Microsoft Dynamics GP: Auto dealership implementation
By Andrew Karasev
Alba Spectrum Technologies
1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918
help@albaspectrum.com
Microsoft Dynamics GP, or
Microsoft Great Plains is very popular mid-market generic ERP. It can be used
as ERP platform for multiple vertical markets. In this small article we’ll
describe typical auto dealership network automation.
Worldwide automaker has
dealers across the USA and Canada and in their case they had Great Plains
Dynamics 6.0 on MS SQL Server/MSDE. Each dealer is independent enterprise, so
each has its own Great Plains license
- Dealership
proprietary software. Dealership
is traditional business and it had several generations of computer business
systems. Customer info, associated with the car and VIN, work done for the
car, parts, associated with the specific model, works pricelist and technician
availability – this information is stored in DOS based business management
system.
- Microsoft Dynamics
GP – accounting back end. Each
transaction financial information goes to be stored in Great Plains Standard.
Natural choice to use standard accounting application as the backend – it can
handle US and Canadian dollars variation, plus it can handle sales tax (USA)
and VAT/GST (Canada, Australia, New Zealand)
- Financial Reporting.
Microsoft Great Plains has FRx financial reporting: Balance Sheet, Profit &
Loss (P&L), Cash Flow Statement – all these reports should be coming from
standard accounting package, such as Microsoft Dynamics GP.
- Integration
Technology. Great Plains
Dynamics 6.0 had legacy VBA/Modifier integration, using ADO to connect to
dealership proprietary database and integrate with it. For version 8.0 we
recommended eConnect in combination with direct MS SQL Server stored
procedures integration (eConnect has certain issues, dealing with
multicurrency and other nuances). As we move to Microsoft Dynamics GP (or
Microsoft Great Plains Standard 9.0) – the accent will be changed to Object
Integration SDK (eConnect with XML web services connectors, so we can deploy
Visual Studio.Net C# or VB, however the need for the SQL stored procedures
should be expected).
- Future Directions.
Auto dealership is very conservative business. It will be tending to skip one
or two versions upgrade, as we have in this case: client skipped upgrade from
Great Plains Dynamics 6.0 to Microsoft Great Plains Dynamics 7.0 and Great
Plains Standard 7.5. Current plan is to upgrade GP Dynamics 6.0 to Microsoft
Great Plains 8.0 and then in 2007 or 2008 GP 8.0 to Microsoft Dynamics GP 10
Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer
at Alba Spectrum Technologies (
http://www.albaspectrum.com ) - Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains,
Navision, Axapta MS CRM, Oracle Financials and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving
corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical &
Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Wholesale
& Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising &
Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates,
Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and
internationally.
We are serving USA Nationwide: CA, IL, NY,
FL, AZ, CO, TX, WI, WA, MI, MA, MO, LA, NM, MN, Europe: Germany, France,
Belgium, Poland, Russia, Middle East (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, OAE, Bahrain), Asia:
China, Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, South & Central America: Mexico, Peru,
Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Chili, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina,
Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico