Making the best of what you have got with Dynamics GP

In the current financial environment we are seeing a lot of cost cutting, amalgamation of roles and other physical signs that people are trying to do more with less. However most people seem to pass over their Dynamics GP finance system and continue using it the way they have always used it since it was implemented (In some cases this is over 10 years ago and version 5.5).

On the whole people seem to worry about change especially in something as business critical as your finance system however Dynamics GP has come a long way in a short time and there is undoubtedly functionality within your system that you’re not using. This unused functionality may be the key to further cost savings.

Lets take a look at some of these types of functionality that are generally over looked, are they in your current version of Dynamic GP at present not being used or would a simple and cheap upgrade or third party add on provide this functionality with a quick ROI and attached cost savings.

eMail

Top of my list is email, does your Dynamics GP have the ability to email out documents?

The ability to email out statements has been in Dynamics GP for some time, however in Dynamics GP 2010 there are 39 other reports that can be emailed out using word templates including remittance advice and POs. Prior to Dynamics GP 2010 you would need a small add on called email Pro from Professional Advantage to email out Remittance advice and Pos and Sales orders.

There are several savings associated with this:

1. No Paper (you don’t need to purchase as much)

2. No postage

3. No envelope

4. Staff time stuffing and sealing envelopes

Its quite common to send out large billing runs by post or remittance advice for BACS payment runs, Think of the amount of time and money that could be saved if these paper based processes could be transferred to email.

BACS/EFT

Closely akin to the email option again time and money could be saved with electronic payment runs rather than printing cheques and stuffing envelopes.

Document Formats and templates

If you still need to send out paper communications, Dynamics GP has always allowed you to setup headers and templates for your documents which can include Logos and other images, however prior to Dynamics GP2010 there have been restrictions on bit map size for logo’s in report writer. In Dynamics GP2010 the new word templates allow for much larger and complex logo’s. These could be utilised and no more expensive headed paper with your company logo is required.

Procurement

Take a look at your procurement practises; are you using multiple supplies for the same items?

Are you purchasing them at wildly varying prices?

Look at your Dynamics GP what kind of reporting can you get on these purchases to help you make informed decisions? Smartlists and the new excel based reporting is ideal for tracking top 10 suppliers and items.

Tighter controls in place would allow you to make deals with specific suppliers. Dynamics GP deals effectively with these however you may want to put an authorisation process in place against budgets etc. and have an online requisition process. To do this you may want to look at a procurement system. ROI on these is generally very good. And they come in several sizes such as entry level systems like Nolan’s eRequest and Mid range solutions such as Complete right up to large solutions such as Proactis. All of these will integrate and work with Dynamics GP.

Mapping

Dynamics GP these days will utilise online mapping software like Bing maps. These can be used to help you group and assign client/customers geographically; this could help with travelling or shipping expenses.

Stream line processes

There maybe other processes within your Dynamics GP systems that you are doing the way you have always done, talk to your solution provider there may well be quicker and better ways of doing them now. A prime example is the Edit cheques batch window added in version 9 which allows you to see all your outstanding creditors and transactions in one window making it a lot easier to add transactions to a payment run. We still see a lot of people using edit cheques simply because that’s the way they have always done it. Another prime example is renaming columns in smartlists , most people don’t realise you can do it and it saves you a lot of fiddling after you have exported to excel.

Reporting

Better reporting will help you make more informed decisions and spot trends etc, as already mentioned this may be of particular help with procurement however also think about how you deliver those reports. A lot of finance departments I know are constantly inundated for requests for this report or that report placing a large drain on time and resources (that could be used elsewhere). If you have a company intranet can these reports be published on the intranet in a portal or dashboard and thus providing a self service reporting area freeing the finance team as well as providing instant access to relevant data. Frx has an HTML output option ideal for publishing on the web or you could deploy the out of the box SQL reporting services reports accessible of an IIS web site or sharepoint.



So in summary there are a fair few things you could look at with your existing Dynamics GP system that may well provide some measure of cost saving and allow you to do more with less. My advice would be talk to your system provider about the functionality in the Dynamics GP system and how you currently process; you may be pleasantly surprised by the results.

Our man in Fargo

Hi folks

Adam Hamlington our dynamics GP product Manager is at the Microsoft Dynamics Tech conference in Fargo. You can follow the latest updates as Adam is tweeting on the TouchstoneGP twitter account direct from the conference.




So far announcements have been made regarding drill down into GP functionality in management reporter feature pack 2 and a word template generator due in GP2010 R2 to convert any report writer report into the new word template formats.



You can follow Adam's Tweeting on the below link.

http://twitter.com/TouchstoneGP