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. Lets consider two modules SOP and Invoicing. Well
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 dont 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
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
Alba Spectrum Technologies