Microsoft Great Plains 8.0 Brazilian version – overview for international consultant

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help@albaspectrum.com

Microsoft Great Plains has substantial mid-market share in the USA plus due to the marketing efforts of former Great Plains Software (now part of Microsoft Business Solutions) in Spanish Speaking South America, South Africa, United Kingdom, Middle East, Poland – we see strong position of Microsoft Great Plains in these regions (on these markets MBS promotes two mid-market ERP: Great Plains and Navision).  In Brazil situation is the following.  Brazilian market has long story of local mid-size accounting/ERP systems – Microsiga is one of the major – it was developed in Brazil for Brazilian market.  Great Plains Software marketing campaign was getting very strong resistance from local market commitment to Microsiga and other local ERP application.  Currently MBS has  localized version of Microsoft Great Plains in Brazil.

We’ll describe you in this small article the technical side of the localized Brazilian Portuguese version:

• Translated Interface and Reports.  Great Plains is written on Great Plains Dexterity programming shell with several types of resources, one of the types is Strings – localization requires you to translate String resources to have windows and ReportWriter reports show Portuguese text.
• Tax Engine.  This is more difficult.  If you look at the tax code of the country of the size of Brazil: such as Russia, France, China, India – you will find that it has nuances, making such a tax code very unique and this is probably why in the above countries we find local accounting applications being very successful – these applications were developed mainly for the specific large country tax code, government tax reporting and other regulations.  In Brazil this is Microsiga.  Great Plains Dynamics was designed for US tax code with US Social security, later on it was adjusted to comply VAT (Value Added Tax) rules to promote it in UK and other countries.  Microsoft Great Plains version 8.0 Brazilian Portuguese version was adjusted to comply Brazilian tax and government regulations
• Payroll-related filings.  These are W-2 or like in US.  Brazil has its own rules and accounting application should pass certain government certifications in the country of this size

Of course, midsize accounting application requires local support, when it has adapted local version.  You can imagine all the issues, related to upgrades, data conversions, customizations, integrations.  Somebody should stay behind and serve local clients.  Don’t worry, MBS does support it in Brazil via local partner.

Happy implementing and we are always available to help you in Brazil.  São Paulo:  help@albaspectrum.com

Author is Great Plains specialist in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com  ) – Microsoft Great Plains, Navision, Microsoft CRM Partner, serving clients in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Belo Horizonte, Recife, Manaus, Lisboa, Coimbra, Porto, Cascais and having locations in multiple states and internationally