This FREE virtual launch event takes place on Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 at 9 a.m. Pacific Time. Register here

Sandeep Walia is the CEO of Ignify. Ignify is a global leader in retail and ecommerce solutions for retailers and has been ranked Microsoft Partner of the Year in 2011. Ignify has been ranked in the 100 most innovative companies globally by Red Herring in 2010 and 2011. For more information, email retail@ignify.com , call Ignify at (866) IGNIFY5, or visit www.Ignify.com.

by Ignify

Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail 2012 Virtual Launch Event on Wed Feb 1st is a post from: ERP Software Blog

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Understanding the need to provide a comprehensive framework that addresses all of the questions and issues concerning ERP solution implementation, Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step offers a systematic, standardized methodology that contains all of the tools, templates, and best practices needed for each step of the implementation process. With Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step, customers can experience the increased efficiency, enhanced productivity, and minimization of risk that following specific standards and procedures in the ERP implementation.

Here are five important reasons why Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step should be used in conjunction with your ERP implementation.

1. Consistent, repeatable model of implementation. By providing an implementation model that enables you to follow a series of the same implementation methods applied for businesses of all shapes and sizes, Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step provides a system that promotes consistent implementation quality and success at all stages of the process. Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step offers a clear, understandable services delivery approach that can easily be learned and adopted by all members involved in an implementation project.
2. Step-by-step guidance of the implementation process. The Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step system offers a step-by-step implementation approach that incorporates visual elements such as process flow diagrams and charts along with detailed descriptions of each implementation stage. By using the available tools, templates, and resources that the Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step methodology provides, a customer gains an in-depth knowledge of solution implementation and a familiarity with the processes involved in implementation.

   

   Figure. General Ledger Approval Journal Process flow that comes out of the box with Microsoft Dynamics AX. Example of standard best practice business process flows that help streamline the ERP Implementation

   Six phases are contained within the Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step methodology: Diagnostic, Analysis, Design, Development, Deployment, and Operation. In the Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step program, all six phases offer detailed explanations of what each phase serves and the important milestones and deliverables that are expected to be achieved during the phase’s completion.

   

   Figure: Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step reducing risk from your ERP implementation by providing clear phases such as Diagnostic, Analysis, Design, Development, Deployment and Operation.

   Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step, however, doesn’t provide a cookie-cutter approach. Based on the type of the implementation it has the capability to serve up different templates and deliverables. For example, it provides the following project templates based on your needs:

   Standard Implementation: Typically used as a lean approach to implement an ERP at a single site with moderate complexity

   Enterprise Implementation: Typically used where a standardized approach for implementing an ERP in either a complex single-site environment or in a global/ multi-site organization where country specific solutions have to be factored on top of a core solution.

   Agile Implementation: Uses an iterative, incremental process for developing and implementing the ERP. This project gives customer greater control over the final solution because customers can quickly change the direction of the solution from one sprint cycle to the next.  It is typically used at a single site requiring specific features and moderate to complex customizations.

   Rapid Implementation: an accelerated approach for implementing an ERP with minimal or no customizations. This can be used in situations characterized by a limited scope where the basic application features are desired, and/or where the large majority of the customer’s business processes are not considered  complex.

   Upgrade: Used for ERP Upgrades from one major version to another. This can be for simple technical upgrades or include upgrades with configuration of new functionality.

   With support for different project types that allow detailed information on the diverse selection of implementation processes that fit the needs of a wide variety of businesses and industries you can feel confident in taking a forward step towards your ERP implementation.

3. Minimization of implementation risk through optimization offerings.Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step offers seven optimization offerings that provide guidance for both technical and functional designs and review the performance and operations of your ERP system. These offerings are particularly helpful for large, complex implementations because they effectively and proactively organize the management of project quality from the first phase to the last.Through the seven optimization offerings – Architecture Review, Design Review, Customization Review, Performance Review, Health Check, Upgrade Review, and Project Governance and Delivery Review – an exhaustive, independent review of the software implementation is performed to ensure that within each phase the solutions meet the customer’s needs and requirements, as well as offering descriptions on the impact that the various components of the implemented solution will have on the customer’s business operations, and identifying and presenting any potential problems or issues to the customer. Each optimization offering is described below with examples of how Ignify typically delivers these to customersArchitecture Review: With this Optimization Offering, Ignify reviews the overall architecture, reporting strategy, and infrastructure to meet the customer’s business requirements, which includes operational and delivery review activities that may be initiated and executed throughout the ERP implementation. Through this review, Ignify offers advice to the customer on detecting any operational risks and addressing potential problems before they occur.

   Design Review: We pride ourselves in being able to leverage standard functionality and using creative configuration Vs. customizing the application where possible. Our design review is typically directed by a lead functional consultant to review that standard functionality is used to the extent possible to meet business requirements. In addition the design review is helpful to identify current business pain points that can be met with standard functionality in the ERP that can help increase use of the system and increase the ROI on your ERP implementation.

   Customization Review: Ignify will typically get involved in reviewing modifications made to your ERP and evaluating multiple things including whether the code meets best practices, and whether the code has been customized or can be eliminated since there is already standard functionality in the current version or future version of your ERP. For example, in one implementation that we evaluated we found that a customer had built out a custom Bill of Materials (BOM) not realizing that their ERP already provided native BOM functionality out of the box.

   Performance Review: Typically we get involved in analyzing the performance of your application by using performance review tools including logging, database monitoring, hardware monitoring, etc. to identify choke points that are causing issues in delivering optimal performance. Recommendations may include increasing hardware size, re-indexing the database on a regular basis, improving your database log clean-up or setting up a data archival/ purge process on a periodic basis.

   Health Check: With a Health Check, Ignify identifies any problems with the ERP deployment, and offers ways that those issues can be resolved. With the Health Check, a report is provided to the customer that details the data that was gathered and analyzed during the review process, offers implementation scorecards, and then gives the customer recommendations on how to address or fix any possible issues that were identified during the review. With this Optimization Offering, the performance of the ERP implementation is fine-tuned to make sure that the software fulfills all of your business needs and requirements.

   Upgrade Review: During an upgrade very often implementers and customers will focus on just upgrading to the latest version and do just a technical upgrade. Ignify uses the upgrade review as a tool to evaluate if new functionality in the new version is applicable to solve business problems for you and also whether customizations that were upgraded can be replaced with standard functionality. This then allows the path for a functional upgrade and allows you to get the true business benefits of the new version.

   Project Governance: Both during and at the end of the implementation project, this Optimization Offering evaluates how the ERP implementation delivered against its initial vision and performed against schedule and quality, as well as providing phase by phase recommendations and project health dashboards. With Project Governance, Ignify regularly assesses the ERP implementation and continues to offer findings and recommendations to the customer, ensuring that the customer continues to receive full, proactive support after implementation.

   Delivery Review: With the Delivery Review, the review team works with you after the ERP implementation in order to ensure continued successful outcomes from the ERP software. The review team assesses the overall implementation, analyzing the project delivery process and lessons learned from each stage of the implementation and then offers the customer recommendations for the future based on their findings.

   Each optimization offering provides a report to the customer containing the findings and recommendations of the review team;  the customer then deciding whether to adhere to all the recommendations or a subset of them.

4. Increased management oversight with Project Management disciplines and processes.Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step provides best practices management activities and tasks throughout phase implementation to ensure that all pieces of the integration process – knowledge, resources, procedures, schedules, communications, and so on – are completely tied and connected together into a cohesive operational whole. Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step breaks down these management activities into different disciplines and offers in-depth information on the activities and tasks that comprise each of these disciplines.

   

   Figure. Complete ERP Project Management offering if available in the Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step with 3 distinct phases including Project Initiation and Planning, Project Execution & Monitoring and Project Closing.

   Through the Risk, Scope, Issue, Time and Cost, Resource, Communication, Quality, Procurement, and Sales Management disciplines, you are able to fully organize, coordinate, and oversee all aspects of an implementation project, starting from the project’s initiation and planning process, then progressing to its execution and monitoring, and finally ending with the project’s closure. By providing detailed guidelines for project management disciplines and processes, Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step allows managers to identify and assign the specific tasks and activities necessary for each part of the implementation process, thus enhancing the project’s efficiency by determining the tasks to be accomplished and assigning them to appropriate team members thus also increasing the chances of an overall successful ERP software implementation.

5. Defines the roles and responsibilities for stakeholder involved in the implementation process.Because the implementation of an ERP solution involves many people from different areas, determining the roles of each individual within the project and their associated responsibilities can sometimes be a difficult and confusing process. Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step solves this by offering a clear-cut determination of the individual roles which comprise the implementation process and providing  guidance and direction on the implementation phases, tasks, and activities that each team member is  accountable for performing or overseeing. Offering clearly defined roles, project communication is enriched by eliminating misunderstandings about project ownership and assignments and establishing expectations on what each person’s involvement in the project will be.

Another advantage to the Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step role definition process is that it can support the implementation needs of customer organizations of all sizes. For example, in a smaller organization multiple roles are assigned to one individual. By offering a scalable solution, Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step covers the functional requirements of all businesses, large and small.

Conclusion

An ERP Implementation is akin to a heart transplant and can be scary and intimidating. However, by putting a sound methodology in place and working hand-in-glove with a capable partner, you can de-risk the implementation and lay the foundation for a successful implementation.

Microsoft provides a very feature-rich and flexible ERP solution for countless companies around the globe and it backs this up with Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step to streamline implementation processes from beginning to end and to enhance overall productivity while meeting customer needs. Ignify’s RAPID framework built on Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step offers pre-built deliverables that can help accelerate your implementation and lower cost of an implementation. The combination of SureStep for a streamlined implementation with RAPID for lowered cost and efficiency can guarantee an on-time and in-budget implementation.

For more best practice guidance email us at dynamics@ignify.com

Authored by Ashley Harbaugh and Sandeep Walia. Ashley is a Technical Writer at Ignify and Sandeep Walia is CEO of Ignify. Ignify is a leading provider of Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions to mid-market and Enterprise businesses. Ignify has been ranked in the Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle, Microsoft Dynamics Presidents Club and was selected as the Finalist for Microsoft Partner of the Year in 2010. Ignify has offices and team members in Southern California, Northern California, Arizona, Tennessee, Illinois, Washington, Canada, Malaysia, India, Philippines.

Five Reasons Why Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step Will Help Your ERP Implementation is a post from: ERP Software Blog

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Microsoft Dynamics^® AX for Retail is a comprehensive solution designed specifically for midsized and enterprise specialty retailers. Connecting point of sale, store management, and merchandizing with enterprise resource planning (ERP), Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail helps retailers reduce complexity across their organizations. The real time data allows you to instantly monitor the cash flow and sales patterns. The following tools are perhaps the most important:

• Customer service management: It is the customers who should be seen as the biggest asset of any business. It is vital to constantly be trying to attract new interest as well as retaining past clients. The larger your customer base the harder it is for their needs to be addressed on time. Microsoft Dynamics AX  helps to ensure that there is a fast flow of information between the sales department and other teams to keep the customers happy.
• Human resource management: No business will be efficient without a well-motivated and organized workforce. By choosing Microsoft Dynamics AX, you will be able to more effectively manage the payroll, recruit new employees, assess performance, and monitor attendance.
• Financial management: One of the most difficult aspects of running a business is keeping on top of the financial reports and tax requirements. Microsoft Dynamics AX allows you a more accurate understanding of the financial situation and also when any payments are due.
• Supply chain management: To maintain a healthy balance sheet it is vital for a business to understand correctly the prevailing market conditions. Microsoft Dynamics AX  allows a better understanding of the current relationship between supply, demand, logistics, and distribution.

Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail streamlines all important areas of your retail business. If you’re interested in learning more, contact us for a free demo of Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail. Ignify is a technology provider of ERP (including Microsoft Dynamics AX), CRM, and eCommerce software solutions to businesses and public sector organizations.

Bhavesh Ashani is Vice President at Ignify. Ignify is a technology provider of ERP, POS, CRM, and eCommerce software solutions to mid-market and enterprise businesses and public sector organizations. Ignify is a Top-tier Microsoft Gold Certified partner ranked in the Microsoft Partner of the Year for Retail in 2010 and both the Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle and the Microsoft Dynamics Presidents Club in 2009 . Ignify offers Microsoft Dynamics AX, Dynamics AX for Retail POS and the Dynamics CRM, Loyalty Management solution for retailers and to several other businesses. Ignify has been included as the fastest growing business in North America for 4 years in a row by Deloitte, Inc Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine. Ignify has offices in Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Nashville, Chicago, Toronto, Manila, Pune and Bangalore.

Tools Within Microsoft Dynamics ERP Streamline Your Retail Business is a post from: ERP Software Blog

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Features

Management Reporter provides a tool that natively connects with the Microsoft Dynamics ERP General Ledger and allows business users to create reports without any IT intervention. The tool will replace the two reporting solutions in place: FRx which is used for financial reports and Enterprise Reporting which is also used for financial reports but typically when you need multi-company consolidation. In essence what Management Reporter does is provide a single solution for both Management Reporting and Consolidation. That certainly is a step up from where things are today.

The core components of the solution include the following

1. Management Reporter Designer:A power user tool where you can define the report elements and what the report will look like and how it will work. The report designer provides for Report Definitions, Row and Column definitions, support formulas, and financial dimensions and allows you to format the report elements. For example, the figure below shows a Row definition for an Income Statement Report. Notice that in the drop down you can include the type of Row e.g. TOT is a Total of other Rows, CAL is a complex calculation, DES is a Description such as the Row Code 130 called Revenue here etc. Column J here lists the link to financial dimensions which can include the GL Account or other dimensions such as Department, Cost Center, Division, Line of Business etc. There is native support for wild cards. For example my Sales Row in this example is the sum of All my GL accounts that start with 41 minus 4109. So the formula is written as +Natural=[41??]-Natural=[4109]. The ?? are the wild cards so any GL account that starts with 41 will be included in this calculation. The Natural reflects that I am referring to the Natural GL Account. If I was referring to another Dimension say DEPARTMENT then I would use that instead.

   Figure 1. Microsoft Dynamics Management Reporter Row Definitions for an Income Statement Report

   These Row definitions can be used across Multiple Report Definitions so once I define an Income Statement Row Definition I can use it in several reports such as Divisional Income Statements, Income Statement Month by Month, Income Statement Rolling Quarter etc. I do not need to create the same Row definition again. All I would do is change the column definition I use for these reports (provided I am showing the same row lines as on this report).

   This combination of which Report uses which Row and Column Definition is defined in a Report Definition. For example, the screen below shows multiple Report definitions in the left navigation bar for Balance Sheet Reports, Cash Flow Reports, Consolidation Reports, Trial Balance Reports, and Income Statement Reports.

   

   Figure 2 Report Definition Folders for different types of reports

   Expanding the Income Statement Reports shows several Income Statements (IS) such as a Consolidated Side by Side comparing two divisions, Income Statement, Income Statement 12 month Period Trend, etc. The report definition open is an Income Statement Rolling Quarter by Department that combines the Row Definition that we had above – Income Statement Detail with the Column Definition that supports  the rolling quarter format. This Row Definition is also used in the IS 12 month Period trend report and in the Income Statement Side by Side that compares two departments.

   

   Figure 3. Dynamics Report Definition of an Income Statement Rolling Quarter by Department

2. Report Library:Quite simply, this is a library of all the reports that users can view. However it is a lot more than that. Reports can be setup with a Reporting Tree that I touched upon in the Management Report Designer section. As an example, the report below is an Income Statement that I can see at a company level, or a Region level or a Division within that region level. For example the report shows Fabrikam Works at the company level, San Francisco Region and Denver Region below that and then the respective Sales and Service Divisions below it .e.g. San Francisco Sales Division and San Francisco Service Division. I also have a node in this tree that takes it one level further which is the Retail and Wholesale within Sales and similarly Lab and Studio within Service. The first question that comes to mind is whether the hierarchy has to be straight jacketed with one definition. Fortunately, it doesn’t you can pull reports via multiple hierarchies and reporting trees. The level of flexibility is quite good and the product team has definitely done good work in putting this together.

   Figure 4. Reporting Tree in Management Reporter showing 4 levels of Company, Region, Division and Sub-division

   I’ve also included some sample additional reports here just to show what all else is possible. Below is an example of a Income statement using the row definition you saw in the Report designer section of this blow with a column definition that supports a monthly trend.

   

   Figure 5. Income Statement from Microsoft Dynamics ERP showing a Monthly Trend using the Row definition from Figure 1

   This row definition is again used in the report below but this time shows a 12 month Income statement with Actual Vs Budget and highlighting whether it is a favorable change Vs Unfavorable change. I thought that last piece was really cool because most reporting tools can show a net change and the percentage change but Management reporter goes one step further to actually color code it as favorable or unfavorable. For example, Sales were higher than budget so the change is shown as favorable but Sales returns are also higher than budget but this is shown as unfavorable. So the tool is more than a report writer – it also has a certain amount of Business Intelligence (BI) capability built in it. This is quite simply done by marking whether the typical entry is a Credit and Debit. It’s quite simple but I’ve seen other ERP and reporting systems stumble on this so it is refreshing to see Microsoft get this right.

   

   Figure 6. Example of an Actual Vs Budget Income Statement in the Management Reporter using the Row definition from Figure 1

   Another report output example is a Detailed Trial Balance report showing both the YTD and the numbers for the relevant period.

   

   Figure 7. Example of a Trial Balance Report in the Management Reporter for Microsoft Dynamics

   Finally – this report takes the cake. Management Reporter bring true consolidation capability. This report shows USA and Canada and then the Consolidated numbers. From what I understand the one limitation right now is that the multi-currency conversion is not yet there but will be there in the next version.

   

   Figure 8. Native Consolidation Capability in Management Reporter for Microsoft Dynamics

3. Security Framework:Authentication is supported by Windows Authentication so there is native integration with Active Directory. Authorization is supported within the tool. Security can be defined at a report level, folder level or the tree/node level. Security is defined in the Management Report Designer and you can differentiate which users need Report Library access (view access) as opposed to those that need Report Designer access (design access). The screen shot below shows how permissions can be assigned at a folder or node level or you can expand that to assign permissions at the individual report level. Permissions can be inherited from top level folders.

   Figure 9. Reporting Permissions can be set up at a folder, node or Report level in Management Reporter

Why choose Management Reporter?

So a natural question is why choose Management Reporter. Other than Microsoft stating that it is the reporting roadmap for Microsoft Dynamics and is putting its dollars for reporting in the Management Reporter – there are several other reasons too. I’ve listed my top 10 with the most valuable at the end.

1. Easy to use: Management Reports works and looks a lot like FRx – so for those that are used to FRx will not have a tough time using the tool. Finally like the rest of Microsoft Dynamics, it uses the look and feel of Microsoft Outlook with a left navigation bar (the “magic bar”) and a point and click that is easy to understand work with.
2. Multi-lingual support: Management Reporter supports multiple languages. Not a biggie for us folks in the USA but I can see it being big in French speaking Canada our neighbors further south and certainly in most of Europe.
3. Architecture: The product was not a band-aid from a legacy product but was completely rewritten using .NET and C#. This provides a very high degree of flexibility and the tool can scale for your data as your organization grows.
4. 64-bit compatibility: Anyone that has tried to install FRx on an 64-bit OS will know why this is important. Today’s server OS have moved to 64-bit but today’s reporting tools have not. Management reporter glides on 64-bit and is built for it. It dances and sings on a 64-bit OS. I saw at least about a 30% improvement in performance of reports if not more over FRx – that’s significant!
5. Report Customizability: I really liked the amount of flexibility that the Management Reporter offers. It allows you to gain total control and generate reports in minutes as well as personalize reports for things like company logo, set column and page breaks and apply format over-rides. Page breaks – yes! So basic yet missing in so many reporting tools but it’s here and again well implemented
6. Out of the box integration with Microsoft Dynamics: Pre-defined financial logic to tie to the GL filters for Microsoft Dynamics ERP. However, it seems like Management Reporter is being built broader than just for Microsoft Dynamics so that other ERP vendors can build out their own adapters to allow for Management Reporter to become pervasive just like FRx did.
7. Integration with Dimensions: Yes! Dimension filters – can use a range or set of dimensions to support things like divisional reporting.
8. Native XBRL Support: Why is this a big deal you ask? See this link on the SEC website to understand the adoption of XBRL in the financial community for filings and to see a preview of XBRL in action. Management Reporter provides native XBRL support with tagging for XBRL prior to report generation – note the word prior here. You do NOT need to generate the report before you can do the XBRL tagging. Seems such a simple requirement yet 95% of the reporting tools that do support XBRL (most don’t even support that) ask for the XBRL tagging after the report is generated – which means you have to tag the report every time you generate it. Management Reporter lets you do the tagging before and get done with it. If you are a public company paying or planning to pay a lot of money to an outside service like Bowne this will hit home. Also the recent initiatives suggest while XBRL is voluntary – in a few years this may become mandatory for public companies. So you want a solution that can support this natively.
9. Active Directory Integration: I always found the additional login for FRx inconvenient. Management Reporter integrates natively with Active directory allowing you to open the reports without an additional login.
10. Native Multi-company and Multi-source Consolidation: Yes – this is the big one. Having native multi-company consolidation is very nice. Also Management Reporter provides multisource consolidation with flexible top down analysis so if you are one of those organizations that use multiple ERP systems for some reasons this will be a great tool for you to get rid of the excel consolidation.

Finally, I believe Management Reporter can save you some license dollars. If you are running reports in the ERP you can have your financial users use the Management Reporter tool and only require the light license as opposed to the full ERP license. That’s always a nice thing!

Sandeep Walia is the President & CEO of Ignify. Ignify is a technology provider of ERP, CRM, and eCommerce software solutions to businesses and public sector organizations. Ignify is a Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle Partner and ranked in the top 18 Microsoft Dynamics partners. Ignify has been included as the fastest growing business in North America for 3 years in a row by Deloitte, Inc Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine. Sandeep was ranked in 2010 in the Microsoft Dynamics Top 100 Most Influential People List by DynamicsWorld.

by Ignify, A Northern California Microsoft Dynamics Partner

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Why can’t it be easier?  Why… why… why?

OK, so maybe the dream of completely eliminating the need and costs of managing your own inventory isn’t completely realistic.  However, what if you are able to reduce the dependence on this need?  Here’s how Dynamics GP 2010 can help.

LET DYNAMICS GP HELP AUTOMATE YOUR DROP SHIP BUSINESS

Drop shipping allows you to fulfill your customer orders by having your suppliers send the goods directly to your customer rather than sending them to you and then you fulfilling and shipping to your customer.  This skips a step in the procurement / fulfillment process (you, the middle man) and is a pretty efficient way to fulfill customer demand while reducing the overhead mentioned above.

Recently Ignify worked closely with a high volume e-tailer to help automate their drop ship business processes while at the same time improving sales and margin reporting.  We enhanced the integration between their proprietary eCommerce engine and Dynamics GP and improved their drop ship processes.  Here’s what we did:

1. Customer places an order on one of the client’s web sites.  A drop ship sales order is then integrated into GP via web services and eConnect (integration tools).
2. Customer’s procurement engine places drop ship orders to suppliers.
3. When the supplier provides the tracking numbers for the drop shipment to the customer we create an integration to integrate these drop ship purchase orders into GP.
4. We create a link between the drop ship PO and the drop ship sales order.   
5. We integrate a drop ship PO Invoice with the true vendor cost against the drop ship PO.
6. We set up a nightly process to automatically post the drop ship PO’s. 
7. The sales orders are then automatically updated with the true vendor cost and they automatically are fulfilled, billed and the invoices posted.

There are more steps but I’ll stop here to make a couple of points.  One of the keys here is that we were able to automate this process so that very little manual effort was required.  Another key is that the sales order was updated with the true vendor cost, therefore enhancing our ability for effective sales margin reporting.  Add in a dose of SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) to provide METRICS reporting (sales, margin, net profit, etc.) and we have ourselves an effective drop ship engine.

By Tod Heath, Dynamics ERP Team Lead, Ignify –  California Microsoft Dynamics ERP Partner

Contact Ignify at gpblog@ignify.com – an Inner Circle 2009 Microsoft Dynamics Partner – offering Microsoft Dynamics ERP and Microsoft CRM customers low-cost high value services.  Ignify has offices in Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Nashville, Chicago, and Seattle.

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The What of Landed Cost

Landed cost is not that big an issue while dealing with vendors who charge a consolidated value to leave the goods at your door. Life would be too easy if it were that simple, wouldn’t it? We ask vendors to charge our account with a carrier when shipping because we have negotiated better rates with the freight carrier. Vendors do not have control over import duties such as customs and excise.  So we need to find handling agencies that take care of paper work and get the goods out of the yard. Or we pay the government and handle it ourselves.

The Why of Landed Cost

Guess what, all these are additional costs paid on top of the bill paid to vendor for the item. We need to add all these up to get the true cost of inventory, so we can get to know the real margin. Some businesses simply expense out the cost because they don’t have the facility in their system and it is too much overhead for them to track it manually. Well, Dynamics GP customers can use the  Landed Cost module to track landed cost with ease.

Dynamics GP provides true ability to handle third party landed costs

So if your Vendor charged your UPS account for the freight, log an approximate value of freight in landed cost onthe purchase receipt. When you receive the freight bill from UPS

• Match the UPS invoice to the landed cost recorded on shipment from Vendor. The variance between the approximate value and this actual value can be applied to inventory or recorded in a Purchase Price Variance account.
•  GP provides ability to record the third party vendor landed cost invoice, match it to actual landed cost and update variance to inventory or to a variance account.

Oh, what did you say, the UPS invoice has several lines each pointing to shipments for multiple items or multiple shipments for the same item. Don’t worry, Dynamics GP provides ability to record a third party vendor invoice and match each line to different shipments.

Other real time applications of landed cost are adding the freight cost when moving items between warehouses.

Have you ever had to move goods from one warehouse to another? What happened to the cost incurred in moving stuff from one warehouse to another? Use the landed cost feature the ‘In Transit Transfer’ window. This is a very useful feature, especially when you want to obtain the true cost for an item in the warehouse.

Nice to haves:

It would be nice to get a feature similar to landed cost in SOP module, so we can record an approximate freight charge. When we get a real invoice from a carrier, we can either charge the excess or return the balance by way of a credit memo or debit memo.

This post is written by Raja S L N. Raja is a Manager in the Microsoft Dynamics GP Practice at Ignify. Ignify is a Global Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle Partner specializing in Microsoft Dynamics ERP for RetailDistribution, Manufacturing and Chemicals verticals. For help on Microsoft Dynamics ERP email us at dynamics@ignify.com

by Ignify, a Northern California Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner

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Although change is not something we accept by nature, we need to acknowledge the necessity of it within the software and technology world in order to improve our chances of success.  I’ve pointed out to you that change isn’t easy for us to handle, so why not make your software upgrade easier on you and your colleagues?  Sandeep Walia, President and CEO of Ignify points out how usability can be the cornerstone of success or failure for a CRM implementation.  Microsoft Dynamics acknowledges the difficulty of taking that rather intimidating leap and creates ERP software solutions that similar to the programs you use on a daily basis such as Microsoft Office and Microsoft Outlook, but still have the power to manage the overall spectrum of your business.

For example the screen below shows the Dynamics ERP home page for a financial controller.  An intuitive home page like this not only makes the software less intimidating it also provides a daily starting point for users of the system and allows them to manage their work better.

Microsoft Dynamics ERP provides approximately 35 such role centers and dashboards out of the box to make your implementation successful and improve adaptability.  Another example shown below is the home page of an Accounts Payable Manager

To make your ERP implementation pack a punch and deliver ROI there are several factors that you need to put into motion, such as organizational change, training, and communication plans . This is where Ignify comes in, to make this transition complete so you can see the results you paid for and deserve.

Bhavesh Ashani is the Vice President of Ignify. Ignify is a technology provider of ERP, CRM, and eCommerce software solutions to businesses and public sector organizations. Ignify is a global Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle Partner and ranked in the top 1% of Microsoft Dynamics partners. Ignify has been included as the fastest growing business in North America for 3 years in a row by Deloitte, Inc Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine.

So in conclusion, even though it’s our “natural” response to avoid change, don’t be scared! If you’re experiencing difficulty with your current systems, you need to make an essential change and NOW before it’s too late.

Ignify, A Microsoft Dynamics ERP Partner headquartered in California

a Northern California Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner

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ERP software drives productivity by leveraging an integrated framework making it possible to “do more with less, be more deliberate with IT budgets, and demand a higher ROI”.  Investment in software isn’t always an easy undertaking during a turbulent economy, but if you step back and look at the big picture, it’s an essential move if you want to come out of the downturn ahead of the competition.  A study by the McGraw-Hill Laboratory shows that “companies who continued strategic spending during a recession outperformed non-spenders and experienced revenue growth of 275 percent during the first full year of recovery.”  For example, in the Order Central implementation of the Dynamics ERP for the Microsoft Business Solutions division of Microsoft – the ERP implementation was able to help drive cost savings of U.S. $2 million a year in reduced IT support requirements and U.S.$1.5 million in reduced staffing requirements.  That is approximately $3.5 million of savings a year! No small change even for a giant like Microsoft.

So how did these savings come into play? There is no single magic bullet. It is a combination of reduction of many manual processes that lead to higher productivity. For example at Microsoft Business Solutions a report that used to take 2 person days of effort is now produced automatically by the system in minutes. Deb Remboldt, Accounting Services Manager at MBS validates this. According to her, “All our worldwide partners now have online access to their statements and invoices. Through this online functionality, they can advise our credit and collections team on what invoices they are paying and which credit notes to allocate online.  This functionality has already streamlined this process significantly and simplifies this interaction.”

According to Mary Foley in a recent ERP for Small Business article on Technology.Inc.com, “The time is ripe for small and mid-size businesses to adopt enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications.”  There are more options than ever targeting the small and mid-size business sector.  ERP used to be a multi-million dollar project; it no longer is.  By leveraging pre-built configurations that partners like Ignify bring to the table and leveraging the ERP creatively to use more out of the box functionality a sub million dollar ERP implementation can be a reality for a full organizational cross-functional implementation that can span financials, supply chain, and inventory optimization.

It may just be the best time to advance your company into an ERP solution that’s right for you. What are you waiting for?

Bhavesh Ashani is the Vice President of Ignify. Ignify is a technology provider of ERP, CRM, and eCommerce software solutions to businesses and public sector organizations. Ignify is a global Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle Partner and ranked in the top 1% of Microsoft Dynamics partners. Ignify has been included as the fastest growing business in North America for 3 years in a row by Deloitte, Inc Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine.

By Ignify, A Microsoft Dynamics ERP Partner headquartered in California

Do More With Less! Drive Productivity With ERP Software In The New Economy is a post from: ERP Software Blog

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First of all, the manufacturing paradigm in North America has changed.  With a few exceptions, Manufacturers are no longer doing heavy manufacturing.  Most of the manufacturing work is now done with subcontract vendors in China, SE Asia etc.  So the manufacturing challenge is less about managing the shop floor but more about managing the supply chain and optimizing inventory either in the warehouse, with the vendor, on the water. This is, in fact, really important because the new paradigm means that lead times have shifted and become longer with a 60- 90 day lead time to get product being not uncommon.  That requires better forecasting, demand planning, purchase planning and better tracking of critical inventory items.

Not surprisingly, manufacturers have not yet made that paradigm shift completely.  When I do a site visit at a manufacturing site I find the focus still very much  on production planning and shop floor control even though now the manufacturer is just doing warehousing and light manufacturing at best.  There is very little focus on the planning, forecasting, warehouse management and supply chain management aspects which burden the cost significantly.  As an example of a cost burden, I surveyed a manufacturer that builds heavy engineering products often finding themselves with gating parts – i.e. parts that are not available and hold up the completion of the item.  The net effect was about 6 weeks added to the production cycle. Doesn’t seem expensive? Check out the math below.

Average sales price of item: $2 million (this is a complex end product)

Cost of capital to manufacturer: 10%

Cost of 6 weeks of capital: $23,000 (2 million * 6 weeks/ 52 weeks * 10%)

Cost of delay on 100 shipments: $2,300,000

$2.3 million dollars in cost of gating parts!  Now this is a $200 million manufacturer that has a net profit of $2.5 million (which by the way is a pretty good number for most manufacturers).  The net impact of eliminating the gating with better inventory optimization would be to double the manufacturer’s net profit.  Before you say – this is not me because you don’t do $2 million type products – change the numbers a bit.  It could be 10,000 shipments of $20,000 type product going out or 100,000 shipments of $2,000 type product etc and you’d still have the same cost of capital of $2+ million dollars.  Even if you can only shave off a couple of weeks and not 6 weeks and if your volume is lower remember that you are still talking at least hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions in savings by optimizing your inventory and supply chain with better planning.  No small change by any standards.

The reality for manufacturers is that the management now has to be on the supply chain and inventory optimization and not just production planning and shop floor control.  So how can you do this?  Fortunately most of the newer generation ERPs provide functionality to do this out of the box . I’m going to take the example of Microsoft Dynamics ERP – a next generation ERP from Microsoft – as a solution to this and show some quick and easy things to enable functionality that can help you get there.

One of the more important things to do in getting to a stable replenishment mode is to use automated replenishment to the extent possible: Dynamics ERP has the ability to automatically spit out planned purchase orders by looking at a variety of things

• Safety Stock levels
• Forecast
• Sales Orders
• Purchase Order
• Inventory that is Available to Promise
• Vendor Lead times

For a human being, to take into account all of these parameters and provide a planned purchase forecast manually is just impossible – even if you just have under 200 Finished good SKUs.  If anyone tells you otherwise they are kidding you or pulling wool over your eyes.  No individual buyer or group of buyers is going to be able to do a multi-parametric calculation that involves six parameters and create a planned timeline for all your SKUs for each vendor without doing some rough (and dirty) ballparks.  You need a fairly sophisticated automated process to do this right.  And why shouldn’t you – you will cut labor costs, you will reduce your inventory stocks outs as well as lower your cost of carrying inventory.  And you should leverage the ERP to do that.

How do you do a forecast ?  For that you can use a demand forecasting system if you have a complex web of customers with changing patterns or you can get quite basic and track it in excel as a starting point and improve from there on.  Dynamics ERP provides you the ability to load forecasts by customers, customer group or at a total level.

The above figure shows the forecast in Dynamics ERP by different customer groups.  For example, the first line shows the forecast of 5000 units for all major customers and 6,000 units for a particular item for Retail customers.  Dynamics ERP splits them out based on an Item allocation key based on month (or any other time period relevant to you).  By defining such item allocation keys you can take into account seasonality or business cycles.

Loading a forecast is however, optional.  You can run planning just based on current open transactions including sales orders, purchase orders and inventory.  The figure below shows planned purchase orders and planned production orders created using the MRP functionality for multiple release dates for multiple items with the quantity to be ordered and the desired delivery date. The delivery date ties to your need of the product and the order date factors in the vendor lead time.

The end result is a stable automated planned cycle that happens every day, week or month depending on the frequency of inventory churn and volume of orders in your business.

Now should you do this for every single SKU in your item master or just for some SKUs? ; my answer is your top % of SKUs by some measure. This measure could be sales quantity, Sales $, and most typically for manufacturers inventory carrying cost (which is determined by inventory value.)  Typically you would classify your items as ABCs and plan for the As and Bs and just ensure the Cs are always there and typically overstocked since they have a low inventory carrying cost.  The ideal way to do it is again to have the ERP actually calculate the ABC classification for you. For example, in the example shown below I asked Dynamics ERP to rank the top 25% of items by revenue as an A, Next 30% as a B and the rest as Cs. I may choose to  now do weekly planning on my As, monthly on my Bs and do no planning and use an auto-fill mechanism on my Cs.

This is simplifying it a bit but the point is that I don’t need to go through a lot of grunt work to get this done. The system will do 90% of my work of loading forecasts, generating purchased orders and even deciding which items get planned for with the appropriate configuration. The end-result: you’ve saved yourself a boat load of work and enough dollars to make this a high and fast ROI project.

Want more – email us at dynamics@ignify.com to get on our email list for valuable tips or to ask us any questions in general.

Sandeep Walia is the President & CEO of Ignify. Ignify is a technology provider of ERP, CRM, and eCommerce software solutions for manufacturers, distributors and retailers. Ignify is a Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle Partner and ranked in the top 18 Microsoft Dynamics partners. Ignify has been included as the fastest growing business in North America for 3 years in a row by Deloitte, Inc Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine.

by Ignify, a Northern California Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner

Fast ROI For Manufacturing Companies And Distributors From Your ERP is a post from: ERP Software Blog

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I am excited to announce that Ignify has been chosen by the Port of Long Beach California to implement Microsoft Dynamics ERP. The new ERP system will greatly heighten productivity by automating the Port’s critical billing, accounts receivable, revenue recognition and analytical reporting systems responsible for moving more than $100 billion worth of products, natural resources, and provisions traversing through the harbor each year.

Microsoft Dynamics ERP will serve as the central core for the Port of Long Beach’s new Port Operating and Revenue Tracking System (PORTS) that will be developed and implemented by Ignify. The key role of the PORTS platform will be to help the Port of Long Beach increase the efficiency of the billing process and improve customer service by managing invoices, accounts receivables and cash application. Dynamics ERP -based PORTS will provide EDI and real-time reporting of billing data which is not available in the current system, thereby enhancing financial reporting and automating data validation. In addition, a new web-based portal will offer tenants, terminal operators, and employees the ability to securely create, view and manage orders anywhere an Internet connection is available.

Other benefits include:

• Allows port staff and customers to enter billing data directly into a web browser, reducing data entry errors
• Validates customer self-reported data and calculates charges and credits in accordance with lease agreements and Port tariffs
• Interfaces with the Port’s Electronic Document and Records management system, Vessel Tracking, Property Management and Green Flag systems
• Provides dashboard style user interfaces for Port staff, executives and external customers

Microsoft Dynamics ERP will provide increased automation and efficiency; flexibility and scalability for future enhancements; and better quality control and turnaround time for more effective decision-making.

The Port of Long Beach is one of the world’s premier sea ports responsible for the transport of goods ranging from textiles, automobiles, petroleum, steel, furniture, and consumer electronics among many other products. The Port is also an economic powerhouse responsible for over 316,000 job in Southern California and 1.4 million jobs throughout the United States.

The amount of cargo traveling in and out of Long Beach at any given moment along with the amount of data generated for fulfilling these shipments is astronomical. By automating order entry and revenue tracking through Microsoft Dynamics ERP and designing a web-portal where customers can log-in and manage orders themselves, the Port of Long Beach will dramatically improve day-to-day operations while lowering total annual costs.

In addition to the Port of Long Beach, Ignify in 2009 was selected to implement Microsoft Dynamics ERP system for the Harbor Center port in the Philippines. Ignify was recently ranked as the 26th fastest growing company by the Los Angeles Business Journal and 19th Fastest Growing IT Company nation-wide by Inc. Magazine’s Inc. 500.

Sandeep Walia is the President & CEO of Ignify

Ignify is a privately-held ISO 9001 certified company focused on the mid-market and enterprise business space for ERP, CRM, and eCommerce implementations. The company provides design, consulting and implementation services for ERP, CRM initiatives for mid-market and enterprise businesses. Ignify is a Top-tier Microsoft Gold Certified partner ranked in both the Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle and the Microsoft Dynamics Presidents Club in 2009. Ignify offers a comprehensive set of Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) eCommerce solutions for increasing online sales while lowering overall operation costs. Ignify has offices in Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Nashville, Chicago, Toronto, Manila, Pune and Bangalore. For more information, visit http://www.ignify.com or call 888-446-4395 or email dynamics@ignify.com.

Port of Long Beach, California Selects Dynamics ERP to Improve Customer Service and increase efficiency is a post from: ERP Software Blog

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