Microsoft Business Central: The next step for SMEs
As the CEO of Advaiya Solutions, a leading Microsoft Gold Partner, I have had the opportunity to work with numerous SMEs and help them streamline their operations and increase efficiency through the adoption of Microsoft Business Central. I have seen first-hand the tremendous impact this solution has had on the success and growth of these businesses, and I believe it is time for SMEs to start considering this solution for their operations. As a CFO, you are undoubtedly always looking for ways to improve your company’s financial performance and stay ahead of the competition. Microsoft Business Central can help you achieve this. Here are some of the key reasons why SMEs should adopt Microsoft Business Central: Improved financial management: Microsoft Business Central offers a comprehensive financial management solution that can help you streamline and automate your financial processes. This includes everything from cash management, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and general ledger to budgeting and forecasting. With Microsoft Business Central, you can gain real-time insights into your financial performance and make informed decisions to drive growth and profitability. Enhanced supply chain management: Microsoft Business Central provides a robust supply chain management solution that can help you manage your procurement and inventory processes more effectively. This includes everything from vendor management, purchase order processing, and inventory management to sales and inventory forecasting. With Microsoft Business Central, you can ensure that you have the right products in stock at the right time to meet customer demand. Improved customer management: Microsoft Business Central provides a comprehensive customer relationship management solution that can help you manage your sales and marketing processes more effectively. This includes everything from lead and opportunity management, customer segmentation, and campaign management to customer service and support. With Microsoft Business Central, you can better understand your customers and build stronger, more profitable relationships with them. Better collaboration and communication: Microsoft Business Central provides a unified platform that can help you and your teams collaborate and communicate more effectively. This includes everything from task and project management, document management, and communication tools to reporting and analytics. With Microsoft Business Central, you can ensure that everyone in your organization is on the same page and working towards common goals. Seamless integration with other Microsoft solutions: Microsoft Business Central integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft solutions, such as Office 365 and Power Platform, to provide a comprehensive business solution. This integration allows you to leverage the full power of Microsoft technologies to drive your business forward. Increased efficiency and productivity: Microsoft Business Central helps you automate your business processes, freeing up valuable time and resources that can be used to drive growth and profitability. With Microsoft Business Central, you can streamline your operations, reduce manual errors, and improve overall efficiency and business productivity. Scalability and flexibility: Microsoft Business Central is a scalable and flexible solution that can grow with your business. Whether you are a small startup or a large enterprise, Microsoft Business Central can meet your needs and help you achieve your goals. Want information about our comprehensive business management solutions? Click here. In conclusion, Microsoft Business Central is a powerful solution that can help SMEs streamline their operations, improve financial performance, and drive growth and profitability. If you are a CFO looking to take your company to the next level, I highly recommend that you consider adopting Microsoft Business Central. At Advaiya Solutions, we are committed to helping SMEs adopt Microsoft Business Central and realize its full potential. Our team of experts has extensive experience in implementing and customizing this solution to meet the unique needs of SMEs. We would be honored to work with you to help you achieve your goals. Contact us today to learn more about how Microsoft Business Central. Manish Godha, CEO of Advaiya Solutions Manish has over 17 years of IT, technology consulting, and marketing experience. His experience spans the areas of software development, enterprise architecture, marketing, assurance, risk management, security and IT governance. Having founded Advaiya, Manish currently contributes towards shaping overall business strategy, and provides direction and vision to the organization’s various business initiatives. He has worked for engineering industries, large banks, and start-ups, contributing on various areas including marketing, business analysis, solution development and enterprise sales. He specializes in enabling individualized solution sales and has developed analysis based frameworks for allowing effective profiling and solution discovery. Manish has been involved in cloud and big-data initiatives for companies like Microsoft and Google. A practitioner of statistical analysis and systems approach, he has an evolved perspective on potential and fallibility of data-led decision making under complex contexts. Manish is a Chartered Accountant, MBA, Certified Information Systems Auditor, and Certified in Governance of Enterprise IT. A technology professional and enthusiast, Manish is particularly interested in the ways in which technology can have a transformational impact on business. He follows the evolving enterprise architecture perspective and is involved in the architecture, design and development of technology solutions.
Six steps to a successful ERP implementation
An enterprise resource planning or ERP implementation solution offers significant benefits, especially in today’s mobile-savvy marketplace & complex business processes. If your corporation needs a software suite to manage its financial, human resources, supply chain, and other business operations, a centralized and integrated comprehensive business management system like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central may be the useful and advantageous choice to go to. Dynamics 365 ERP enables your organization to access a shared database on any device reliably and offers easy customization, reduced technical costs, and improved productivity. However, there are a few key phrases in the ERP adoption process, each with its own objectives. These phases could be distinct or overlap, depending on the specific requirements of the company. Successful ERP implementation & upgradation of new business processes Phases of an ERP implementation plan – A typical ERP implementation life cycle includes six stages starting from discovery and planning, design, development, testing, and deployment to support and updates. Phase 1: Discovery and planning ERP offers comprehensive solutions to a wide range of business problems. It’s important to determine the true reason for putting ERP into place for your company, though. Your ERP implementation partner assesses your existing systems and procedures to identify the requirements, project scope, milestones, and modifications required. Once your vision and requirements are identified, the implementation partner will prepare the project plan. Want information about our ERP solutions? Consult with our experts As per the study by Panorama, 61.1% of ERP implementations take longer than expected and 74.1% of ERP projects exceed the budget. Although the primary cause of delay and overbudgeting is unclear definitions of ERP implementation. The ERP features must be evaluated in accordance with the barometer of synchronization within the needs of the company. The ERP demand list should be created in accordance with the budget and fundamental requirements to ensure a seamless and obstacle-free ERP deployment. Phase 2: Design phase ERP deployment includes several goals, including improving financial control, supporting organic growth, mergers, and acquisitions, as well as other typical procedures. The team will work on the specific criteria here in order to create the precise design of the new ERP system that your business needs. This entails creating a new, more effective business procedure and workflow. Since they have the most detailed knowledge of the current business process, users must be involved in the design of the new workflow. Additionally, it will also ensure that they will accept and use the new ERP solution. Phase 3: Development The development teams put up the standard solution using agreed-upon configurations and customizations of the ERP solution to support the newly specified process after they had clear design requirements. ERP software is designed after a significant amount of research and according to the needs of the specific industry. In some cases, there may be no need for customization. Additionally, the development phase also entails creating integrations with other work management and business productivity tools that ERP systems won’t be able to replace. Phase 4: Testing Testing is an important phase of the implementation process, which takes care of system and user acceptance testing. In many cases, testing and development can occur concurrently. For instance, the team may test-specific modules and features while implementing fixes and adjustments based on test results or may test one module while the other is in development. Sometimes this phase also includes beta testing, where some employees test the system for their day-to-day activities. This process ensures the ERP solution meets the requirements and is ready for deployment. During the pilot testing, management must evaluate the realization of the value of the system against the desired value of the company. After the successful testing and ensuring the ERP readiness for deployment, data migration activity should be performed before go-live. Under this process, the data from the old system is mapped to the new ERP. To ensure a smooth transition and future use of the software, only the most essential data should be transferred, and great care should be taken to ensure the data will be retrieved from the software whenever required. Training is also the most important aspect of the ERP software implementation process. It ensures there are fewer issues and more success, especially when ERP is implemented for the first time in the company or when the platform is changed from one ERP solution to another. Phase 5: Deployment This is the phase you’ve been striving toward: the go-live date! This is the day when you can officially get started with your new ERP software. Be ready for problems because, despite your best attempts to prepare for them, there may be many moving pieces and confused staff. Your ERP implementation partner will give your staff the necessary instructions and directions to comprehend the system, and they’ll be on hand to respond to inquiries and try to resolve any problems. The majority of data will be moved in the development and test phase. However, other information such as current open transactions should be transferred immediately before it goes live. Phase 6: Support and updates As you become more accustomed to the software, you might need help to create a plan to scale up your ERP solution along with your business. After deployment, your ERP partner will help to keep you satisfied and ensure your business achieves the desired benefits. During this phase, your implementation team may still be in charge of the ERP solutions, but they will now be more concerned with gathering feedback and making necessary adjustments to the system. Some organizations aim to focus on specific high-priority modules or processes and add others later, thus, some additional development and configuration will be integrated into the system later whenever needed. Implementing an ERP solution is a big investment decision by the company involving a large number of resources, therefore, management must continuously maintain tabs on the ERP software and maintenance schedule. Bottom line – Successful implementation of ERP software requires a significant amount of time and effort. The
Microsoft unveils 2022 Wave 1 plan for Dynamics 365 Business Central
Microsoft has released the latest plan for enhancing and updating Dynamics 365 Business Central on April 1, 2022. The Business Central 2022 release wave 1 documents the list of features that are planned to release from April 2022 through September 2022, including the general availability of a Power Platform connector, country expansion, and Teams integration enhancements. However, some functionality may not be released as scheduled due to which certain features may not be released in defined timelines. So let’s take a look at what Microsoft has brought up with its Business Central 2022 Wave 1. But before heading to the feature enhancements, let’s first briefly introduce Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is comprehensive business management, a.k.a. ERP (enterprise resource planning) solution offered by Microsoft for small and mid-sized organizations. It allows businesses to automate and streamlines their business process to produce and maximizes their profit. Business Central was released publicly On April 2, 2018. While bringing Dynamics 365 Online, Microsoft announced a semi-annual feature update model that will release in April and October. In this year’s April release, Microsoft introduced many features. Here are a few highlights from 2022 release wave 1: Application – In 2022 release wave 1, business central’s supply chain and finance capabilities are improved based on the most popular requests for improvement. Better with Microsoft 365 – Microsoft also improved the collaboration on business central data in Microsoft teams and invested in stronger reporting, including better integration with Excel, Enhancements to Microsoft Teams integration, Outlook add-ins popout window enhancements, add email attachments to Business Central records, OneDrive file sharing. Country and regional – In 2022 release wave 1, Microsoft brought the availability of Business Central to over 70 countries. Development – Microsoft continues to invest in enhancing tooling capabilities for developers, including stronger AL language, new Telemetry features, and other tooling capabilities. Governance and administration – In 2022 release wave 1, Business Central delivers the new governance and administration features to help IT professionals and administrators to set up managed licensing and permissions. Microsoft Power Platform – In 2022 release wave 1, Microsoft improves the integration with Microsoft Dataverse. Power Automate capabilities with the newly available Microsoft Power Platform connector are also improved, making it easier to automate workflow directly from Business Central pages. Modern clients – Improvements to the portfolio of clients with the goal of improving usability, accessibility, performance, and stability with features like – copy link from Share menu, new desktop app delivering full web client experience on desktop is listed in the Microsoft Store, control add-in resiliency, usability improvements to the web client. Simplified customer onboarding – Onboarding is one of the keys focuses in every release wave. Dynamics 365 Business Central continues to simplify and fasten the customer onboarding experience by providing an option for guided introduction to personalize their system, increase productivity, and process adoption. Reporting – Reporting is one of the main features for every business user from both perspectives to get insight into new growth opportunities to share data as a foundation for business planning discussions. In Business Central 2022 release wave 1, Microsoft added the new capabilities for financial reporting with account schedules, new pages for report layout administration, and a new excel design layout feature. Service and platform – The 2022 release wave 1 offers better performance and support-related enhancements to keep Microsoft Business Central a dependable service and platform for you to run your business regardless of the small or midsized business (SMB) industry type. For more information about Dynamics 365 Business Central Release Wave 1 2022, visit the Microsoft blog. Also read: 8 reasons Dynamics 365 Business Central is the right business management solution for your business Kirti Sethiya Kirti, Senior Consultant at Advaiya, is a technology enthusiast specialized in business applications and analytics. She has been an integral part of Advaiya for over seven years, contributing to myriad deliverables involving business intelligence, technology marketing, and business consulting.
8 reasons to choose Dynamics 365 Business Central for your business
Is Dynamics 365 Business Central right for you? Want to know whether it is right for your business or not? Let us get familiar with Dynamics 365 Business Central and its advantage to help you make the right decision. What is Dynamics 365 Business Central? Microsoft’s latest business management solution for small and medium enterprises is Dynamics 365 Business Central. D365 Business Central is a cloud-based ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) facilizing every user can access ERP through any device anywhere in the world. It is accounting software to manage critical business functions, including finance, operations, sales, payments, dues, inventory, purchases, and customer service. It can also be easily integrated with other Dynamics 365 applications, which can help you scale your business further. It originated from Microsoft Dynamics Navision, which further evolved into D365 Business Central. Business central comes with multiple Microsoft integration such as Office 365 PowerApps, Field Services, and Power BI (Business Intelligence). Additionally, Business Central provides you with a two-way sync as a bonus. Business Central is the most cost-effective ERP in its segment, and it is a viable option for a cloud-based ERP solution. Let us now check how Business Central can streamline your business: Reason #1 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) The CRM feature of Business Central helps you to keep a healthy relationship with your customer. It helps you look at customer sales and provides the right quotation. Best decision making at right time is always a better practice in Sales and marketing, Business Central always helps to provide a timely overview to your contact and customer for their satisfaction. With Business Central, you can do contact management, opportunity management, campaign pricing, and many more. In a business system, it is essential to get a 360-degree view from the customer’s perspective. This can help to determine the correct approach for successful purchasing and holding the client., Reason #2 Easy way to investigate with sales and receivables Business Central helps you keep a hold of your sales data through their sales quote, sales orders, and sales invoices. It even provides an opportunity feature to keep investigating your new feasible customer. Also, it gives a campaign method to attract more customers. Through the Sales sales posting option, you can investigate how many Items were shipped and invoiced, also you can keep track of how many items are shipped or not yet shipped and how many invoiced must be raised. In Business Central you can also keep a record of the number of items returned and their reason. With Business Central you can provide a discount to the customer or provide a special discount based on set criteria based on the amount or quantity purchased. Reason #3 Able to handle vendor purchase & its payable In Business Central, handling vendors is more convenient. With the help of Business central, we can make a purchase order to the vendor whenever we find it short on inventory. We can always make the inventory adjustment with the Purchase order and Purchase Invoices. We can also return the item if the product is found to be wrongly placed or damaged. Based on the Invoices, we can also move to the paying part of the vendor to pay the vendor for its service. We can also keep track of all the discounts that can be available on our order. With Business Central, you can create an overview of the company’s purchases and make the daily buying routines clear and manageable. You also get instant access to an overview of your suppliers’ purchase history, outstanding orders, and trade statistics. Reason #4 Easy to track payments and dues With Business Central you can keep a log of all the payments that are done or are due and or those payments that need to be made in the future with all the payment data, we can send the receipt to the customer or vendor. Also, we can send a reminder to the customer to pay the due amount. With the help of the payment log, we can see where we are getting more profit and where we have fewer sales. Payment posting is the simplest thing that we get in Business Central. With the help of vendor payment and cash receipt journal, we can easily maintain all the payments from customer and vendor. Reason #5 Reporting & user-friendly dashboards Reports are the main aspect in the ERP world. With the help of Business Central, we can do the reporting at such an excellent level where we can do multiple things like chequeCheck printing, taking taking customer statements, take out the receipt, getting the tax iInvoice, and many more. In Business Central you can take out the data in multiple formats like PDF, EXCEL, WORD. Business Central also provides dashboards where you can see the graphical representation of your data like your purchases till date, sales till date, profit area, etc. As Business Central supports integration so we can take the Business Central data in Power BI and provide a more attractive dashboard and graphical orientation to the customer. Reason #6 Communication & HR (Human resource) management In Business Central, you get enhanced eEmail sending capabilities. Through the email Sending facility, you can send the invoice directly to the customer or vendor to their respective email ID. You can also send the reminder mail or the custom mail according to your need. Even we can schedule mail based on day, week, or month so users do not have to come to the system, schedule email will automatically send by Business Central. Business Central provides human resources functionality, so you keep the details of your employee, their record of accomplishment, manage salary, leaves, employment contract, and employee code. Reason #7 Track of item and its inventory With Business Central, keeping track of items and its inventory is easier. We can easily record of accomplishment of iItem, we can see which item is getting more demand, and if have a shortage of supply for any item. We get the notification and then we can order accordingly through the business central. With