By upgrading your outdated or Express version of Microsoft SQL Server, you will be able to automate the backup process of your Microsoft Dynamics GP data and be notified by email, should that backup fail, keeping you ahead of the game. Another amazing backup feature of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition is ‘point in time recovery’. With this feature enabled you can restore your data back to any given point in time throughout your workday should something go wrong.

Microsoft SQL Express users can unlock a number of features after they upgrade, including increased performance, the ability to work with up to 4 CPU’s and up to 64Gb of ram, as well as SQL Server Management Studio2 with the SQL Agent for scheduling weekly maintenance jobs to keep your databases running efficiently. A new feature of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 is Backup Compression. With Backup Compression enabled you can reduce data storage requirements and spend less time performing backup & restores.

With Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 comes the rich reporting capabilities of Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services.  You will be able to install hundreds of default reports in Microsoft Dynamics GP2010R2, with the ability to print them without logging into GP. SQL Server Reporting Services comes with Report Builder 3.0 so you can design your own richly formatted reports to use throughout your organization.

Isn’t it time to move your data off of an outdated and unsupported version of SQL? Get the most powerful SQL Server version ever: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2. Contact us today and we will get you on the path to discovering all the new features this version has to offer.

bby Software Solutions Group, New York State Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner

Upgrade Your Outdated SQL Server to Unlock the Potential of Your Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2. is a post from: ERP Software Blog

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BI= Real-Time Performance Dashboard

Whereas ERP provides the mechanism to capture, tag, and organize data from disparate departments and business units across your organization, BI serves as a performance dashboard that pulls that information together to equip users at all levels to find out, in real time and in terms that they understand, what’s happening within their areas of the business.

How does this translate into tangible business benefits? What exactly do you gain when your ERP offers powerful business intelligence capabilities?

Pull real-time comprehensive reports in less time, without having to wait till month-end

Having to wait till month-end to create reports? If so, how much is the delay in receiving critical performance information costing your company – due to undetected market price fluctuations, lost revenue opportunities, and so forth? What if you could uncover systemic issues at any point during the month, quarter, or whatever period – to make the adjustments you need to hit your numbers? The right BI dashboard integrated with your ERP solution will give you this capability.

Also, how much time does it take your staff to pull comprehensive reports together, especially when they must include data inputted from across the entire enterprise? One company (see case study) cut their company-wide sales report-gathering time from 40 hours, down to two hours, using a BI solution tailored to their operations. That’s a 95-percent reduction in staff hours to create reports, significantly lowering costs associated with report generation and freeing those employees to focus on more productive tasks.

Use BI to compare budgets, forecasts, and plans to actual performance in real-time. Uncover and correct potential business issues before they blow up into major crises that could derail your company.

Find and access the right information – quicker and easier

Organize and display real-time data from your ERP or CRM (customer relationship management) system in a way that makes sense to you—and then search that information according to specific criteria. BI helps provide you with the information your employees need to forecast and make business decisions,  where they can quickly and easily drill down into information and analyze data in multiple ways.

Make informed, confident business decisions

The right business intelligence (BI) solution improves business performance by driving better decision-making throughout your organization. When you’re confident that your insight into corporate data is sound, informed, and complete, you can trust that all your decisions will help you create competitive advantage and achieve corporate objectives.

To learn more about tailoring a robust BI solution for your organization – to transform your business data into the knowledge you need to make informed, confident business decisions – contact ERT Group at 954-825-0888.

Enterprise Resources Technology Group, Inc. (ERT Group) is a technology consulting firm that empowers companies to grow and succeed with business solutions that streamline processes, impove productivity, and squeeze more profit from operations. ERT Group is a Florida Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and a 2010 President’s Club member for Microsoft Dynamics – offering Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics ERP.

Does Your ERP Have Enough (Business) Intelligence? is a post from: ERP Software Blog

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Read more of our blog here

The Significance of ERP Cloud for Small and Medium Businesses is a post from: ERP Software Blog

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Twenty years ago when our firm began, custom developed software was the answer to a company’s needs.  Packaged software with the features necessary to meet the standard requirements of a business enterprise was too large, complex, and expensive or it was too small and too simple to provide much value beyond basic accounting.  So the answer was to build what you needed.  Beginning in the early 1990s, publishers began adding functionality to their software and in the last few years we have had access to broadly featured ERP solutions for the middle market players.  However, with our new, connected business ecosystem and with the overwhelming possibilities provided by the internet, we once again found ourselves limited by the software features available. 

Today, with the release of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 we have everything we ever wanted – a broadly featured enterprise financial system with a totally open development environment.  We can build, attach, reference, interface with, display, or engage anything one might imagine.  How about a warehouse heat map that would allow you to view bin activity and make bin transfers with drag and drop?  What if you had a map of your customer’s location visible right on the customer master card and that map also had all of your other customers showing so you could easily combine sales or service visits?  How about connecting to your suppliers or your customers electronically and in real time?  How about a full GPS vehicle tracking system for your fleet?  All of this and more is available with the Client Extensibility tools available with NAV 2009.

To be truthful, I hesitated to type the ideas in the paragraph above because the sky is really the limit.  Any time one presents a short list of ideas those ideas will tend to focus the reader’s attention and potentially eliminate unrelated, yet still powerful possibilities from thought.  We used to consult clients from within the borders of the software tools we had available. The new paradigm we must now absorb will be to leave our tools at the office and truly whiteboard possibilities for our clients without the constraints the tools used to provide. We are free to focus on the processes or issues and imagine the solutions without limitation.  What a brave new world this is!

I, for one, am very excited about this new environment, but not without some trepidation.  My pause comes from knowing my own limitations as a creative thinker.  It scares me just a bit to realize that there are a million possibilities and I will likely only see three.  However, I am just one fellow and in our business, it often takes a team to breed a great solution.  I am comforted by the knowledge that I am surrounded by one of the best teams of ERP implementation experts working today!

Thanks for reading – I look forward to your comments.

By Sikich – Microsoft Dynamics NAV Partner, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and Microsoft Inner Circle member serving St. Louis,  MO and the Midwest

a Missouri Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner

Microsoft Dynamics NAV – 1.3 Million Users Can’t Be Wrong is a post from: ERP Software Blog

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You can take the guesswork away by making it easier for your team to capture and assign actual costs to specific projects.  Sounds smart, but what specific steps should you take to set up a system to track all costs associated with your projects?

• Define your “projects”. Projects take different forms for different organizations.  For a membership organization, a quarterly member event could be defined as a project.  An advertising company could define each project as a marketing campaign.  Each wedding would be set up as a project for a caterer.
• Define the costs that should be allocated. Direct costs, like materials, are easy to allocate to projects, but think through all the steps of your project activities to assign the full cost of delivering that project.
• Determine how to track time, costs and expenses. Keep it simple.  Consider how much detail you really need to capture to accurately track costs.  Make it easy for your employees to enter and assign time and expense to each project no matter where they are.
• Monitor. Check the results of your project costing regularly to make sure that your employees are using the system consistently.  Use reports to monitor the profitability of each project and adjust your prices accordingly.

With the Dynamics GP Project Accounting module, you can set up project tracking however it suits your business.  An experienced Dynamics Partner will give you the advice you need to set up your project costing system to serve your unique needs.  With a clearer understanding of your costs, you can price your services to boost your bottom line.

by BroadPoint Technologies, a Virginia Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner

Are Your Prices Hurting Your Bottom Line? Microsoft Dynamics GP Project Accounting Module Can Help! is a post from: ERP Software Blog

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