Freight Forwarding ERP: Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains customization
& setup overview for consultant
By Andrew Karasev
1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918
Alba Spectrum Technologies
Microsoft Great Plains
may be recommended for international freight forwarding / transportation
company. Great Plains has such features as multicurrency (Euro, Pound, Yuan,
Yen, Peso, Real), Spanish, French, Brazilian Portuguese (and if needed
Unicode-specific languages such as Chinese, Japanese). If you have operations
in East Europe you can have Polish version as well as you can have several
screens (SOP Entry, Inventory Item Maintenance, Customer/Vendor Maintenance,
etc) translated to Russian, Lithuanian, Latvian. Plus if you consider Great
Plains as a platform for custom tailoring and developing you can have
reasonably priced solution for horizontal business, such as freight forwarding,
cargo delivery, consignment, transportation. Lets consider industry specifics
and the way to implement them in Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains
- Agent Settlement.
Freight forwarder usually deploys agents to deliver shipment. And agents are
usually paid on the monthly or semimonthly basis. This means that you should
have agents as customer.
- Daily Agent MBL
invoices/statements. Assuming
that agent is handling several shipment with Master Bill of Ladings (MBL) and
House Bill of Ladings (HBL) per day freight forwarder emails to the agent
daily invoices. Then these daily invoices are settled and paid one time per
months
- Cargo Tracking
System. This is usually custom
in-house made system, specific to each freight forwarder or industry specific
stand alone software. The important requirement is the integration between
Shipment Tracking System and ERP, such as Great Plains
- Accurate in-time
payments. Payments are required to stay in highly competitive business,
such as freight forwarding
- Bill of Lading
report. Where you usually need
additional info to standard invoice form: Carrier, MAWB, Airport of Departure,
Airport of Destination, Flight #/ETA, Weight in KG, Lbs, number of packages,
etc.
Technologies and
customization tools:
- Great Plains
Dexterity. This is Great Plains
Software and currently Microsoft Great Plains programming language and IDE.
It will allow you seamless integration with
Great Plains user interface. You should
realize agent settlement screen and inquiry, MBS/HBL profit/loss inquiry form
and probably Bill of Lading in Great Plains Dexterity.
- SQL Integration.
Integrating with Cargo Tracking/Delivery system should be done via SQL stored
procedures. Use ODBC Linked Server to link to your tracking system database
(MS SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, Unidata, Pervasive SQL, Ctree/Faircom, mySQL).
- Web Order Entry.
Use eConnect to avoid high user license cost in Great Plains. eConnect is SDK
to reference Great Plains objects you will need SOP and POP orders entry
- Customer/Vendor
Consolidation. For agents, who
are customers and vendors at the same time use consolidation module. It is
available for Great Plains Professional only if youd like to stay with
Great Plains Standard use Great Plains Dexterity to program the
consolidation.
Good luck in implementing and if you have issues or
concerns we are here to help! If you want us to do the job - give us a call
1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918! help@albaspectrum.com
Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba
Spectrum Technologies USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization
company, serving clients in Chicago, California, Texas, Florida, New York,
Georgia, Arizona, Minnesota, UK, Australia, Canada, Mexico and having locations in multiple
states and internationally (
http://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:
andrewk@albaspectrum.com