Inventory Management Software : Sales Order

Great Plains Sales Order Processing and Invoicing Modules – tips for consultant
by: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Great Plains – main Microsoft Business Solutions application for US and Latin American (except Brazil, where MBS promotes Navision) markets is built with multiple modules. In the case of Sales automation you – software selection specialist should consider two Microsoft Great Plains modules: Sales Order Processing (SOP) and Invoicing. You should understand the difference between the two and see which one is the best fit for your company. Let’s consider two modules SOP and Invoicing. We’ll give you non formal view, based on our consulting practice.

Common Features. SOP and Invoicing have these features

• Sales Automation – this is obvious statement.
• Posting to GL and Bank Reconciliation – this means that automated posting across Microsoft Great Plains is applicable to both modules as well as to the whole Great Plains design.
• Integration with Accounts Receivable (AR) module - Great Plains has very clear structure of base modules: GL (core), AR, AP, IV (inventory control). When you post document from SOP or Invoicing – system creates posted RM Sales transaction (Invoice) in Accounts Receivable module
• Integration with Inventory Control Module – both modules are integrated with Inventory Control – this means that you can select items from the inventory as well as non inventoried items and have them as Invoice lines.

Sales Order Processing Additional Features. These are what you don’t have in Invoicing

• Quote/Sales Order/Back Order/Return – you have workflow. You can start with quotation, then you can transfer quote to sales order (with Items allocation or without it in Inventory control). Then sales order can be transferred to Invoice or Backorder (in the case of shortage)
• Process Holds – you can have holds with password protection placed on the way of transferring quote to invoice or order. Other holds functions are: printing, fulfilling and posting. However we would like to tell you about our experience. In 10+ years of our consulting practice we had only couple of clients who used this holds feature
• Quote/Order/Invoice types – you can define these types and have different workflows associated with each of them. Imagine – Internet Orders you transfer to internet invoices, government quotes you either void or transfer to government orders, etc.

Do I need consultant? It is probably good idea to have consultant to do the upgrade. We strongly recommend you to use consultant in the following cases

• You have Dexterity customization
• You are doing migration from Pervasive/Ctree to Microsoft SQL Server/MSDE, especially when you have third-parties without migration tools
• You have a lot or ReportWriter Modified Great Plains Reports
• You have old version of Great Plains: Dynamics or eEnterprise 6.0 or prior - in this case you can not appeal to Microsoft Technical Support - it is discontinued
• Your Great Plains has more than 20 users and you have to have upgrade done over the weekend - if it fails - you have business problems
• You don't have support - in this case you have to select your Microsoft Business Solutions Partner and pay for the annual support/enhancement plan - you will get new registration key and will be ready for the upgrade

Good luck with modules selection and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-630-961-5918 or 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, with offices in Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Miami, Denver, UK, Australia, Europe and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is CMA, Great Plains Certified Master, Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. You can contact Andrew: akarasev@albaspectrum.com

Other article by : Andrew Karasev

Customization Tools for Microsoft Dynamics GP - overview

Microsoft Dynamics GP or former Great Plains Software eEnterprise/Dynamics is matured ERP/MRP application and its customization tools evolution came in parallel with the evolution of our computing tools and hardware fleet. This article gives you highlights on the Legacy and New tools and you are the one to make a decision.

• Legacy Tools. Great Plains Dexterity was designed on several fundamental idea, popular in the beginning of 1990th – computer graphical platform and database platform independence, and logically as you might remember the stake was on C programming language, as the hybrid of assembler and at the same time more generic programming or high level language. Obviously if you decide to stake on one – you have to sacrifice or disregard the other. In the case of Great Plains Dexterity we see the following problems: lack of Unicode support (making it not a good choice for international expansion), DEX_ROW_ID – in SQL Server database – each dexterity table must have this field, used by Dexterity engine internally, inflexibility in ReportWriter or Dex reports, where you have to use only key-based links. Plus graphical interface is kind of outdated – again it is based on C transferable graphics

• eConnect & XML web services. With the progress of Project Green or now Microsoft Dynamics project, there is the potential need to resolve multiple database kernels for several Microsoft ERP: Great Plains, Navision, Axapta, Solomon with unified interface, utilizing .Net or its successor. eConnect allows developer to manipulate Microsoft Dynamics GP objects through programmable .Net interfaces. If you will deploy web service envelopes then you potentially can be independent from programming language and computer technologies, and so manipulate Microsoft Great Plains business logic from your front end application of choice, including eCommerce, EDI, J2EE, Oracle, Business Intelligence (BI), etc.

• Dexterity Customizations Upgrade recommendations. It is probably not reasonable to spend large budget to switching to new technologies in one step, however you should consider step-by-step switch. We recommend you to deploy eConnect and web service interfaces as much as you can, plus try to switch reporting from Dexterity to SQL Server Reporting Services

• Crystal Reports. As you can conclude – Microsoft will be recommending SRS versus Crystal Reports, and you probably remember, that Crystal was the reporting tool of choice for older Microsoft Great Plains versions: 5.5, 6.0, 7.0 and 7.5

• Recent Tools. Xtender, Excel, Explorer and other “end-user-friendly” tools. In this article we definitely recommend you to do your intuitive discovery, but we concentrate on programmer approach and instruments.

Please do not hesitate to call or email us: USA/Canada: 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, Europe: +44 20 8123 2580, +45 36 96 55 20, Mexico: 52-55-535-04027 help@albaspectrum.com

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