I work in their offices, their server rooms, their shop floors, their clean rooms.

Altico Advisors has implemented Microsoft Dynamics GP for more than 40 manufacturers throughout New England and upstate New York.  They manufacture sausages, aircraft parts, heavy machinery, circuit boards, computer chips, adhesives, abrasives, trade show displays, industrial lubricants, centrifuges…you get the picture.  Everything from soup to nuts!  Literally!!

If you haven’t looked at Microsoft Dynamics GP lately you’ve missed the transformation of the product from a widely used and respected accounting system to an end-to-end business management solution with broad, very broad, manufacturing capabilities.  Dynamics GP is a solution that can be configured to mirror your plant, incorporate your best practices, assign serial or lot numbers to finished items, create purchase orders and manufacturing orders from an MRP analysis, handle Manufacturing Order partial receipts, your BOM and routers and WIP… and so much more.  I know, I’m skipping all over the place in an effort to show you the scope of functionality available in Microsoft Dynamics GP for manufacturing.

So enough said.  Here are a couple of documents that provide a concise and orderly overview:

Manufacturing with Microsoft Dynamics GP
Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Module Guide – See pages 5-6 and the module guide at the very beginning

You can also visit the manufacturing page on our Web site and read a manufacturer’s case study about a company that implemented Microsoft Dynamics GP for the end-to-end integration of their accounting, inventory and manufacturing systems.

If you’re a manufacturer in New England looking for a better way, call Altico Advisors at 508-485-5588.

 By Karen Jernstrom, Manufacturing Specialist, Altico Advisors  Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner for Manufacturing and Distribution serving New Hampshire (NH)

Microsoft Dynamics GP for Manufacturing – The Features You Need is a post from: ERP Software Blog

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So if you like summaries, as I do, I’m just saving you the legwork by providing a page by page summary.  You can flip to the page or pages that would be of the most
interest to you and skip the rest! Perhaps you’ll end up being so engrossed that you read the whole thing.  Up to you.

Here’s a list of the questions and the page numbers where you’ll find the answers.

Page 5
1-What is cloud computing?
2-What is IaaS?
3-What is PaaS?
4-What is hosting?

Page 6
5-What is SaaS?
6-What is virtualization?
7-What is an MSP?

Page 7
8-What are the cost savings associated with moving ERP to the cloud?
9-How will cloud services affect the internal IT team?
10-How does a cloud ERP solution improve the ability to scale?
11-Will my data be more secure in the cloud?

Page 8
12-Is cloud ERP an effective business continuity strategy?
13-Will we be able to get all the reports we need from a cloud based ERP system?
14-Will cloud ERP work with Office and Outlook in the cloud?

Page 9
15-As a startup, is a cloud ERP system more than we need?
16-Will company divisions in other countries be able to use the same ERP system?
17-Will employees working from home be able to access the system?
18-Will our IT team still need to upgrade the ERP application?
19-Does the cloud provide an opportunity to re-architect our system?

Page 10
20-Will we still be able to get help from our business consulting partners?

Page 11
21-Will our data be secure from access by outsiders?

Page 12
22-Will we still own our data?
23-What should I look for in an ERP cloud provider?
24-What if circumstances change and we want to bring ERP back in-house?
25-Will a cloud based ERP system be able to integrate with the other line of business applications that we use?
26-Will the ERP system response time be as fast as it is on-premises?

Page 13
27-What if our internet connection goes down?
28-What if the cloud provider’s internet connection goes down?
29-Will our ISV solutions work with cloud based ERP?

Page 14
30-What is SAS 70?
31-Can we be Sarbanes-Oxley compliant with an ERP system in the cloud?
32-Is cloud based ERP a good choice if we are thinking about going public someday?

Page 15
33-What options do I have in licensing ERP software in the cloud?
34-Is the yearly maintenance included in the price?
35-What support services should I expect to receive as part of an ERP subscription?

Wow!  Even the summary is 2 pages long.  But that’s still only 10% as long as the white paper.  Here’s the link to the cloud white paper.  And here’s the link to the Altico Advisors Microsoft Dynamics GP cloud page.

I hope this is helpful.

 By Karen Jernstrom, Altico Advisors, Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner for Manufacturing and Distribution serving New Hampshire (NH)

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Give Me 5

Very straight forward offer from Microsoft.  Buy 5 user licenses of Microsoft Dynamics GP – Business Essentials OR Advanced Management – for only $3000.  Exactly how much money are you saving?  I’ll do the math for you.  Absent the promotion, 5 users of Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Essentials would cost you $11,250.  By taking advantage of the Give Me 5 offer, you save $8,250.  Absent the promotion, 5 users of Microsoft Dynamics GP Advanced Management would cost you $19,900.  By taking advantage of the Give Me 5 offer, you save a whopping $16,900.

So now you own the software at an incredibly low price.  But it’s not up and running yet.  Which brings us to…

Give Me 5 in the Cloud

This is a bit less straight forward because different partners have come up with their own varied offers.  In our case, Altico Advisors has designed a quick start program with a monthly cost of only $875 for all 5 users.

Of course, there are still some set up and implementation costs as well as annual service fees.  But the point is, no matter how you slice it, you’ve just saved thousands of dollars on the software.

Top 5 reasons why you would want to invest in new software

#1 It’s too hard to find out what’s really happening across your business right now
#2 You spend too much time re-entering and reconciling data across systems
#3 You’re losing sales because you can’t get information fast enough
#4 You do more of your accounting outside of our accounting system than in it!
#5 You spend too much time worrying about technology vs. focusing on business results

Top 4 advantages of Give Me 5 in the Cloud

#1 Quick deployment; get up and running immediately
#2 No hardware to maintain
#3 You own the software
#4 Move the system in house whenever you want

What should you do next?

Contact Altico Advisors for more information.

By Mike Kean, Altico AdvisorsMicrosoft Dynamics GP Partner for Manufacturing and Distribution serving New Hampshire (NH)

Current Microsoft Dynamics GP Offers – Too good to be true? is a post from: ERP Software Blog

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So if you’re one of those people who need to be convinced that Microsoft is one of the good guys, there’s an article on The Enterprise System Spectator blog site that you should read.  The author, Frank Scavo, offers a pretty objective view and lays out 3 reasons why Microsoft is one of the good guys.  But if you’re not interested in reading the long version, I’m here to give you the short version.

1. “ Microsoft will be more successful by being a safe platform provider for other vendors, than it will be by hoarding its technologies only for use by its own applications business.”
2. Microsoft may not be the leader in moving its business software offerings to the Cloud, but that’s because they’re focused on providing value and they’re taking the time to do it right.
3. “Microsoft is enabling thousands of entrepreneurs and small businesses worldwide to grow and compete successfully. In fact, IDC recently estimated the total 2010 revenue of the Microsoft partner ecosystem at US $580 billion. Compare that to Microsoft’s revenue of approximately $60B, and you can see that every dollar Microsoft makes results in about 8 or 9 dollars of revenue for its partners. That’s a big opportunity for Microsoft’s 640,000 partners worldwide.”

Read #3 again.  Altico Advisors is one of those partners in the Microsoft ecosystem.  Sure, a portion of the revenue we generate by selling Microsoft Dynamics GP and Dynamics CRM licenses goes to Microsoft.  But we also get to keep a portion and we keep all of the associated service revenue.  We’re small potatoes compared to Microsoft, but we generate jobs and contribute to the community, too. 

And let’s not forget the tremendous work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  You get the point.  I’m a fan.  Are you ready to join me?

By Karen Jernstrom, Altico Advisors, Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner for Manufacturing and Distribution serving New Hampshire (NH)

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 Rypos is a great example of a company that made the right decision at the right time.  Their management team saw the handwriting on the wall and realized that QuickBooks was not going to sustain their growing business and their complex business model.  They did their due diligence, researched their alternatives, and made the move up from QuickBooks to Microsoft Dynamics GP.  Rypos is an innovative, visionary company on the leading edge of the clean energy explosion.   Now they’re also using leading edge software to run their business.  Dynamics GP was a great fit for them.

Exactly how have they benefited?  CFO Don Simoneau sums it up as follows:  “With Microsoft Dynamics GP, we can focus on growing our business both with innovative companies that embrace sustainability and with the logistics providers and other customers who need to comply with regulatory mandates.”
The 3 key areas of improvement are: 

1)  Streamlined Financial Management and Relevant Reporting

2)  Increased Accountability to Customers and Regulators

3)  Effective Management of Complex Manufacturing Operations

Perhaps at this point you’re saying:  Those are great headlines, but exactly what does it mean when you say “Streamlined Financial Management” or “Increased Accountability” or “Effective Management of Complex Manufacturing Operations?”  Details please!  

So to make a short story long, feel free to read the full QuickBooks to Dynamics GP case study where you’ll find the specifics of what Rypos deployed in their move up from QuickBooks to Microsoft Dynamics GP and how their company has profited.  For us here at Altico Advisors, it’s all about stories with happy endings. 

By Mike Kean, Altico Advisors, Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner for Manufacturing and Distribution serving New Hampshire (NH)

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His article was a bit long, so I’ve taken the liberty of doing some editing and paraphrasing. 

 The goal for any manufacturing operation – whether it is a discrete or a process manufacturing business – is to produce quality products at the lowest possible cost while striving to exceed customer expectations. Achieving this consistently and cost-effectively depends on gaining deep insight into the supply chain, especially when it comes to managing the complexities of formulating and producing products to custom specifications.

Maintaining market share in today’s ever more competitive landscape requires that manufacturers process orders faster – increasing execution and delivery reliability rates – while giving customers better information on order status and simultaneously managing compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. All of this requires tremendous agility and a truly dynamic operating environment that’s capable of assimilating real-time information flows across supply-chain touch points with ease.

When it comes to joining the supply-chain management “dots,” manufacturers face serious technical challenges in terms of process and data flows – especially when it comes to integrating the “spaghetti soup” of systems controlling individual customer, supplier, and production functions.

To resolve this integration challenge, manufacturers are taking a fresh look at enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

The first commercial ERP software packages exploded onto the market in the 1990s.  In today’s world, given the rapid growth and development of technology solutions, 1990 software is as outdated as carbon paper!  ERP has changed and today’s out-of-the-box, supply-chain-management-specific ERP solutions, such as Microsoft Dynamics GP, have evolved, becoming impressively scalable end-to-end offerings that effectively streamline and automate business processes across the supply chain.

Alongside delivering data unity within the enterprise, today’s ERP solutions use customizable Web services to make it simple and quick to connect with suppliers, logistics providers, and customers and to enable seamless real-time data exchange and process sharing.

Easy to deploy, these systems feature user-friendly, intuitive tools that can be accessed across the manufacturing operation – from the shop floor to the top floor – making end-to-end, streamlined supply-chain management a reality.

It’s this unique ability to integrate external business processes and support application-to-application connectivity across multiple systems in a cost-effective manner that now makes it possible for manufacturers to respond quickly to changing customer and supplier demands.

Supply-chain optimization is now possible. Powerful inventory management tools help to improve forecasting and planning, so supply and inventory levels can be fine-tuned to customer demand. Real-time data gives users faster access to the tasks and critical business intelligence information needed to optimize the supply chain. Finally, ERP makes it easy to simplify government and corporate compliance commitments by defining custom business rules and workflows based on risk scenarios.

Today’s ERP solutions provide the vital backbone on which effective, cost-efficient, and dynamic supply-chain collaboration can take place. Besides unleashing demand-driven production, organizations of any size in any sector can respond faster to change, incorporate new customers and suppliers with ease, and adapt their operations on the fly as business needs change.

 By Karen Jernstrom, Altico Advisors, Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner for Manufacturing and Distribution serving New Hampshire (NH)

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It’s also a great history lesson on the evolution of the Cloud and the technology behind it.  The video walks you through the capabilities of Microsoft’s data centers, with quite a bit of technical detail regarding cooling, renewable energy, fiber optics, network latency…  OK, perhaps for some of you that’s TMI (Too Much Information)!  But the point is, it won’t take more than 10 minutes of your time and you’ll have answers to just about every question you might think to ask about reliability, scalability, and of course, security. 

Are you evaluating Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics CRM?  Wondering if the right choice is an On Premise or Cloud deployment?  Tune in to this video which we’ve made available on the TheAlticoAdvisors YouTube Channel. 

By Mike Kean, Altico Advisors, Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner for Manufacturing and Distribution serving New Hampshire (NH)

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Here at Altico Advisors we have an implementation methodology that works.  We call it the Altico Advantage.  And while we still need to be flexible in the execution of that methodology, because every Microsoft Dynamics GP implementation can be different, we don’t want to stray too far from the parts that consistently spell success.  And they do.  Time after time. 

Since I’m a fan of short blog posts for busy people with limited time in their often long work days, I won’t elaborate on the details of the Panorama article.  But here are the highlights in the form of the top four lessons learned:

1. Focus on organizational change management
2. Ensure effective project controls and scope management
3. Focus on business processes and workflows
4. Go live is not the finish line

Getting back to the Altico Advisors methodology, it doesn’t start or end with the deployment.  It starts with a business process review as the foundation for the project plan.  And it continues well after the go live date with training, support, ongoing maintenance, and periodic reviews of the client’s long-term goals to continuously optimize the solution. 

There’s nothing better than a satisfied client.

By Karen Jernstrom, Altico Advisors, Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner for Manufacturing and Distribution serving New Hampshire (NH)

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This review is for:  Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Reporting (Paperback)

Full Disclosure:  I was provided a no-charge paperback edition for the purpose of this review by the publisher, Packt.

What piqued my interest in the first place was actually the fact that Errol Schoenfish, a monument in the Microsoft Dynamics community, wrote the foreword.  And of course, Errol made a few great points, the most salient of which is that raw data is “useless” unless it can be analyzed and turned into meaningful reports on the health of a business through trend analyses and key performance indicators (KPIs). 

 This book addresses the fundamental question of how to turn raw data into meaningful metrics using the reporting tools available in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010.  And it addresses that question in great detail, in a highly organized framework, replete with numerous, incredibly useful screenshots.  It starts with the basics of “Meeting the Reporting Challenge” and “Where Is My Data and How Do I Get to It?” And it takes you all the way through the design and execution of sophisticated reports using the various tools available in Dynamics GP 2010, such as SmartList Builder (SLB), Excel Report Builder (ERB), Report Writer (RW), SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), Analysis Cubes (AC), and Management Reporter (MR).  

What’s more, the Appendix at the end of the book compares those tools and outlines the features and functions of each.  The Appendix serves as a quick, high level reference guide. 

Kudos to the authors for a tremendous effort and a valuable resource for skilled end users and Dynamics GP professionals alike. 

Submitted by Altico Advisors, Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner for Manufacturing and Distribution serving New Hampshire (NH) – Please follow us on LinkedIn

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I’ve been into retail analogies lately.  Don’t ask me why.  In a recent post here on the ERP Software Blog I talked about the iconic red “easy” button that has become synonymous with Staples.  And for some reason, when pondering what I’d like to write next about Microsoft Dynamics GP, what came to mind was the Burlington Coat Factory tag line:  “More than Just Coats. “

It’s been 10 years since Microsoft purchased Great Plains, a popular and widely used software application that was mostly known for its robust core accounting functionality, fondly called GLAPAR.  That’s pronounced “glapper” as in a 1920s “flapper.”  GLAPAR, for the uninitiated, stands for General Ledger (GL), Accounts Payable (AP), and Accounts Receivable (AR).  In the 10 years since the Microsoft acquisition, not only has the product been renamed (now Microsoft Dynamics GP), it has also benefited from Microsoft’s deep pockets, i.e. a major infusion of cash for R&D and functional enhancements.

The result is that Microsoft Dynamics GP is a leading edge, full service Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution with soup to nuts functionality.  So when I say that Microsoft Dynamics GP is “More than Just Accounting,” I’m not even doing justice to GP, because GP is now financial management, Supply Chain Management (SCM), Materials Requirements Planning (MRP), Forecasting and Budgeting, Inventory Control, Warehouse Management, Manufacturing Bill of Materials (BOM), Master Production Scheduling, Returns Management, Project Accounting, and more, and more, and more yet.

So since a picture is worth a thousand words and I have no desire for this blog post to run into the thousands of words, here’s a  picture that says:  “Microsoft Dynamics GP is not your grandfather’s Great Plains anymore.”

I’d be happy to explain the difference between the versions referenced in the snapshot below, Business Essentials  and Advanced Management.   But you can pretty much see for yourself that whichever one you choose, you’re getting a ton of functionality.  The type face in the snapshot is a bit small, so if you’re having trouble reading the module list,  you can download the Dynamics GP 2010 Overview brochure.

On a serious note, moving past the Staples “easy” button and the Burlington Coat Factory tag line, if I’ve piqued your interest in what a fully integrated Microsoft Dynamics GP system can do for you and your company, contact us or request an instant GP quote.

Submitted by Altico Advisors, Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner for Manufacturing and Distribution serving New Hampshire (NH)

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