4 Things Dynamics GP Users Might Want for Christmas

If Santa got out of the toy-making business for a few minutes and started paying some much needed attention to Dynamics GP users around the world – what requests might he get this festive season?

What would it be for you? If you could ask Santa for help with your Dynamics GP, what would you ask for? Based on our extensive experience implementing and maintaining GP, we have put together the ultimate wish list.

Four things Dynamics GP users might want this Christmas:

1.      Help restructuring their GP Chart of Accounts: Imagine sitting by a warm fire, sipping hot cocoa and enjoying the improved reporting, consistency, and simplicity that comes with 

Some Accountants are the Blind Leading the Blind

I recently met a managerial consultant whose intentions were sincere, however his advice was surprising, but not totally surprising, to me.

He mentioned to me that a company had inquired to him whether they should consider using activity-based costing (ABC). His next step was initially encouraging. He contacted the accounting departments of the inquiring company’s major competitors. He asked them if they are using ABC. The answer from them was that none of them are.

A missed opportunity for good advice

I was hoping the next thing he would tell me is this. I was hoping he would inform the inquiring company that they had an opportunity to gain a competitive edge.

I presumed he would say to them, “I have good news for you. Your instincts are correct. You have realized that the amount of your indirect and shared expenses have grown large relative to your direct expenses. You may understand that this expansion is a result that your products and services have expanded with much diversity and variations. And the result is that complexity has caused this increase to manage the complexity. By your using a highly aggregated indirect cost pool with a single allocation factor that has no cause-and-effect relationship with those indirect expenses, the consequence is that you are simultaneously over- and-under-costing your products. Their costs exactly reconcile in total but not in with parts. This is because cost allocations are a zero sum error condition. Your competitors do not realize this, but you do. Go for it. Implement ABC. Your company will much better understand their profit margin layers and where it makes and loses money – and why.”

Sadly, he advised the inquiring company that since its competitors do not use ABC then that is evidence that ABC is of little benefit.

How long can this ignorance continue?

Exceptional EPM / CPM Systems are an Exception

Many organizations over-rate the quality of their enterprise and corporate performance management (EPM / CPM) methods and supporting software systems as well as exaggerate how comprehensive and integrated they are. For example, when you ask executives how well they measure and report their costs and non-financial performance measures, most proudly boast that they are very good. However, this is inconsistent and conflicts with surveys where anonymous replies from mid-level managers candidly score their scaled answers as “needs much improvement.”

Every organization cannot be above average!

What makes exceptionally good EPM / CPM systems exceptional?

Rather than try to be a sociologist and psychiatrist to explain the contradictions of executives boasting superiority while anonymously answered surveys reveal inferiority, let’s simply describe the full vision of an effective EPM / CPM system that organizations should aspire to.

Corporate Renaissance Group to Present Trend Miner at eXtremeCRM 2013 Anaheim

OCTOBER 29th, 2013 – OTTAWA, ON: Microsoft Dynamics® CRM provider Corporate Renaissance Group (CRGroup) is pleased to announce its participation in the upcoming 2013 eXtremeCRM Conference taking place November 3-6 in Anaheim, California. CRGroup will showcase its latest Dynamics CRM innovation for trend series analysis, Trend Miner™, through live demonstrations in the exposition hall and by hosting a dedicated learning session.

The session entitled ‘Historical Trend Analysis and B.I. Visualization for Microsoft Dynamics CRM’ will be held Tuesday, November 5th at 12:30PM Pacific Time. Presenters will demonstrate how organizations can leverage Trend Miner to perform powerful trend series analysis on historical CRM data and give their sales, marketing, and customer service managers the insight they need to make better, faster business decisions.

Vijay's Recap: Transformational CXO Breakfast Seminar Featuring Steve Waszak

Thank you to all who attended the inaugural Transformational CXO Breakfast Seminar last week. We were very fortunate to hear from Steve Waszak, the President and CEO of BTI Systems. We could not have had a better speaker than Steve to kick off this series, which is intended to give CEOs and CXOs in our community the opportunity to learn from those who have done it; to be inspired to make the right changes in their organisations in order to realize greater success.

In that context, Steve inspired us all. He was candid in sharing his experiences working and dealing with global companies, outlining what BTI had to do to compete in this fast-changing world where more is being demanded of you and there is no “waiting time”.

Trend Miner Gets eXtreme in Anaheim

Trend Miner is headed to Anaheim, CA Nov 3-6 for the 2013 eXtreme CRM Conference & Expo and we would like to see you there! 

Interested in growing your Microsoft Dynamics® CRM business?  Visit www.extremecrm.com to learn about the leading US Microsoft Dynamics CRM partner event, taking place November 3 - 6 2013.  Corporate Renaissance Group will be there as a speaker and exhibitor showcasing Trend Miner.

Extreme CRM is where Microsoft Dynamics CRM partners come together to forge business relationships, gain knowledge from real-world experience, and dive deep into current and future technologies. The Trend Miner team will be in Booth #28 for the duration of show to conduct live demos and give away some pretty nifty gifts.
Extreme CRM is the perfect place to see for yourself what Trend Miner has to deliver:

• Ground-breaking trend analysis for Dynamics CRM
• Unprecedented BI visualizations
• Out-of-the-box dashboards
• Trend Miner data warehouse for use with a customer’s own CRM fields and entities

Attend our Live Session at eXtreme CRM:

Historical Trend Analysis and B.I. Visualization for Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Join us for this 30 minute session where we will show you how you can use Trend Miner to give Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service managers the insight they need to make better, faster decisions and perform powerful trend series analysis on your historical CRM data.

Date: Nov 5, 2013 12:30PM-1:00PM
Room: Garden 1

Book your seat in advance and Coffee’s on us - you’ll receive a Starbucks Gift Card for a beverage of your choice. Email trendminer@crgroup.com to book your VIP seat and get your coffee gift card today.

Not Registered? Visit the conference site for more information.

Registered? Book your live demo of Trend Miner in our booth! Contact us to book your meeting in advance. trendminer@crgroup.com We’ll also be giving away a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 in our booth. Stop by to enter your name.

Not Attending? No problem. You can learn more about Trend Miner here or contact us directly to book a web demo.

See you in Anaheim!

CRGroup Tips & Tricks: How to WOW with Fiscal Period Tricks in Dynamics GP

Did you know that you can change the names of your Fiscal Periods in Dynamics GP?

HOW?

You can change the values under the Period Name column using the Fiscal Periods Setup window. It's easy!

1. Go to Microsoft Dynamics GP > Tools > Setup > Company > Fiscal Periods.

2. Click on Period 1 in Period Name column and change it to the proper period name, e.g., "Jan 2013".

3. Repeat for all remaining periods.

4. Click OK.