16 Mar 2022
Blog, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Project Profile Dyn 365 Business Central (NAV) No Comments Permalink

Mental Health Care Organization Heals Its Accounting Processes With Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

March 16, 2022 No Comments

The Client
Located in the midwest with several locations throughout the region, this client specializes in behavioral and mental health care for people throughout their county.

 

The Challenge
The ultimate aim for any health care organization is the ongoing wellness, recovery and healing of its patients, along with their complete satisfaction with the treatment that they receive. But for that to happen, the business side of things — namely, accounting and billing — must be managed effectively so patients and insurers can be billed for the health services that they receive. Additionally, given the compliance protocols that healthcare organizations are required to follow, every test, treatment, medication and exam that’s done or ordered must be reported and documented.  

 

That’s what this client was looking to improve. For a number of years, they were using a software accounting system called AccountMate. While the solution was serviceable, they wanted an alternative accounting solution that was more supportable and capable of performing more processes than their current system. Some of the improved capabilities they sought included better accounts payable, accounts receivable, purchasing and reporting functionality.

 

The Solution
Typically when clients come to The TM Group, they ask for our suggestions on the best ERP solution. But in this case, they already had a solution in mind: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Leveraged by small- and medium-sized organizations in a variety of industries, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is an accounting and ERP solution that businesses from around the world use to streamline their operations, manage their finances and increase the visibility into their processes. Knowing what the solution was capable of, the client was looking for the best Microsoft partner to guide them through their implementation and contacted The TM Group.

 

Once the client told us their goals and the pain points they encountered with their legacy system, we highlighted several built-in features that would support their goals, including Account Dimensions which makes creating a chart of accounts and financial reporting much simpler.

 

In addition to recommending some other Business Central capabilities that would help address their needs (e.g. Cost Centers, Accounts Payable, etc.), we integrated the solution with PCE Systems, which provides electronic health record solutions for behavioral health organizations. The PCE integration was built with eOne SmartConnect, a digital integration engine that monitors and streamlines integrations.

 

Results
Since the implementation, which took approximately 30 days to complete, Business Central has outshone this client’s previous system. With Dimensions, their reporting capabilities are more efficient and the quality of their reports has improved as well by contextualizing data in a way that their prior accounting system was unable to do. They also have greater visibility into their accounting processes.

 

Whether you’re looking to migrate to the cloud or simply leverage the variety of Microsoft enterprise resource planning tools available through the cloud, The TM Group can configure a solution that will help you become a more successful and flexible business. Contact us today and learn more about the client benefits we offer. 

17 Feb 2022
Blog, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Project Profile Dyn 365 Business Central (NAV) No Comments Permalink

Accounting Firm Floats From On-Premise Application to the Cloud with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

February 17, 2022 No Comments

The Client

Based in the Midwest, this client specializes in accounting and consulting services for nonprofit organizations. Founded in the mid-1990s, this firm began as one that primarily handled outsourced accounting services. As they have grown, they’ve expanded their service offerings to now include grant management, auditing, revenue forecasting and cash management.

The Challenge

Regardless of one’s industry, a core element to success is adapting to the needs of the customer. In this case, our client had clearly done that by offering a wider array of related services for nonprofit organizations. What they hadn’t changed, however, was their accounting software. For a number of years, our client was using Microsoft Dynamics NAV for themselves and many of their clients’ accounting systems. The predecessor to the cloud-based Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Microsoft NAV is an on-premise solution that’s designed for small and mid-size organizations. Microsoft has released several versions of the software since their initial implementation, but our client hadn’t upgraded the software and was using an older version from  2009.

There have been at least five or six NAV product releases since 2009, but due to the complexity of the upgrade projects — and the fact that several of their biggest clients were using the same outdated version of NAV — they decided to keep using the older version. Clearly, being so far behind on versions and utilizing older hardware, the client was in dire need of a system upgrade. With Business Central being the successor to NAV, upgrading to Business Central had the best ROI and made the most business sense for them and their clients’ accounting system needs.

The Solution
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is a comprehensive enterprise resource planning solution that has helped thousands of organizations around the world increase sales, manage their finances and streamline their ongoing operations. It’s an ideal tool for organizations that are familiar with Microsoft Office tools because the interface is markedly similar. It also connects other Microsoft applications (e.g. Microsoft Power BI and their CRM applications) and comes with a variety of modules that make Business Central a truly game-changing solution.

Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is the fact that it is cloud-based and always up to date on the latest version. When data is stored in the cloud, it empowers employees to work from wherever they operate so they can access data from anywhere, any time. As a cloud solution, Microsoft also maintains, backups and upgrades the system automatically as part of the software subscription. This was a big selling point for our client, having stayed on outdated servers and old versions of their software for a number of years because they were costly to upgrade. If they had decided to stick with another on-premise enterprise resource planning solution, they would need to upgrade their servers to do so. In addition to the inconvenience and interruptions of a new system implementation, upgrading and maintaining the infrastructure needs of on-premise systems can be highly expensive.

As part of the upgrade to Business Central project, they wanted to migrate five years of detailed, historical data from their NAV system to Business Central. This was one of the first tasks The TM Group performed as part of the implementation. Normally we just move master data and GL net changes. However, because they were coming from NAV and weren’t changing their account structure, we were able to export roughly five years worth of data from their NAV tables into the Business Central so they could do all their reporting from Business Central without having to look in their old system. The data structure has changed from their older version of NAV to Business Central, so we had to do some messaging before importing it into Business Central.  This will help our client more easily and better manage their reporting needs from one system.

Another part of this project was getting the client up to speed on some of the new capabilities that they had not had with NAV. One was Fixed Assets. Included in the Financial Management suite, Fixed Assets tracks a wide variety of assets for small and mid-size businesses and helps with posting fixed-asset transactions, such as acquisitions or depreciations, among other uses.

As an accounting and consulting firm, this client was mainly focused on the accounting tools that Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central brings to the table. But its range of uses goes far beyond the financial management realm. Regardless of your industry, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central can help you be more efficient and nimble in today’s highly competitive and demanding work environments. If you’re interested in learning more about this solution and how it can be tailored to your needs, The TM Group wants to hear from you. We’re confident you’ll fall in love with Business Central, whether you’re already acquainted with the Microsoft Dynamics family of products or brand new. Contact us today. We have offices in Michigan as well as Indiana and work throughout the USA.

03 Feb 2022
Blog, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Project Profile Dyn 365 Business Central (NAV) No Comments Permalink
Inventory Management Back on Track for Retailer with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
Inventory Management Back on Track for Retailer with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Inventory Management Back on Track for Retailer with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central POS Solution

February 3, 2022 No Comments

The Client

Headquartered in the Midwest, this client is a retailer that mostly buys excess clothing inventory from big box retailers and sells them to consumers at a discounted price. It also sells general merchandise (e.g. cookware, bedding, toys, etc.) and maintains an online web store.

The Challenge

As is fairly common for retailers, this client struggled with properly managing and accounting for their inventory. They had grown to more than two dozen brick and mortar locations from a handful just a couple years ago. To manage their business, the client was using Quickbooks for accounting and a point of sales system called Lightspeed. The problem with the POS is it wasn’t scalable and was designed primarily for small, single location businesses — not those with multiple stores and a warehouse. The client realized this the hard way as the solution was constantly going down, especially on really busy days, like during the holidays or back-to-school shopping. They were having such performance issues with the POS system that customers would often abandon their purchases because the lines at checkout counters were moving so slowly.

What they really needed was an integrated accounting,  inventory and POS solution that was robust enough to support not only their current stores but also new stores they planned to open as the company continues to grow across the Midwest. The TM Group knew that Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central with LS Retail’s embedded apparel and fashion POS system would fit their new system requirements perfectly. Once the client told us about their pain points and objectives during our Implementation Planning Study, The TM Group and LS Retail partner Xsi Retail Partners worked together to tailor the Business Central based ERP and POS solution for the client to enable them to best optimize their accounting, warehouse and retail operations.

 

The Solution

Used by more than 15,000 organizations across the world, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is an enterprise resource planning software program that enables mid-size and large organizations to streamline their day-to-day business activities, including accounting, inventory management, supply chain management and sales. And since it’s cloud-based, rather than on-premise, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central increases flexibility by enabling users to tap into the solution from anywhere they are, on location or remote. LS Central provides a unified commerce software solution built on top of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central system. All  accounting, inventory and POS data is collected in one central place to track sales, stock and productivity in real time, in all locations, from one system.

One of the key functionalities that the client wanted to leverage as part of the implementation process was purchase orders. Building purchase orders would allow them to better anticipate when purchases were to arrive and keep better track of inventory. Their legacy systems were preventing them from doing this, which created confusion, the potential for accounting errors and stocking issues. One unique approach The TM Group configured for this implementation to streamline their receiving and sorting process was to financially receive a PO’s entire inventory into the main warehouse. Afterward, we’d transfer those inventory dollars to the store upon sale to account for the cost of goods sold.

Another pain point for this client had to do with container tracking. Because they buy excess inventory from multiple vendors, they aren’t always sure how it is being shipped or when it will arrive. When retailers buy goods, they are usually transported in large metal shipping containers, which often aren’t as easy to track like a USPS, Fedex or UPS package. This created problems related to coordination and inventory planning.

The TM Group resolved this by configuring Business Central to assist with container tracking and inventory receiving. Now, when they purchase a container, they can identify when it is supposed to be arriving, update it as received and record where in the warehouse it has been stored. This allows them to make sure items don’t get lost in the warehouse and not shipped to a store. We have also configured Business Central to track where purchase orders and associated container(s) items are received from. This way, when an item is sold, they can track from which container it was received. This capability allows them to calculate profit margins by container and also determine merchandise from which suppliers are selling well.

 

The Results

So far, the client is very pleased with the results of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. It’s living up to its title by “centralizing” their financials and inventory management systems. Business Central has also given them the chance to reinvent their work processes to better manage inventory and account for  their cost of goods sold. Because of this, the client hopes to expand the use of the Business Central/LS Retail solution and leverage more of what the solution has to offer, such as with shift scheduling, payroll needs and e-commerce.

Regardless of your industry, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central can help you become a more successful business. The TM Group has performed a countless number of implementations since our founding and can configure Business Central so it helps your company become a better version of itself, no matter what “better” means to you. Contact us today to learn more about what the Microsoft Dynamics family of products can do.

26 Jan 2022
Blog, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, TM Group News No Comments Permalink

Optimize Your Microsoft Dynamics 365 User Experience with TMGCLOUD SaaS Insights

January 26, 2022 No Comments

The TM Group is proud to announce the debut of TMGCLOUD SaaS Insights for Business Central and TMGCLOUD SaaS Insights for Sales, Service and Marketing.

 

Whether you’re a long-time user of Microsoft Dynamics 365 or you’re about to start implementing the solution, The TM Group’s Cloud Solutions team has put together a new and improved way to ensure your users are adopting and efficiently using the solution. Using TMGCLOUD SaaS Insights for Business Central and/or TMGCLOUD SaaS Insights for Sales, Service and Marketing, clients can use Power BI Dashboards to allow monitoring of system performance, identify issues and obtain the information needed to resolve performance issues.

 

Why is TMGCLOUD SaaS Insights needed for the Microsoft Dynamics 365 family of products?
You may know that Microsoft provides a tool called Application Insights which is a feature of Azure Monitor, that allows you to monitor the performance of your applications like Microsoft Dynamics 365. Data is collected from your environment and pushed to an Application Insights environment in Azure Monitor logs. The data is exported to your Application Insights environment in the standard schema defined by Application Insights, which is basically a large collection of data logs that aren’t exactly intuitive nor user-friendly.

 

Data is great to have and can tell you a lot about what’s going on with your business and systems at any given moment. But it’s not worth much if you can’t make heads or tails of technical jargon and network terminologies. Plus, even if you know what certain data points suggest, like a slow-loading web interface, there may not be a way to easily review related information to isolate the precise reasons as to why your system isn’t loading properly for users (e.g. delay time, download time, processing time, router performance, browser versions, etc.). It’s like finding a needle in a haystack.

 

Know your data

It’s with these issues in mind that The TM Group created TMGCLOUD SaaS Insights for Business Central and TMGCLOUD SaaS Insights for Sales, Service and Marketing. With the Power BI Dashboards provided within this solution, your staff will be better able to understand, comprehend and consume data with a number of key performance indicators that help identify problems. Once issues are dedicated and the source of the problem identified, an action plan to tackle the issues can be formulated.

 

Before the cloud, IT staff could walk over to the server room and directly access the servers’ logs to see what was going on. Although there are many benefits to moving to the cloud, one of the downsides is that you usually no longer have direct access to the server.  In a true cloud solution environment, you’re usually sharing that server and the associated costs with multiple companies, which is one of the benefits of the cloud. However, the downside of sharing is that you no longer have direct access to the servers, databases and logs.

 

Insights Into Application Performance

To help organizations better manage cloud solutions, Microsoft created Application Insights which can create logs from the activities and events of the cloud application and store them on your own Azure Server instance where you’ll have full access to delve deep into your own logs. You can tell it to monitor such information as load times, network transmission times, crash reports and many other metrics. Microsoft first developed this tool to help web hosts, web hosted applications, phone apps and all kinds of cloud applications to better support their solutions.

 

Microsoft Application Insights are free, but the Microsoft Azure will usually have a small hosting fee associated with it. You can get a certain amount of data for free which usually provides about 90 days of system usage metrics. However, a couple of our clients with larger transaction volumes have had to pay about $6 a month range for the Azure hosting of Microsoft Insights data. Although getting this data is often inexpensive or free, as we said before, it isn’t easily useful in supporting Microsoft Dynamics 365 in its raw format because the information is too hard to analyze.

 

Utilizing our expertise with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Sales, Service and Marketing, our team built TMGCLOUD SaaS Insights Power BI Dashboards to make it much easier to make sense of all the data that Application Insights captures. With this solution, IT professionals can identify when users are experiencing poor performance with the application, network, user device, or browser and even see if a specific Microsoft Data Center might be having troubles.

 

 

How TMGCLOUD SaaS Insights Has Helped Clients

Perhaps the best way to demonstrate the usefulness of TMGCLOUD SaaS Insights for Business Central or for Sales, Service and Marketing is with some examples.

 

We deployed TMGCLOUD SaaS Insights to a Business Central client who had certain reports that would take 10 to 15 minutes to load, which was unreasonable. Using our Power BI Dashboards to analyze their Application Insights data, we were able to see that when these reports were executed what functions it uses to generate that report. We noticed one function was taking a significant amount of time to run and reviewed the associated SQL query which we discovered was not written efficiently. We then issued a support ticket with Microsoft that shared the system data we discovered and discussed our findings. By sharing these findings and collaborating with Microsoft, this was one of the fastest Microsoft support tickets resolution times we have experienced and resulted in a Business Central code change issued by Microsoft.

 

We had another Business Central client that was complaining about a slow interface. Their screens were taking a long time to load. Our initial thought was that the problem may have been screens we had customized by adding a lot of additional fields. We reviewed the Application Insights data with our Power BI Dashboards, and we found the date and time that they were experiencing a performance issue. All the system performance data looked good except the amount of time it took to load the screen was much larger than expected, but when we tested it in our environment there wasn’t any issues with load time. So, we asked them to contact us the next time this was happening, and the next day they called us for a screen sharing session. On the screen that they showed our support team, they had their browser open with Business Central in one of the tabs, another tab had Spotify open and another tab had QuickBooks as well as half a dozen other tabs open. All these open tabs had consumed all the processing ability assigned to that browser instance and it could not get enough memory to draw the screen quickly while streaming all the applications in one browser instance. Once they closed all the other tabs the performance returned to an acceptable level.

 

When we deploy our own customization plugins and extensions to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Sales, Service or Marketing, Application Insights helps us identify when there are issues and identify opportunities to improve processes and user satisfaction. We review the data to determine if we have the right pages, views and workflows configured for users to work efficiently. We make sure  they are not making six hops to get to something done.  It helps us determine if there is a better workflow that we can help them implement to get them to the records they want faster and more efficiently. With our TMGCLOUD SaaS Insights Power BI Dashboards and Application Insights, we can see how users are navigating through the environment and we can identify those opportunities to help them work smoother and better.

 

 

 

Deploying TMGCLOUD SaaS Insights

 

We have more information and installation instructions for Application Insights and both of our Business Central and Sales, Service and Marketing Power BI Dashboard solutions on our product pages listed below.

 

TMGCLOUD SaaS Insights for Business Central

TMGCLOUD SaaS Insights for Sales, Service and Marketing

 

A free trial version can be downloaded from Microsoft AppSource after installing Application Insights. Our free trial has two dashboards and a link to our website to unlock all of the dashboards for $1,000/year annual subscription. Microsoft is always adding more instrumentation and data points to the Application Insights system, therefore new dashboards may be added every year which will be included with the subscription. As we learn more about the users their use cases and the data and what the data means, more metrics will be added to the dashboards to become more insightful. These updates will roll out automatically through Microsoft AppSource.

 

If you have any questions for sales, please go to our contact form on the website. If you are using our TMGCLOUD SaaS Insights solution and need assistance, please go to our support page and submit a ticket.

17 Jan 2022
Blog No Comments Permalink

Free Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Technical Whitepaper

January 17, 2022 No Comments

There is a lot of information about Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central on Microsoft’s website, but much of the information isn’t always the easiest to find. In addition to the Business Central application (which is getting major updates with new features added twice per year), there are also over 1,600 extensions available on Microsoft AppSource. Partners are also doing customizations to Business Central to meet certain functionality and doing integrations to one or more systems, so the applications share data, whether one direction or bidirectionally. These private customizations and integrations are also extensions to Business Central but are not published to Microsoft AppSource for public usage. With all these public and private extensions from hundreds of different software vendors and thousands of partners, you may wonder:

How can Microsoft keep all this stuff straight – and how can I keep one piece of the system from conflicting with another part of the system after I’ve started bringing in these extensions? What are my space limits? How does Microsoft manage my data? Is my data secured? How often is my data backed up?

These and many other questions are answered in this free whitepaper. Along with the technical details, we’ve also provided some information on frequently asked questions related to integrations, data migration, and other topics customers want to know when considering whether Business Central is the right solution for them. Download Link: https://www.tmgroupinc.com/lp/microsoft-dynamics-365-business-central-technology/

16 Dec 2021
Blog, ERP, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Project Profile Dyn 365 Business Central (NAV), South Bend No Comments Permalink
ERP Accounting

How The TM Group Turned Business Central into a Hit for Clients from a Swing and Miss

December 16, 2021 No Comments

During our 30+ years of serving the business systems needs of our clients, The TM Group has helped hundreds of organizations in a wide variety of industries, from automotive suppliers to retail to nonprofits and more. Virtually all of them have dealt with business issues that were unique to their organization that our CRM and ERP expertise could help them resolve.

Every now and then, we come across clients who — despite being vastly different in the products or services they offer — are facing the exact same challenge. They have chosen a very capable solution like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, but they selected a partner that could not properly guide them through their implementation or properly support them on an ongoing basis.

That was the case recently for two new clients who were both struggling to get good advice and support from the partner that performed their original Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central projects. Once The TM Group got involved, they got a better understanding and appreciation for all that the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central solution could do that their previous partners had failed to convey. Consequently, they chose to work with The TM Group, and we processed a partner of record change with The Microsoft Corporation.

 

The Clients
As previously noted, these two clients provide very different services. One specializes in non-medical supplies (e.g. cleaning, janitorial, etc.) for nursing homes and seniors centers. The other is in the energy industry and designs power systems that allow vehicles like RVs and boats to operate off the power grid with batteries and solar.

As many of our previous clients can attest, The TM Group is very skilled at assessing an organization’s system requirements and guiding them through what can be a very complicated Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central implementation project. In these instances, though, both clients already had Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central in place. But they weren’t getting as much out of their solution as they wanted because the partners they hired didn’t take the time to understand their needs and goals.

As our new supplier client relayed to us, their original partner clearly had a comprehensive understanding of how Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central worked. The partner walked them through basic setup and training of Business Central’s many features, but what they didn’t do was show the client how each feature could address their specific challenges.

When the health care cleaning supplies company first approached The TM Group, they were moving to a new warehouse because the one they were in was too small for their expanding business. In short, they needed more room for inventory. However, with more inventory you need better processes, and the system needs to be setup and configured to efficiently manage their inventory. During the initial implementation, the partner only setup and trained them on the bare minimum inventory management capabilities of Business Central.

They either needed more consulting guidance from their existing partner or to find a new partner. The fact that the partner was located on the West Coast — an entirely different time zone from the Midwest — only added to the client’s frustrations because the partner wasn’t responsive to their requests and issues. Consequently, they decided to switch to The TM Group as their Microsoft Partner of Record.

 

The TM Group specializes in CRM and ERP implementations and support

One of the things that makes The TM Group different from many partners is that we are 100% focused on the Microsoft Dynamics solutions — not just Business Central — and specialize in both CRM and ERP implementations. Many partners are either an IT services firms specializing in networks or development while doing a little Dynamics consulting on the side, or are CPA firms that have a couple Dynamics consultants on staff.  These types of organizations don’t do the volume of projects or support enough clients to gain much practical knowledge of how-to best setup and configure the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central application, let alone train a client’s staff properly.

The original partner of the power systems company was not doing Business Central projects as their primary business focus, it was only part of what they did in terms of services. Since it was a CPA firm, its core services were related to accounting and taxes. And because the partner didn’t have any experience in manufacturing — which was the client’s industry — the CPA firm even ended up subcontracting that part of the project to another partner to handle those aspects of the implementation. This made communication and the implementation itself highly disjointed and convoluted. And even though the partner was local, the client received sluggish response time.

Our Microsoft Dynamics specialization allows us to configure the solution to best help our clients achieve their objectives based on their needs and goals. Armed with more familiarity of Business Central through client process specific training, our clients are better prepared to get the best return from their investment in a new CRM/ERP solution and gain greater satisfaction with the solution as a whole.

Sometimes, it isn’t the product that is the problem; it’s the delivery. That was the case for both of our clients. With a deep bench of Microsoft Dynamics developers, consultants, project managers and IT specialists on staff, The TM Group is a Microsoft partner fully committed to ensuring every implementation we perform is a home run for our clients. If you’re in any way dissatisfied with Business Central — or your implementation didn’t go as you planned — contact us at The TM Group today.

10 Dec 2021
Blog, Other, TM Group News No Comments Permalink

Ho-Ho-Hold the line!

December 10, 2021 No Comments

This season, almost everyone is decorating their homes and offices (and home offices), getting ready for the holidays. Marcel Chabot, our Software Development Team Lead, has really gone above and beyond with his holiday décor, this year.

Marcel has made a Christmas wreath – but this is not just any wreath. Marcel has developed and installed a small hidden chip within this wreath. This chip has the ability to talk to the Microsoft Teams app. The wreath lights will flash, blink, and change color throughout the day, depending on the availability of all of Marcel’s coworkers, within Teams. At any given time, Marcel can look up from his computer at his wreath and see when his coworkers are available to chat and meet.

Talk about being festive! Marcel is most definitely on Santa’s nice list, this year!

16 Nov 2021
Blog, ERP, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Project Profile Dyn 365 Business Central (NAV), South Bend No Comments Permalink

Why a Broadcasting Company Is On Cloud-Nine with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

November 16, 2021 No Comments

The Client

A long time nonprofit broadcasting organization that specializes in radio, television and live-streaming communications, this Christian-based organization provides content geared toward families and other Christian-affiliated groups and missions. They also help to organize and contribute to charitable causes domestically and internationally and maintain a website and web store that allows people to make donations with their debit or credit card.

The Challenge

Prior to consulting The TM Group about their enterprise resource planning needs, they had implemented Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains (GP) with another partner a number of years ago; we’d performed several updates of their solution as newer versions of the software became available. As their organization changed, so did their ERP requirements.

While Microsoft Dynamics GP served its purpose, it was preventing our client from reaching the next level, in part due to the fact that Microsoft Dynamics GP is an on-premise solution. This fact required them to maintain physical servers, which minimizes flexibility and requires expensive hardware.

Another issue had to do with their web store. In order for people to shop and make donations, they have to be able to pay via credit card or debit. But the store wasn’t functioning as it should due to it being poorly integrated with Microsoft Dynamics GP. A web store and the checkout process needs to work seamlessly, or people will wind up abandoning their purchase or donation if they run into errors. Plus, a poorly performing checkout can compromise security during the transaction process.

In addition to wanting to address these issues, what our client really wanted was to migrate to the cloud, which would enable them to get rid of their servers, achieve a smoother integration and be able to leverage all of the other benefits (e.g. improved security, reduced IT costs, scalability, etc.) that the cloud has to offer. With that in mind, our recommendation was Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

The Solution
Part of the Microsoft Dynamics family of products, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is geared for small- and medium-sized businesses. As a solution that resides in the cloud, Business Central helps to centralize data and allows for greater visibility across all sections of a business. From supply chain optimization to financial management and reporting, Business Central is an all-in-one solution that delivers results and increases flexibility and agility.

While Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central served as the nucleus of our recommended solution, this client’s needs required some reinforcements. These included:

  • Nomad eCommerce
  • Insight Works Dynamic Ship
  • Century Business Solutions EbizCharge for integrated credit card processing
  • Solver CPM Suite for reporting

While The TM Group didn’t implement all of these add-on solutions on our own, we did manage the impelmentation process with our partner solution providers as part of our project management services to ensure that this client had a comprehensive, turnkey solution that would address all their needs.

As for one of the specific elements the client needed to replace was Management Reporter which was GP’s financial report tool.  We recommended and implemented Solver, a financial reporting and budget management tool that increases analysis efficiency. At the same time, though, Solver also eliminates the need for some workaround applications, such as Microsoft Excel or other spreadsheets software programs, for doing manual data analysis.

Results
Since our completion of the implementation, the client has been very pleased with the project and the way that Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central integrates with other solutions including the web store, both in terms of functionality and security.

One of the more frequent cyberattacks of today involves ransomware, which blocks businesses from accessing their network, data or computer systems. The only way to regain control and the data stolen is to pay the ransom, which can be hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. Plus, those affected by ransomware typically experience over three weeks of downtime, according to Coveware.

The Microsoft cloud is far more secure than on-premise, especially since Microsoft spends over $1 billion each year on cybersecurity, as reported by CNBC.

For our client, peace of mind was just another reason to transition to the cloud. They’re also benefiting from the convenience of no longer having to worry about GP upgrades. The company had several done with Microsoft Dynamics GP, which take a lot of time to perform. Now that they’re fully in the cloud, updates are done automatically and they are always on the current version.

For security, flexibility and visibility across your business, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is the preferred solution. Let The TM Group help you with the integration. Contact us today to get started.

07 Sep 2021
Blog, ERP, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central No Comments Permalink

How Jobs in Business Central 365 Can Make Campaign’s Financial Management Easier

September 7, 2021 No Comments

There are well over 1.5 million registered nonprofit organizations in the United States alone, according to data from the Urban Institute. If you happen to work for one of these organizations, you have an idea of the kinds of activities, causes or programs that encourage supporters to make donations. One of the more effective means is by holding events or conducting special projects. Indeed, of the $1 trillion that the nonprofit sector generates annually, a significant chunk of that money derives from special events, be they host road races, galas, dinners, banquets or auctions.

While many factors influence how much attendees donate — several of which are out of your control — maintaining 360-degree visibility into all the aspects and costs of running a special project, capital campaign or event is critical. This is easier said than done, but with the job costing functionality of the project management module within Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, you’ll be able to track all the activities, budgets, expenses and revenues related to projects, campaigns and events.

If you’re unfamiliar with the jobs function in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, this article will provide you with a broad overview of the module and why some NFPs are finding it to be a particularly effective technology for tracking revenues and expenses for special projects.

 

What is jobs in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and why do I need it?

Jobs is a tool that allows you to more effectively track, coordinate and implement resources, be they in the form of employees, equipment, money or systems. Resources, by their very nature, are finite and must be managed to ensure nothing is spread too thin. With jobs, you can maintain constant visibility into each project and every aspect of them that your nonprofit is hosting, planning or coordinating — from start to finish as well as in the aftermath when you’re reviewing how it went.

But you can’t really fully appreciate the jobs module and all that it can do without actually using it yourself after being trained in its use. Here at The TM Group, we specialize not only in CRM and ERP system implementations, but also in ensuring that your team understands how to use the Microsoft Dynamics 365 solutions beyond Business Central’s accounting solution and the capabilities it holds.

In the meantime, here are just a few of the ways jobs can make your job as a non-profit executive, manager or volunteer a whole lot easier:

 

Seamlessly manage programs
There are many working parts to putting on an event or rolling out a new program as a nonprofit, but they don’t get off the ground without the sponsors who make it possible. Just as they have obligations to you, you have obligations to them. Jobs allows you to create individualized sponsorship records so you can track things like fund contribution, equipment use or any other aspect relating to your business relationships with sponsors.

Stay on budget
The goal of any special project or fundraising campaign is to raise as much money as possible, but that goal can be negated when you go over budget. In fact, between 2006 and 2016, expenses for nonprofits grew by nearly 31% when including all of their finances beyond events. Jobs allows you to maintain visibility into your ongoing expenses by project and category so you don’t spend more than what is planned in the budget.

Streamline financial reporting and recording
All the program activities and events related to your non-profit have to be reported; it comes with the territory. Jobs in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central makes reporting easy and accurate so you don’t have to worry about compliance when reporting to the board, donors or grantmakers.

 

Bottom line: The jobs module of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central allows you to do your job more efficiently. If you have a project or capital campaign on tap and want it to go as best as it possibly can go, The TM Group may be able to help. We can set up a customized ERP solution that will allow your nonprofit to maximize its charitable efforts on an ongoing basis. Contact us today to learn more.

24 Aug 2021
Blog, CRM, ERP No Comments Permalink

How to Qualify for Microsoft Discounts as a Nonprofit

August 24, 2021 No Comments

The United States is a country that is teeming with nonprofit organizations — well over 1.5 million, according to the most recent figures available from the Urban Institute’s National Charitable Center for Statistics. And that’s just those that are fully registered with the IRS. From foundations that perform volunteer work on behalf of needy families, to religious affiliations that seek to spread the good word, nonprofits come in all shapes, sizes and causes.

While no two nonprofits are exactly the same, there’s at least one thing that a substantial portion share in common with one another: they often operate on slim margins.

Given this reality, and as a way to say thank you for their philanthropic efforts, Microsoft offers discounted pricing for many of its products and solutions to nonprofit organizations, including Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Azure and a multitude of cloud services. Accounting and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software like Business Central is a state-of-the-art system that gives organizations more control, insight and visibility into their ongoing financial operations, thereby increasing overall productivity, visibility and financial management.

If you operate, manage or work for a nonprofit organization, a cloud based accounting solution like Business Central can help you accomplish more of your visionary objectives successfully, without having to break the bank in the attempt.

However, to take advantage of the discount, you have to be eligible and agree to abide by certain standards. This article will walk you through all of the steps necessary to demonstrate that you’re a fully registered and qualified nonprofit organization.

There are five components:

  • Registration
  • Mission
  • Registration Eligibility
  • User Eligibility
  • Non-discrimination

 

1. Registration

While your cause may be noble and you perform all the functions of a typical nonprofit, the IRS is the ultimate decider as to whether you are one or not. Thus, you will need to provide documents that verify you are a 501(c)(3) entity. The easiest way to go about this is by obtaining your tax identification number or registered documentation from the right government entities. Certain restrictions may apply as to what software is available at a discounted price depending on who the software is available to in terms of usage. For example, public libraries may qualify as an eligible nonprofit even if they don’t have charitable status, but the software must be for public use. https://aka.ms/eligibility-requirements

 

2. Mission

It isn’t enough to have 501(c)(3) status; your nonprofit must also have a stated mission. In short, what is it that you are trying to promote, support or make better? Is it ending animal cruelty? Providing homes for abandoned dogs or cats? Preserving a certain culture? Improving learning outcomes for those with psychological disabilities?

These are just a few of the missions that make nonprofits eligible for discounted pricing on Microsoft software, but it’s hardly an exhaustive list. However, if you run a governmental organization, elementary school, college or trade association and have a similar mission, you still won’t be eligible. That’s because none of these organizations are considered nonprofits. However, Microsoft does have special pricing for government and education as well.

See this page for mission eligibility exceptions for nonprofits located in Germany, Australia, India and the United Kingdom.

 

3. Registration Eligibility

This component refers to the people who are permitted to apply for Microsoft discounted pricing on the nonprofit’s behalf. In other words, it can’t be simply anyone, such as a friend, family member, member or vendor who is loosely affiliated with the nonprofit. Only the employees of the nonprofit itself are permitted to apply. Third-parties and outside nonprofit providers are disallowed.

Furthermore, nonprofits are expressly forbidden from reselling or transferring user licences or subscriptions to other organizations. Licensing is for single-use only; each nonprofits organization must go through the registration process independently.

 

4. User Eligibility

As noted previously, paid employees can complete the registration, and they can also leverage the available discount. But workers don’t necessarily have to be compensated to take advantage of user licensing. Unpaid nonprofit executives, such as those who are on the boards of directors or serve as officers, can as well.

Nonprofit donors and beneficiaries, however, are not eligible for reduced pricing.

 

5. Non-discrimination
Microsoft takes equality and inclusion extremely seriously. If a nonprofit promotes or has a policy in place that is deemed discriminatory, punitive or unduly harsh in nature, Microsoft maintains the right to withhold discounts before or after they’ve been applied.

 

These guidelines are pertinent to nonprofit organizations that operate in the United States. If yours is outside of the U.S., then the rules may be different, perhaps significantly so. Please download this document for the countries where Microsoft offers discounts. You can click on the appropriate country, which will have more information on eligibility for that specific country.

You’ve done a tremendous amount of good for your nonprofit organization over the years; Microsoft’s world-class software solutions can help you do even much more. But if you’re not sure of which Microsoft software solution is right for you, The TM Group can help. From manufacturing to healthcare to retail — and yes, nonprofit organizations as well — The TM Group has helped hundreds of professionals become the best versions of themselves with tailored technology solutions that improves their efficiency and performance.

To learn about the Microsoft Dynamics family of products or to schedule a consultation that can assess your needs, please contact us today.