Computer And Technology Blog

If you are in active ecommerce integration with Microsoft Dynamics GP Great Plains ERP application, we would like to offer you this article with highlights on Dynamics GP web based Business Portal and its ecommerce module Order Management, plus some highlights on Great Plains eCommerce ISV and technology partners custom add-ons. eCommerce is very diversified and it is often too complex for simple ecommerce product to cover numerous requirements, that businesses in various industries might have. Microsoft Business Solutions offers Dynamics GP Business Portal Order Management (for Great Plains 7.5 and earlier this product was known as eOrder, however it was redesigned from scratches on Business Portal platform). Business Portal is definitely cool direction and future technology orientation, however if you find it too limited in customizability (the same limitation was applicable to eOrder, where you would have to customize existing ASP pages in InterDev to adopt new logic, and every version upgrade required you to reapply these changes), then you should appeal to Dynamics GP ISV community and try to find appropriate ecommerce extension, or connector product. We made the research and figured out that ecommerce integration is underserved for both Dynamics GP Great Plains and Dynamics AX Axapta products, where at this time you can come to the conclusion, that third party add-ons have domination

If you are USA or Canada based multinational corporate and you deploy Microsoft Dynamics GP, formerly known as Great Plains Dynamics or eEnterprise, you should find optimal ERP application for your international subsidiaries and branches. As you already paid for Dynamics GP licenses, first natural idea is probably to implement GP for overseas branches and exercise full control in Financial Reporting, Internal Audit, etc. This natural idea might be not as good as it initially looks like. Couple of observations: foreign countries typically have their own restrictions and legislations on tax reporting, corporate annual and quarterly filing, some countries require continuous invoice numbering. Second observation: some foreign countries, such as China, Korea, Japan have Unicode based language characters or in other words hieroglyphs and Dynamics GP at this time and likely in the future doesn't support Unicode with some exemptions (take a look at NJ Star add-ons). In Accounting application terms local language support and compliance to local legislation is known as ERP Localization. In our opinion, if your foreign subsidiary is located in the country where Dynamics GP is not localized, the best approach is to select localized ERP, which is simple in implementation and consolidation to Corporate ERP Great Plains. Let's review the options for various countries and regions:

Author: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Dynamics GP, formerly known as Great Plains Dynamics and eEnteprise is ERP and MRP application for mid-size and smaller businesses. If you have this accounting package implemented in your organization, or planning to select appropriate Corporate ERP application, we would be happy to help you with current system support, customization, integration, EDI mapping, FRx, Crystal and custom reporting, eCommerce integration, as well as helping you to come through ERP selection sales cycle and final Dynamics GP license acquisition. We understand the specifics of ERP implementation in Southern California and Chicagoland, plus Houston area where our offices are located. If you are in USA countryside, we support you remotely via web sessions and phone conferences, it is feasible if you have GP system already implemented and need ongoing support. Dynamics GP licensing and support highlights:

Crystal Reports are popular, even considering the fact that you can deploy preset or develop new free reports in Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services or SSRS.  

Crystal Reports designer is very traditional tool and there
are a lot of CR designers and IT professionals, who are very comfortable to
support Crystal Reports for Microsoft Dynamics GP former Great Plains.  In this small publication we would like to
give you highlights on Crystal Reports Design and Deployment for Dynamics GP
via remote web sessions, or remote desktop connections USA and Canada
nationwide:

Microsoft Dynamics GP does allow you to accumulate during the year, adjust and print IRS required forms, such as 1099, W2, W3.  

If you have just implemented Dynamics GP in your
organization in 2008 and now you are facing the approaching deadline to print
and mail the forms to your employees, vendors and IRS, then you might be interested
in getting some practical information. 
This small publication is written in the form of highlights and may
require additional Dynamics GP consulting help:

1.      
US Payroll Module.  Here you may have employees (W2 and W3 forms)
and contractors (vendors: 1099 form). 
Please, review employee entry form and set it up for each respected
worker

Microsoft Dynamics GP version 10.0 and 9.0 is open to ecommerce web programmer through its SDK eConnect.  

If you are C# or VB .Net Microsoft Visual Studio software
developer, you should be able to program integration with such Dynamics GP
objects as: customer, inventory item, employee, vendor, GL account (and more)
and also be able to integrate transactions: Sales Order, Quote, Invoice,
Return, Purchase Order, Purchase Receipt, Payroll transaction, AP voucher, AP
payment, AR customer invoice and customer payment to give you the idea.  eConnect is under substantial expansion and
you may expect new objects to be covered in the future Dynamics GP
versions.  If you are starting ecommerce
project from scratch (when you do not have legacy ecommerce application and the
history of the business or franchise), then you should probably look for
out-of-the-shelf products (and we would be happy to recommend you existing
ecommerce add-ons). However, if you have to respect legacy ecommerce website
and shopping cart, you should take custom programming approach and we offer you
here technical highlights:

Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP has US and Canadian Payroll modules, and this accounting application is often used by Payroll outsourcing companies to serve their customers as well as by large corporation to accrue and pay payroll checks, Social Security, Medicare, Federal and State Income taxes, plus W-2 printing and mailing to employees

In order to save on Dynamics GP user licenses, it is common
to see simple or complex timecard custom made application on the front, often
web based, where employees are logging their time on the daily base after each
shift and then this timesheet logging application should be automatically or
manually integrated with Great Plains Dynamics GP.  In this publication we will review various
options to do the job:

Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP, also known as Great Plains is very popular accounting application and platform for mid-size businesses. 

It serves large number of industries: wholesale and retail, shipping and logistics, healthcare, light manufacturing and assembly (especially discrete production), multinational companies, services, project organization, trading.  In this small publication we would like to give you some highlight on Great Plains Reporting tool ? FRx financial reporting.  There are multiple reporting tools for GP: Crystal Reports, Report Writer, SRS, Microsoft Excel, MS Access, however FRx is the tool of choice, when you need to build Financial Reports: Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss Statement, Statement of Cash Flow

Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP in its core set of modules is ready for implementing in industries as ERP and MRP platform, however every business is unique with its business processes and workflows

If you are on the edge of your industry, chances are high that existing GP add-ons do not exist or do not do the job for your company.  In this case Dynamics GP implementation requires customization, and new unique add-on development specially for your company.  These add-ons are often referred as vertical ERP solutions or verticals.  In the case of Microsoft Great Plains we would like to give you GP add-ons programming highlights:

Microsoft Dynamics GP Great Plains MRP and ERP application is very popular in Chicagoland and in this small publication we would like to give you GP implementation, customization, reporting, data conversion and migration, version upgrade, data integration case studies and highlights

We will base our paragraphs on real customer stories here in Illinois

1.       Migration from Quick Books to Great Plains Dynamics.  You can export your chart of accounts, rework it by adding segmentation and then import to Dynamics GP via Integration Manager, table import tool or even in SQL Query Analyzer with insert statement.  In the case if you do insert into GL00100 table, which is account master, please run check links in Financials.  Transactions on the level of General Ledger are pretty simple to import, including historical years from Quick Books to Great Plains, assuming that you established one-to-one accounts mapping QB to GP.  If your company outgrew Quick Books or another Small Business Accounting package, please contact us