Microsoft Great Plains international implementation – USA / Mexico – overview for consultant

By Andrew Karasev

1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918

Alba Spectrum Technologies

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains was purchased from Great Plains Software and Great Plains Software itself had strong international marketing plans and campaigns.  If we look back to 1990^th – we’ll see that GPS had Multilanguage support and Great Plains Dynamics / Dynamics C/S+ was localized and translated into multiple languages, including Spanish.  Localization means not only the translation, but also adaptation to specific local country tax rules (Sales Tax versus Value Added Tax VAT, GST, specific payroll taxes, etc.).  Let’s consider typical case when we see international company with headquarters and distribution centers in the US and manufacturing and purchasing in Mexico

• Multicurrency.  As we expect to do the business in Mexican pesos – all the Purchase Orders, Vendor Invoices, Some sales invoices (what we sell to the parent company in the USA, for example) will be stated in Peso.  But the Mexican company will report in USD and its financial statements will be in US$ for consolidation and reporting in the USA.  Nowadays you usually see this work done in FRx financial reporting, where Mexican facility will be a leaf of the FRX reporting tree.  In any case – all the historical exchange rates will be recorded (you can also create Web Service, updating these rates from the published exchange rates).  In Great Plains you do it by setting USD as functional currency and issuing docs in Peso and then revaluating and posting Gain or Loss on multicurrency transactions to GL
• Sales Tax/VAT.  Mexico uses VAT, which is very common also in Europe.  However if in Europe it is usually incorporated in the price list – Mexico may use both approaches.  Great Plains has pretty comprehensive VAT support.
• Spanish Alphabet.  Is supported and you can have both English version in the US and Spanish version in Mexico working of the same Great Plains environment
• Central Location.  You can host your Great Plains installation in the US and have Mexican users connected over the remote desktop connection.  Consider Windows 2003 Terminal server licenses.  Some functionality could be realized through Microsoft Business Portal – which is web-based application.  The other way is to have server in Mexico and have relatively inexpensive Microsoft Great Plains data be consolidated with Oracle, SAP, PeopleSoft based system in the USA.

Good luck with support 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 is a Great Plains specialist in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com  ) – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving clients in Mexico-city, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Miami, New Orleans, Toronto, Montreal and having locations in multiple states and internationally