GSL Blog
Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010—The new way to do business
Written by admin
January 16, 2012
Today’s world demands a new way to do business. Organizations continue to wrestle with complexity in a difficult business environment. They face the dual challenge of reducing operating costs while responding to greater customer needs and ultimately increasing profitability. Microsoft Dynamics® GP 2010 strengthens the ability of people and organizations to face these ongoing challenges, so that their businesses can remain competitive and grow.
This latest release of Microsoft Dynamics GP extends the reach of insight, productivity, and collaboration across the entire business, helping to ensure that people—an organization’s most powerful asset—and the different ways they work continue to drive business success. New capabilities deliver faster access to personalized business intelligence, enhanced ways to streamline business processes, and new ways to build stronger business relationships.
Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 makes it easier for people to work faster and smarter. Employees can make rapid, informed decisions and take action with enhanced insight that is personalized, simple to access, and extended across the organization through familiar Microsoft Office applications. In addition, this release continues to remove barriers that get in the way of working effectively to better connect people, information, and processes across applications and systems.
Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 continues to deliver on the promise of a comprehensive ERP solution that goes beyond basic business management and extends easily to meet unique business needs. Simple to implement and use, the solution delivers innovation that enables all people in an organization to work with information in ways that are familiar to them—today and into the future. It’s the new way to do business.
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The New Way to Do Business: Making it Easier with Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Written by admin
January 3, 2012
The term “business as usual” simply doesn’t apply in today’s marketplace. Organizations need systems that help their people orchestrate routine tasks and complex processes—all in the course of a day’s work. Microsoft Dynamics® GP 2010 offers capabilities that help people work faster and smarter. This latest release fuels efficient task management and teamwork, simplifies setup and IT administration, and offers built-in tools for meeting specific business needs.
Microsoft Dynamics GP is already well known for rich integration with Microsoft® Office system applications—without leaving the ERP solution, users can take full advantage of Microsoft Office Outlook®, Microsoft Office Excel®, and Microsoft Office Word. We’re enhancing that connection so that people can quickly create customer and vendor-facing documents using Word forms. They can also send batch and individual e-mail messages for invoices, orders, and check remittances. The result? People get more work done in less time—and the work looks more professional and polished.
There’s more. Teams can now work more efficiently, with precise tracking and accountability, by using new workflow approval processes and improved capabilities for documenting sign-offs. In addition, simplified system access includes default logon settings that can save users valuable time. Just as important, Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 offers straightforward tools that ensure fast installation, setup, and data migration from applications such as QuickBooks and Peachtree.
The latest release also makes it easier to meet unique business needs with built-in personalization tools. For instance, people can stop juggling customer and vendor information stored in multiple sources such as Microsoft Office Access® and Excel. Without writing new code, administrators or users can create a mini business application in Microsoft Dynamics GP that consolidates the information for easier tracking and management by multiple people, for multiple tasks.
Finally, we’ve paid close attention to customer requests for enhancements that improve business efficiency and performance in highly specific areas—including analytical accounting, budget tracking, payables and receivables, payroll, field services, manufacturing, and distribution in a complex marketplace.
Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010. We’re making it easier to do business.
E-Learning in CustomerSource
Written by admin
December 27, 2011
Do you know about the E-Learning content available on CustomerSource? If your company is enrolled in a service plan (enhancement plan) with Microsoft for Dynamics GP, you have free - yes, FREE! - unlimited access to:
•E-Learning: Provides detailed concepts on specific topic areas. The instruction covers content that is comparable to classroom training content
•Training materials: Can be used as a study tool or as a desktop reference
•Learning Plans: Learning Plans help individuals understand the training and certification options available, and develop a training plan to achieve their goals.
Some training materials are available in multiple languages. Learning Plans are currently available in English only.
If you do not currently have access to CustomerSource, we can help. Contact us at (207) 761-2133 and we can get you set up!
U.S. 2012 Tax Tables have Released
Written by Lindsay Walsh
December 23, 2011
Microsoft has released the 2012 U.S. Payroll Tax Update for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 and 10.0.* If you’ve been following the news, the extension on the payroll tax cut is still up in the air. The IRS has advised Microsoft to revert back to what is on the Notice 1036, which is 6.2% withholding and a $110,100 limit on Social Security. The IRS is not optimistic this will be decided before the end of the year, and it is better to over-withhold than under-withhold. If it changes back to 4.2%, Microsoft will re-release the tax update, and Gilchrist Scott will re-post instructions on how to correct any over-withholdings.
Since the 2012 tax tables include the change from 4.2% to 6.2%, it is important to install this update AFTER creating the year-end wage file for the 2011 year.
The tax update also contains changes for the following states:
California
District of Columbia
Hawaii
Kentucky
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Minnesota
New Mexico
North Dakota
Oregon
Rhode Island
Vermont
Contact us with any questions regarding your year-end process. (207) 761-2133 or support@gilchristscott.com.
*Support for version 10 ends October, 2012.
The New Way to Do Business: Extending Connections with Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
Written by admin
December 22, 2011
“Works well with others”—a term you’ll remember from childhood report cards. In today’s business world, that term spans everything that technology can offer organizations for extending connections. Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 brings home a high mark, taking full advantage of Web services, integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and a simplified platform to bring together employees, customers, and vendors across applications and systems efficiently and cost-effectively.
To start, developers can quickly choose from more than 350 Web services that offer better performance and easier integrations. We’ve also developed a straightforward integration platform based on Web services
that connects applications to and from Microsoft Dynamics GP and enables developers to create independent integration adapters. And connections through Web services integrations no longer depend on Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS)—eliminating the need to buy separate servers and greatly simplifying infrastructure and IT management.
This latest release helps sales, service, and business management staff collaborate through built-in integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Sales and service information flows directly to the back office and provides people with a complete view of customers, contracts, pricing, product and service availability, and more. In addition, we’re offering an important innovation with the Extender tool. Without writing new code, organizations can capture and consolidate business-specific information—for example, every unique detail related to a customer, client, or vendor—that’s previously been housed in separate systems. People now have a centralized source that simplifies reporting and tracking and lets them work together more easily on cross-team and cross-department tasks.
All our innovations work to strengthen business relationships. One quiet, but important example: while working in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010, employees can connect at a deep level with customers and vendors through instant messaging. They can hold ad hoc conversations, hold a Microsoft Office Live Meeting, share views of customer and vendor information, and create and deliver sales quotes, sales orders, and purchase orders—all within an instant message.
We’re delivering a solution that extends connections so that everyone in your organization—and the systems that help your business run—work well together.
Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010. The new way to do business.
Windows Service Application & Web Services for near-real-time Integration
Written by Darren Woodbrey
December 1, 2011
A customer recently brought us a requirement to create a two-way integration between GP and a third party POS system. This integration needed to include Customer Master Records, Vendor Master Records, Address records, Items, Sales Invoices, Sales Payments, POP receipts and IV Adjustments. To make it more complex, the two systems needed to be in control of certain types of records. The POS system, for instance needed to be the “master” when it came to Customers, but GP needed to be the “master” for vendors. This integration also needed to be near real-time.
My first thought for this Integration was Dynamics GP Web Services and / or eConnect. These tools provide a tight integration with GP and satisfy the near real-time requirement. GP Web Services needs to be called using an ASP.Net application like a web site or Window’s form application and is event based, like any other ASP.Net app, so something needs to occur in the app before web services code can be called. The POS system was not written in .NET and the only way to get information in and out was through direct SQL statements or DTS package exports. The DTS package, while old school, caught my attention for a moment because this lead me towards using Integration manager. IM is a manual process that will integrate data from a text or Excel files into GP. This, however, did not satisfy the near real-time requirement so it was quickly scrapped.
I needed to come up with a .NET application that runs on some kind of a timer to call the GP Web Services. Sounds like a great scenario for a Windows Service Application. There is a template in Visual Studio that creates an installable Window’s Service based on .NET and this sounded perfect, so I decided to test it out. I created a holding table in SQL that is populated by SQL triggers when a document or master record is create or updated in GP. I then used a .NET timer control to trigger the GP Web Services. This will, in essence, act as a polling application. The code on the timer will check the holding table for any new records then query the tables for the type of record in the holding table and use GP Web Services to bring in or query GP documents to move them into the POS system.
An added bonus feature is that the application can write events to the Window’s event log. Successful and, more importantly, error messages are recorded and easily queried just like Window’s events. An e-mail feature was also added to warn certain users when certain types of records were integrated. Another great feature is that the Window’s Service can use an .xml config file to hold settings. This allows the ODBC connection settings to the third party app, amongst other types of settings, to be stored outside of the source code which makes this application easily modifiable for different client requirements. While this solution is not yet in production, initial testing looks terrific and seems to be a great fit for these requirements.
This is just another custom solution from Gilchrist Scott Development. If you are looking to integrate another application with GP and do not want to bother with manual processes such as Integration Manager, then a Windows Service Application from GSL may be for you. Please contact us at 207-761-2133 for more information.
Supply Chain Management
Written by Lindsay Walsh
November 15, 2011
In this demonstration, you’ll see how Microsoft Dynamics GP can help meet your business needs in the areas of customer credit line management, shipping, and order allocation.
Bonus Depreciation and Bonus Licenses!
Written by admin
November 1, 2011
In the past, we’ve discussed how there are two levels of pricing for Dynamics GP, Business Essentials and Advanced Management. These licensing models offer anywhere from $35,000 - $100,000 + worth of software functionality. Right now through December 22nd, Microsoft is offering the following special promotion:
If you purchase 5 licenses by year end, you pay only $3,000. This is for either version of software, the Business Essentials OR the Advanced Management. This is a potential savings of anywhere from $8,000 - $17,000! Even if the timing is not right, but you know GP is the solution of choice down the road, you could still purchase a very elaborate system for pennies on the dollar and simply hold onto this system until you are ready to implement.
The other interesting note as it relates to year-end, is a piece about Bonus Depreciation (this if you remember was a part of a Tax Relief Act). Basically, this purchase could be completely depreciated if purchased by December 31st:
In general taxpayers who placed-in-service “qualifying property” after September 8, 2010 and before December 31, 2011 can get 100% bonus depreciation for these assets. Not wanting to waste a good set of regulations, the old bonus depreciation regulations will apply until the IRS issues a new set. As it was before, bonus depreciation is mandatory unless the taxpayer elects out of it. The election out can be by class of asset or for all qualifying assets in a company. The basic rules are as follows:
1. The original use of the property must begin with the current taxpayer. 2. Used property cannot qualify, although current improvements to that property may qualify.
3. The property must be purchased and placed in service from January 1, 2008 through December 31, 2012. The “written binding contract” (WBC) rules do apply to the placed-in-service dates. In other words, if the property is purchased or constructed pursuant to a WBC dated before January 1, 2008, it is not eligible for bonus depreciation. However, if the WBC is before September 8, 2010 and the property is placed-in-service after September 8, 2010, it is eligible for 50% bonus depreciation with one exception, discussed below.
4. The property must have a General Depreciation System (GDS) life of 20 years or less.
Don’t forget the other promotional specials going on now through December 22nd!
Contact us for more information.
