this in mind, I wanted to compare two different installation models: On-Premise Installations vs. Cloud based installations.

September 12, 2014

Is your Sub Ledger Reconciled to your General Ledger?

As accountants one of the most daunting tasks each month is reconciling your sub ledgers to your general ledger. There are several things you as a controller or manager can do within your Dynamics GP ERP to help with this. Here is a few tips and tricks I have learned along the way.

September 10, 2014

Why do I need a Project Manager?

As a Project Manager I am always thinking of the best way to manager and deliver my projects. There is the PMBOK and a host of other books, training courses and networking opportunities out there to better yourself at project management. In spite of the knowledge you bring to the table there is a question almost every project manager has to answer – do I really need a Project Manager?

September 10, 2014

ISVs: A blessing or a curse?

If you have been in the Dynamics world for any extended period of time chances are you have heard the term “ISV” or “third party product” and you have probably thought to yourself “What and who are these people?”

ISV stands for Independent Software Vendor. In the Dynamics world, these are companies that specifically write software for Dynamics products. Due to the large footprint that Dynamics has, there are hundreds if not thousands of ISVs out there. Most of these ISVs, or third party products, are industry specific….

September 8, 2014

Power BI – Power Pivot – Creating your first data model and KPI.

While PowerPivot isn't necessarily “new technology,” businesses are trying to move towards it due to how Excel savvy end users can create their own reports without tying up IT resources. KPI's are just another addition to PowerPivot that allows users to visually analyze data across millions of rows.

A KPI (Key Performance Indicator) is a graphical representation that displays progress against a predefined measure or business goal. KPIs make it easier for end users to evaluate the amount of progress without reading a bunch of data.

September 5, 2014

Salesforce vs. Microsoft CRM – What Are the Differences?

Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics CRM are currently the two leading CRM systems on the market. Five to ten years ago, the CRM software market was divided among many different players (ACT!, Goldmine, Sugar, Sage CRM and others) with Salesforce being the dominant and fastest growing. But over the last few years, the enterprise CRM industry has been dominated by only two, Microsoft and Salesforce. Salesforce has had a clear lead in market share over Microsoft CRM, but Microsoft CRM companies added revenue growth in the last two years far surpasses Salesforce, and the market share gap has narrowed considerably.

September 4, 2014

CRM Report Permissions

CRM provides a variety of out-of-box reports as well as the ability to import custom built reports. Some of these are beneficial to the entire organization while others are required just for a subset of users such as executives, sales or service managers, or even a specific department such as Finance. These group specific reports might contain information which other groups should not be able to see (e.g. a profit margin report which shows product cost for the Finance team which you do not want Sales Reps to view.) With this scenario you need to set up security around the reports. It’s not always straightforward and easy to figure out.

September 2, 2014