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ReportI am posting here because I can't find anything that will tell me step by step what to do to get Dynamics GP up and running. There are things everywhere but nothing is organized enough to make me feel good about doing this myself.
So... I joined the forum and will post my journey here. I am sure if anyone sees that I am doing something wrong or could do it another way they will reply and then there can be a real place where someone can go and get started on their own.
Background:
We are a small manufacturing company about 15 employees. However our needs to improve the production process have driven me to create MS Access databases to do the things that Quickbooks just will not do. It has not been fun. After lots of looking and knowing that I wanted a solution that would be all supported under one umbrella...or in otherwords the software was all made by the same company I settled on Microsoft Dynamics. This way we can use Outlook, CRM, and GP to replace QuickBooks, Goldmine, and my two home grown applications that would take years to perfect and make them do what I need them to do.
However being a small company I don't have a lot of up front capital. Therefore, an implementation of this size is very problematic. Where do I start?
In the beginning:
I contacted a partner. They made it clear they were very busy, but were willing to help. After speaking with them about what we wanted to do, what we needed and didn't need, connectivity issues we were having, and costs involved. I settled on this plan.
We would go with Dynamics GP (we didn't need the complexity of AX). I wanted to go with a hosted environment. I am trying to get out of the IT business here and the up front costs of hardware and licensing was way more than we could take on.
I decided to go with Dynamics CRM online. This got me the hosted environment we needed and access for my sales person who travels from time to time.
I also decided to setup Office 365 Online. This seems like it will give me a complete solution from email to invoicing to production management that I can deal with.
What next:
I talked to several people. Frankly for those partners out there. Those who were not too busy and got right back to me and still could provide what I needed where the ones who have my business. As I said we don't have a lot to dump into starting this thing up so I made it clear to any partner that we would be doing as much of the setup as possible.
Now that being said. There are other reasons why we decided to go this way. The biggest being after 13 years in the same Quickbooks files our growth has required some changes in the Chart of Accounts, Item, vendor, and customer numbering that has made things a mess. Especially with QuickBooks build assemblies and such. That was a big part of the fact that we didn't want to just move everything over. We decided to enter everything new as we go.
So I then went on the hunt for places to host. At our size and current needs I found that it was best and easiest to go with out of box solutions. So we went with CRM Online hosted at Microsoft and GP online hosted through mygpcloud.com (Rose Business Solutions). I was setup and checking things out in a few hours. It was fantastic.
Initial setup:
Now I had to turn to initial setup. Holy cow there is a lot of stuff to think about. Frankly the first partner that I talked to was very honest and up front with me....Maybe too honest...I was in a position where I wasn't going to be able to pay a partner $35k and up to set everything up for me so hearing about how bad it could be if I didn't was just too much for me. They were a great help in the beginning but I run my own company here and I don't like hearing why something can't be done I like to hear what the challenges are and how we WILL overcome them. So, I moved on.
Please let me be clear. If you can find someone to do this who implementation from start to finish and you don't have to worry about anything. Go for it. I would have done it in a heartbeat. But, as I am not one of those I hope to make it easier for the next guy and get some advise from this forum on the way.
So after some study and research. The Chart of Accounts is the first thing that needed to be setup. I also found it suggested that you should take the reports you are used to seeing right now and work backwards into a chart of accounts. I also found cautions from letting your accountants and others go crazy with the reports they would like to get in this new system and complicating the chart of accounts.
We only have one office so multiple site, multiple currencies are not an issue for us. Segments where just beyond what I could grasp. I setup what I think would be a good chart of accounts based on our current reporting needs and then was trying to find someone who would give me the thumbs up or some advise on what to do next. I couldn't find anyone. The more I researched the more I realized that the hours of work that we will put into this system getting things setup the Chart of Accounts must be right. It is the foundation.
So I found a post or two somewhere talking about how Silicon Digital Systems, Inc. converted data for other and they were so happy, so I checked them out. I sent them my QuickBooks file and they fired right back a quote for a full conversion that was half what others were quoting. After talking with them I told them I needed to send them my reports, They create the COA for me. They are also going to import just monthly total data so that I can have comparison reports for the previous 13 years. If I want detail I'll go back to my quickbooks file.
Note: We changed quickbooks files 13 years ago to the one we use now. After the first 2 years or so we didn't even open the old one anymore. At this point I have the numbers I like to refer to in a spreadsheet and I never open up the old quickbooks. The point is: as time passes historical data is less and less important, at least the detail.
The costs for the above services were more than reasonable so that is where I am at right now. They are setting up the conversion for me and I am playing in the Fabricam Database to map out my next steps. It would be fantastic if someone had a flow chart that mapped out, if starting with and empty database here is what you do first and here is what you do next. For example it is clear that you must setup at least your known classes before setting up customers, vendors, Items etc.. This will make entry of those items quicker.
Next:
Until the Chart of Accounts is done and uploaded I can't do much as the classes need to have accounts associated with them. So while that is happening I am making a flow chart of my own and defining my classes so that we can start data entry as soon as we are up and running. I am also moving everyone over to my Office 365 Exchange servers and playing with CRM Online to see how this will all merge together into one large system.
Question:
I am hoping with the CRM GP connector that contact information imported from Goldmine into CRM will allow me to create the customer and vendors in GP without too much trouble and on an as needed basis. We don't plan on entering everyone. We will enter customers as they place orders and enter vendors as we order from them.
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