Jennifer Foreshew May 08, 2012

CONTRACTOR management business Entity Solutions had outgrown its five-year-old accounting software, experiencing turnover growth of almost 50 per cent in 2010-11.

Its existing software had limitations in its reporting and analytical capabilities by being a period-driven system that required third-party software to generate reports.

“It wasn’t a date-driven system, so it made it very difficult to wind back dates,” Entity Solutions chief executive Matthew Franceschini says. “We have about 2500 contractors, so we are running about 5000 payrolls every month and 2500 invoices.”

The software sometimes crashed and resulted in a half-day of disruption to staff every month.

“Ultimately, you need a system to enable you to make timely decisions and it just wasn’t able to provide the level of reporting that we needed, and it also had some functional limitations around our invoicing structures and things like that,” Franceschini says.

Entity Solutions spent three or four months looking at offerings in the market. These included Tencia, Oracle, SAP Business One, ACCPAC and MYOB Exonet.

The company opted for the Microsoft Dynamics NAV enterprise resource planning system, which was implemented last year across three to four months by Melbourne-based Evolution Business Systems.

EBS previously supported Entity Solutions with its former accounting system.

Franceschini says the system was chosen because it was “date driven”, not “period driven”, which was important to obtain on-the-spot data about accounts and customers, rather than waiting until the end of the month.

Its live general ledger, expandability and the ability to customise to suit the unique needs of Entity Solutions’ business were also a priority.

In the past 12 months, Entity Solutions supported more than 4300 independent professionals, invoiced more than 620 contracting organisations for their services and provided them with payment as well as a range of accounting and taxation compliance services.

Founded in 1999, the company has about 80 staff, with most based in Melbourne. It also has offices in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

The contractor management company provides holistic engagement, management and value-add services for white-collar contractors, referred to as independent professionals or IPros, and the organisations hiring them.

Entity Solutions also offers migration, back office, business establishment and management services.

The deployment of Microsoft NAV Dynamics came in on time and within budget. Its proposed budget was $100,000.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV assists the company in other areas of the business such as migration and back office business.

“You can create a dashboard view so the executive can look at one level of reporting, whereas finance then can look at another,” Franceschini says. “We do have a separate payroll system and we do link our data feeds to our clients, so the other thing needed was a common format that makes it easy to talk to other systems and it does all of that.”

Microsoft Dynamics NAV has boosted the efficiency of the company by at least 20 per cent to 30 per cent.

“I think that we have grown during that period quite significantly, yet we haven’t had to put on any finance staff,” Franceschini says. “I’d suggest we have probably saved at least one wage.”

As Microsoft Dynamics NAV is date driven, Entity Solutions can get a snapshot at any time, which allows it to convert its accounts receivable to payroll. It has a live GL and its balance sheet and income statement are live.

Entity Solutions has also seen improved productivity, staff morale and performance since the project. It has saved almost 60 hours a month by eliminating disruption and manual processes.

“I can check our monthly figures, check reports of all different types, and if there is a new report that I need the guys build it in a couple of days,” Franceschini says. Entity Solutions expects to implement other modules as required. “There is some functionality that we think we are going to need as we grow. Some of that is to do with reporting, but some is other functionality around the way we can restructure some of our consolidated invoicing.

See the article on The Australian site here:

Microsoft Dynamics NAV lifts efficiency by 20-30 per cent

• Adding new cloud deployment options and capabilities
• Enhancing the core functionality
• Rapidstart for Microsoft Dynamics NAV available

EMBRACING THE CLOUD

Our investments in cloud computing are driven by conversations with customers about their needs today, future growth aspirations, and how consumer experiences are shaping expectations for the role technology can play in their business. From these customer conversations it’s clear that our customers are looking for ways to take advantage of cloud services. At the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Convergence customer conference in Atlanta in April 2011, we announced our intention to host Microsoft Dynamics NAV on Windows Azure – Microsoft’s cloud platform, beginning with Microsoft Dynamics NAV “7”.We intend to support customers in migrating to the cloud at the right time for their business. But this is only one aspect for how our customers will benefit from our cloud innovation.

The emphasis on cloud computing in the market today has been on deployment to the cloud to reduce costs. At Microsoft we view the cloud as an opportunity to re-imagine business applications that deliver rich experiences with services, information, and capabilities from cloud and on-premises solutions in ways that today are too costly or impractical. To deliver the innovation that enables new business scenarios we intend to extend the integration available today with Microsoft’s leading business and productivity applications, including Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, Microsoft Office 365, and services from Microsoft SQL Azure, and Microsoft Windows Azure Data Market.

DEPLOYMENT FLEXIBILITY

Many customers have decided to have Microsoft Dynamics NAV hosted and managed by a third-party. These customers have decided not to maintain the IT infrastructure and staff that are associated with a traditional on-premises implementation or prefer to pay for their ERP solution on a per-user, per-month basis. They use operational expenditure instead of capital expenditure to pay for their business systems.

Microsoft is committed to providing the widest range of options for how you choose to deploy your Microsoft Dynamics NAV–based business solution. You can already deploy your solution on your premises or choose to engage a hosting Partner who will run the software from their data centres. Some Partners will choose to run your solution from one of several very large scale Microsoft data centers around the world. Regardless of how you choose to deploy the product, the Microsoft Dynamics NAV software and user experience is the same.

WEB CLIENT

Microsoft Dynamics NAV “7” will include a web browser capability that will enable users, whether they are running on premises or in the cloud, to access Microsoft Dynamics NAV – with only Internet Explorer on their PC.

This capability will reduce the time taken to deploy the solution, because no software will need to be installed on individual user’s computers. More significantly however, many customers will see a web browser as a more appropriate way to extend the reach of the application to many of the people within their business.

With the widespread use of Microsoft SharePoint Services and Microsoft SharePoint Server, we will introduce integration to SharePoint that will allow your users to get more out of both SharePoint and Microsoft Dynamics NAV. The SharePoint integration will enable the following scenarios:

Delivering Microsoft Dynamics NAV through SharePoint

When Microsoft Dynamics NAV is deployed through SharePoint, no software needs to be installed on a user’s individual PC. Rather, like the web client described above, this will reduce the cost of deploying and maintaining the product across a distributed user environment.

Self-Service Applications

SharePoint provides an environment to engage a much wider population of users throughout your business. Now self-service solutions can be deployed with data going directly to and from Microsoft Dynamics NAV. For example, time registration can be more effectively delivered through SharePoint instead of requiring individuals to log onto an ERP system.

Rich Business Applications

You can choose to deploy Microsoft Dynamics NAV Portal Framework to tightly integrate ERP data and processes with content that is typically found in SharePoint. For example, you could add purchasing functionality to a procurement portal where contracts, specifications, and details of alternative suppliers are stored.

ENHANCEMENTS TO APPLICATION FUNCTIONALITY

Microsoft Dynamics NAV “7” will enhance the already compelling application functionality that is available in Microsoft Dynamics NAV by:

• Further enhancing the Role Tailored user interface. By adding context-sensitive charts and Fact Boxes that give the user better access to relevant data and by minimizing keystrokes for roles with volume transaction entry.
• Building on the data visualization capabilities in the product. This supports better decision making, where users can see projected availability, supply/demand, forecast, and suggested planning changes in one integrated view.
• Continuing to concentrate on core functionality. Simplifying VAT compliance and tax reporting. Upgrading kitting, cost accounting and cash flow forecasting capabilities in the product.
• Making Microsoft Dynamics NAV data available through the new industry standard interface (ODat) and enabling integration to PowerPivot for Microsoft Excel.

MICROSOFT DYNAMICS ERP RAPIDSTART SERVICES

Microsoft Dynamics ERP RapidStart Services significantly accelerate the configuration of Microsoft Dynamics NAV. By using RapidStart, you can drive down the number of days that it takes to deploy the product and make it easier to engage the right people and different teams in your business in the implementation process.  Microsoft Dynamics RapidStart Services gives an overview of the setup process, including what information is needed before the system can be used and who is going to do what. Additionally it will be possible to select from a set of existing data templates in order to speed up the configuration for example with generic data for Postal Codes, Currencies, Country Codes and much more.

To read more about NAV click here.

Account Schedules within Microsoft Dynamics NAV are used to allow for the analysis of your Chart of Accounts by Dimension, in the previous blog post we discussed how Dimensions can be used for recording information relevant to the business with transactions, Account schedules now allow us to access and report on this information within the GL

Future Blogs will cover the other areas of the system relating to dimensions (Customers/Items/Vendors…etc) but in this post we will be focusing on the GL Account Schedules

Overview:

The Microsoft Dynamics NAV Account Schedules are designed so that after training, financial users are able to create their own reports from the GL,

It is possible for a finance user to create, Profit and Loss statements, Cost or Revenue reports, overheads, budget variance …etc then save these reports for running again into the future

When you add dimensions you can go significantly further by running these reports based on specific dimensions, in my examples I will be using the dimensions from the previous blog post again, these dimensions are:

Office – Melbourne, Sydney, Perth
Item Class – Building, Plumbing, Electrical
Department – Finance, Sales 1, Sales 2, Human Resources

If you have not read the previous post on Dimensions I suggest you do (here) to before continuing and it will give you the background to understand what we discuss here with account schedules

Further the system allows the saving of template row and column layouts; this means that you are able to use the rows from your profit and loss statement and combine it with the columns from your budget variance report to create a new Profit and Loss variance to budget in a few minutes without having to create the report from scratch

Being a Microsoft Product the Account Schedules can be exported directly into Excel, it is also possible to export them directly into PDF to attach to an email as a report pack

Now into the detailed bits:

 Account Schedule Layout:

The account schedule is split into two sections, the first is the Row Layout, and the second is the Column Layout

The row layout contains accounts from the GL or Budget, the rows can be actual GL accounts, Budget accounts, or calculations based on GL accounts for example, Sales lest cost of sales = profit

It is also possible to repeat a GL account but with a filter applied, so for example you are able to have the stationary account several times on the rows, but the first time with a filter of Perth, and the description changed to “Perth Stationary” the next line being “Melbourne Stationary” …etc. Following the office breakdown you are able to create a total line

It is also possible to create headings and structure the report into sections in the same way you would in Excel

Below are the fields you are able to use to format and calculate on the Rows, followed by some samples of row layouts

The Column Layouts determine how the numbers will be displayed there are many ways they can be used but some examples might be:

Calendar vs financial days, weeks, months, years

Multiple periods showing monthly columns

Budget figure for a period

Actuals for a period

A calculated column of the variance between budget and actual

Columns showing the period to date previous year / month and variance to current

Below are some examples of Column Layouts:

In closing:

Account schedules allow for the financial users to create their own financial reports & statements, and use the dimensions in the system to allow for a high level of detailed reporting

The rows and columns that are created by the user when they create new reports can be re-used meaning making new reports or adapting current reports becomes easy

 Overview

The simplest explanation of Dimensions within Microsoft Dynamics NAV would be to call them the slice and dice ability within NAV

Dimensions are what allow you to report on the data within the system, in a way that is meaningful to the company,

Examples of Dimensions might be:

Office – Melbourne, Sydney, Perth

Item Class – Building, Plumbing, Electrical

Department – Finance, Sales 1, Sales 2, Human Resources

Any of the above are examples of how companies may want to report on sales and costs throughout the system, the benefit of using dimensions however comes from the fact that when a transaction with a dimension occurs (Be it a purchase, sale or adjustment) the dimensions are automatically posted with the transaction

This means that you are able to report from within any area of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV system by the dimensions that have been set up,

Some examples of reports that would be possible with the above dimension could be:

• Profitability of the “Sales 1” Department within the “Melbourne” office when selling “Electrical” goods, compared to the “Sales 2” department in “Perth”
• Draw a trial Balance only for the “Sydney” office even though all offices post to the same GL
• Look at total costs and sales for a period for a particular item class, then compare this to a previous period
• View the profitability of a specific class of item over time

Microsoft Dynamics NAV supports unlimited Dimensions this means that any way that you are currently categorizing areas of the business, be it related to the business itself or a product or service you are able to report on the system according to this.

The system also has a “Default Dimensions” for various records in the system, by capturing these default dimension the system will then be able to record the dimension without the user having to capture this information when processing, specifying the dimension of “Electrical” against an item card will have the system automatically post this during any transaction using this product

This means that there is no additional work required by the users when they are capturing

As a Microsoft Dynamics NAV Specialist we have also gained a lot of insight into getting the most out of Dimensions so please contact us to assist you in setting up a structure that will provide the most benefit as well as possible other dimensions that may be of benefit to the company’s reporting

Advanced Topics:

Dimensions also have additional functionality that can assist in ensuring the best possible reporting.

The dimensions can be built using levels:

In the below example you can see how the areas have been split into Europe & America and within those areas it has been further divided

Creating a structure from the dimensions allows for sub totaling on reports according to this structure, as well as simplifying the dimensions in the system

Dimension Combinations:

Microsoft Dynamics NAV allows the definition of permissible combinations, this allows you to specify combinations that are not allowed, perhaps item sales out of the HR department or Electrical goods from the Perth office (Who might not do electrical goods) should be disallowed, this functionality prevents users from selecting incorrect combinations

Primary Dimensions:

Microsoft Dynamics NAV supports unlimited dimensions; however the first 8 have additional features available

• The first 2 Dimensions are called Global dimensions, these are available globally across the system and in all reports
• The next 6 are called shortcut dimensions and are also available on all forms across the system and in some of the reports
• All Dimensions and those beyond 8 are available by pressing Ctrl + Shift + D to open the dimensions list while on the document,

 All dimensions are available to be used to create your own reports using Analysis by Dimension or Account Schedules, these reporting abilities will be covered in a future post

To find out more about Microsoft Dynamics NAV click here.

It’s that time of year again, the time when the Camberwell Rotary Club holds their major fund-raising event, the “Camberwell Rotary Art Show” This is an event that Evolution Business Systems have been involved in for many years, an event that brings so many emotions  to the EBS team.

“It really is a worthwhile event, it’s one that Evolution Business Systems have been a sponsor of for many years and if you do find the time, please go down and support this great event. You may even find a nice piece of artwork to take home. We look forward to supporting this worthy cause for years to come and wish the Camberwell Rotary Club all the best for this year’s event.”

2012 Camberwell Rotary Art Show is on at Hawthorn Town Hall, Burwood Road, Hawthorn, Saturday 24th March to Sunday April 1st, 2012.

I don’t know if you have ever been involved in the implementation of an ERP (account solution) but for those of you who have, you will know it takes planning, time and commitment. This is a process that would usually take between 4 weeks and 6 months depending on the scale of the project.  Imagine if you will, getting a system up and running from start to finish in just 2 days! As the title says “the pain, the stress and the absolute joy”. Yes it’s painful and the stress is very prominent but the feeling of knowing that you are supporting such a great and diverse cause, makes it all worthwhile.

Why such a tight timeline? Well, the equipment for the event is held in storage for the year and is only available a couple of days before the venue is ready to invade. I say invade as that’s what it looks like. Image 10’s of Rotarians (all volunteers) running around working hard for the cause that they all believe in and they all just want to help. Then add the professional event management people who erect the gallery walls and all the lights.  It’s a very busy time when the setup is going on. There is a lot of prep which occurs in the coming months with artists entering their works on the art show website and over that period the data is collected which becomes part of the system we implement.

The show starts today.  Only last week were we provided with the data files. We had to get all the data setup on Friday and Monday along with any testing we needed to do, and then yesterday we went out to the venue to install the server and connect all the machines to the makeshift network and get the wireless handheld devices on-line. It really is quite something, over the years we have refined the process, to become a very smooth error free process (remember the people running the show are all volunteers, they don’t have any real computer skills to speak of and most if not all are grandparents, so the solution has to be simple).

Today the artists start arriving with their masterpieces which they have spent hours and hours on and put their hearts and souls into. This is what we call D-day, the day we know if the concentrated effort, testing and setup have worked. I remember one year, on “D-Day”, when the paintings started to arrive and the first painting was to be received.  They scan them with a barcode to receive the artwork so to reduce data entry error.  The person receiving, scanned the painting and nothing happened. All of a sudden you had about 30 Rotarians panicking (like 30 headless chickens running around). “Quick find the EBS guys, the system isn’t working”.  We have always been there or at least been on the other end of the phone during the show. We went to see what all the commotion was about and after asserting the problem we went to the server to see that everything was running as it should have been, only to find someone had kicked the power cable to the server and it was actually turned off!!! We plugged the power back in and the crisis was over…

The next two days paintings arrive and are organised and hung with military precision (some years we receive as many as 3000 paintings) and we have never lost one. The gallery is dynamic, where a painting can be hung anywhere. Each stand location has a barcode and each painting has a barcode.  If a painting is moved they use a handheld wireless device and scan the painting into that location. If a patron is looking to find a painting they can go to the person who is on a terminal, they enter the painting number and the system tells them where in the show that painting is. It really is a good system and to think these paintings are moved around all day.  The care that is taken to update the system each and every time the artwork is moved around is a fantastic effort on the part of the Rotarians.

Following is information about the Art show and where the funds have been used in recent times:

• The first Art Show and Competition was held in 1966 at the Camberwell Grammar School having been preceded by two Antique and Art Shows.
• In recent years, the Art Show has attracted up to 10,000 visitors annually.
• In 1999 Australia’s highest selling newspaper, the Herald Sun, became the Camberwell Rotary Art Show’s major sponsor. This followed the demise of the Herald Sun Outdoor Art Show which was a feature of Melbourne’s Moomba celebrations.
• The City of Boroondara (formerly City of Camberwell) has supported the Art Show since its inception.
• The success of the Art Show can be attributed to many corporate sponsors, Club members plus a legion of friends who volunteer their time to ensure it remains a premier event on Melbourne’s art calendar. In excess of $2.1 million has been raised for local, national and international humanitarian and charitable projects.

The following are some of the projects recently undertaken by the Rotary Club of Camberwell:

• Foodbank Victoria (Rice) $18,000
• Victorian Bushfire Relief- City of Boroondara $9,400
• ‘Boroondara Cares’ Rotary led drought relief program with City of Boroondara and Moira Shire $27,000
• Royal Children’s Hospital- in association with Rotary Club of Hawthorn- provision of neurological video monitoring equipment $6,000
• Prostate Cancer Foundation $5,000
• Camp Getaway $3,000
• Cystic Fibrosis Foundation- donation for research $9,000
• BASS Aged Care Facility $30,000
• Youth Suicide research project- University of Melb. $13,875
• Friday Night School- school run for migrant children in Richmond. Uses school students to teach children on a 1 to 1 basis. $5,000
• National Youth Science Forum- sponsoring selected candidates $2,500

For the full history of hte Art show visit the Art show website 

For more information on Evolution Business Systems click here

With 10 employees and both national and international customers, EBS is now reaping the rewards of a major initiative in 2008 when it began partnering with Microsoft in addition to its historically strong relationship with Arrow Software. EBS has repeatedly won the Arrow Business Partner of the Year award.

Possessing deep expertise in leading financial applications including Arrow Financials and Microsoft Dynamics™ NAV, EBS specialises in business management solutions that automate core business processes and integrate specialist applications to deliver the right financial management control.

Long-term EBS customers include plaster products specialist Picton Hopkins & Sons and Australian light products company Mirabella International. During recent years, EBS has won a number of major new clients with Microsoft Dynamics NAV including Centacare Ballarat and Circadian Technologies.

EBS’s 10th birthday celebration coincides with the announcement it achieved for the second year in a row the award “Highly Recommended’ in the Excellence For Customer Service section in the 2011 Australian Achiever Awards for Victoria’s Computer Systems & Software Services category. It also coincides with fifth anniversary of Jonathan Martin becoming a director of EBS.

EBS founder and managing director Paul Woods said the company’s strong growth rate had come from its broadened product range. “The big difference is the Microsoft story,” he said. “In the past year, we’ve doubled our Microsoft client base and that is going really well. We’ve also strengthened our team by bringing in another Microsoft specialist from France. At the same time, we continue to work with our long-standing Arrow Financials customers. The great thing is that we can now offer a complete suite of financial management software, from Arrow Financials for smaller businesses to Microsoft Dynamics NAV for enterprises with more complex requirements.”

But for an accounting software company, EBS celebrated its 10th anniversary in an unconventional manner with a surprise birthday party for its staff. Late one night, Paul Woods and his son went into work to decorate the office with balloons, bunting and ribbons.

At 9am the next day, EBS employees were greeted with glasses of champagne and a birthday breakfast followed by a range of surprise, team-building activities ending in a well-deserved lunch.

Paul said the day of entertainment was intended to thank his employees for often going beyond the call of duty to look after customers. “Our staff go all out for our customers, so we wanted to do the same thing for them,” he said.

This press release can be found online at www.impress.com.au/ebs

When Centacare Ballarat outgrew the capabilities of its PC-based accounting software package, it sought a financials application with robustness, flexibility and familiarity. To manage and control its 60 separate cost centres, the Catholic social service organisation chose Microsoft Dynamics NAV, installed and supported by Melbourne-based national ERP software specialist Evolution Business Systems (EBS).

Business problem

Centacare Ballarat is a complex organisation.

With more than 220 employees, 13 offices and a multi-million-dollar annual budget, the Victorian-based Catholic social service organisation is funded by both Federal and State governments to support specific activities. Its wide range of disciplines includes homeless support, advocacy for aged housing, mental health and drug rehabilitation programs, marriage counselling programs and employment services.

Epitomising this complexity, Centacare Ballarat operates 60 different cost centres within its $16 million budget, reflecting different funding programs and agencies, each of which have rigorous reporting requirements.

Additionally, Centacare often pays expenses on behalf of its clients, which means that its accounting system has to maintain records for more than 3300 suppliers.

Early in 2010, Centacare Ballarat recognised that its existing accounting software was no longer meeting its needs. A major limitation was MYOB’s inability to load budgets for each cost centre. To prepare monthly reports, data had to be exported to third party software, a process that could take all night, especially as the data file grew in size near the end of the financial year. Sometimes, this process even crashed during the overnight export.

While MYOB had a wide range of reports, these did not meet the specific needs of a Not For Profit organisation like Centacare Ballarat and could not be modified. The software also had poor network performance and crashed on a regular basis, requiring all users to log out of the system in order to restart it.

Centacare Ballarat finance manager Antony Rucco said the organisation’s requirements had exceeded the capabilities of the software. “Clearly, it was no longer meeting our needs,” he said.

Technology solution

Primary drivers for Centacare Ballarat moving to a new financial system were its need for improved reporting, better network performance and a chart of accounts structure that better aligned with its operational structure.
Mr. Rucco said Centacare Ballarat had examined available financial solutions and sought recommendations about service providers. “There are quite a few good domestic and international products available,” he said.

“One of the reasons for choosing Microsoft Dynamics NAV is that we use a Microsoft platform here. We have a SharePoint intranet; we use the Office suite and Windows. It has a common look, touch and feel with other Microsoft products, which people were familiar with.

“Microsoft Dynamics NAV requires an SQL database engine, which we already had for other programs, so it fitted seamlessly into our infrastructure with no tweaking required. Also, a lot of our configuration requirements were met easily by Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

“A key point is that we didn’t want to be locked into something with a high total cost of ownership: Microsoft Dynamics NAV compares very favourably with other programs in terms of total cost of ownership.”

Mr. Rucco said Centacare Ballarat selected Evolution Business Systems (EBS) as its preferred provider based on recommendations and EBS’ professional reputation. “We wanted access to a company that was large enough to meet our needs, yet small enough to be responsive,” he said

“EBS has been great to work with and delivered the NAV project on budget and one month earlier than first planned. Due to a concerted team effort on both sides and a sound, structured implementation methodology, the project achieve a best-case ‘go live’, which reduced the original implementation time by one third. This significantly reduced the disruption of the changeover and gave us access to a better system quicker.”

Business benefits

Mr. Rucco said major benefits of Microsoft Dynamics NAV were its robustness, its flexibility and its ability to streamline business processes. “For a start, it is very robust,” he said.
“Previously, we had problems with MYOB sessions disappearing, which could happen a couple of times a week, forcing everyone to log out. Now, we simply don’t have this application instability occurring, which has saved us a lot of downtime.

“The data and reports in Microsoft Dynamics NAV are very logical and intuitive for finance people and the system has a great search function. It is very easy to export Microsoft Dynamics NAV data to Excel or PDF and it’s simple to manipulate the data. We can also import and export budgets directly with Microsoft Dynamics NAV very easily which has saved us many manual hours of manipulation and configuration of data . A nice feature is we can do sensitivity analyses – creating ‘what if’ scenarios.

“Our accounts people are settled in with the new software and find that it’s better to use than the previous application. The system is bedded down now, but we’ve only just scratched the surface of what we can do with it.”

Mr. Rucco said the streamlined business processes enabled by Microsoft Dynamics NAV had led to greater responsiveness from the Finance department. “Our month-end reporting process, which used to take 10-12 days to finalise, is now completed in half this time,” he said.

“This improvement allows us to distribute reports electronically to our Finance committee before their meeting, which gives them time to consider the reports and formulate advice to the board.

“By streamlining processes and saving time keying in data, Microsoft Dynamics NAV has given Finance more time to focus on value-added activities for other people in the organisation rather than just count the beans.”

Mr. Rucco said he would feel comfortable recommending Evolution Business Systems to other Not For Profit organisations. “They are starting to build up quite a good portfolio of Not For Profit clients,” he said.

“They have good industry experience and have developed a good understanding of the needs and challenges of Not For Profit organisations.”

Story by Impress Media, full article here

More on Dynamics NAV here

More on Evolution Business Systems here

Today’s world demands a new way to do business. Organisations continue to wrestle with complexity in a difficult business environment. They face the dual challenge of reducing operating costs while responding to greater customer needs and ultimately increasing profitability. Microsoft Dynamics® NAV 2009 R2 strengthens the ability of people and organisations to face these ongoing challenges, so that their businesses can remain competitive and grow.

This latest release of Microsoft Dynamics® NAV R2 extends the reach of insight, productivity, and collaboration across the entire business, helping to ensure that people – an organisation’s most powerful asset – and the different ways they work continue to drive business success. New capabilities allow for remote and roaming users to take advantage of the richness of the RoleTailored interface over the internet. Built-in integration with Microsoft Dynamics® CRM, support for online payment services and cool business data visualisation capabilities provides better productivity and opens for a new way to do business. click here for more:

In the category for Victoria’s Computer Systems & Software Services, EBS received the highly recommended 95.68 per cent rating, based on seven assessment criteria: Time Related Service; Addressing Client Needs; Care and Attention; Value; Attitude; Communication; and Overall Perception.

In the Australian Achiever Awards, each criterion is rated individually in percentage terms and the final score is an amalgam of these. Anything above 80 per cent overall is regarded as exceptional and reflects outstanding customer service. A complete list of all businesses who have achieved over the last five years can be viewed at http://www.achiever.com.au

Now into its 13th year, the Australian Achiever Awards are an independent, unbiased award system based on assessment ratings from a business’s own customers – an indication of a well-run business where satisfied customers are a sign that a business is healthy, worthy of praise and increased custom.

Australian Achiever received comments from Evolution Business Systems clients including:

“We’ve known them for a very long time and we have a great working relationship with them. We’ve had nothing but professional service from them and everything is always dealt with, no matter how small. They always get back to us and are very prompt. We have nothing but praise for them.”

“Evolution Business Systems have helped us grow our business in a way which enabled us to stay small, but effective. They have helped us to work smarter and not harder – they are a very clever group of people. They’re just absolutely wonderful in the way they have supported our growth.”

“Although we have only used their services for a relatively short time, we are really happy with them because they are continually meeting and exceeding our needs. In fact, they are just excellent to work with. We couldn’t ask for more from a service provider.”

EBS founder and director Paul Woods said the high ranking in the Australian Achiever Awards was especially valuable because it came from customers. ‘A large proportion of our business comes from referrals,” he said.

“We work alongside our clients and strive to enable them to get the maximum return they can out of their business systems and that makes this feedback especially valuable.”

To verify this report, please call Geoff Harwood, Director, Australian Achiever on 1800 638 318.

For more about EBS click here http://www.ebsys.com.au

The Microsoft Dynamics™ NAV Role Tailored client enables you to attach a note to any record in the application. For example, if you have extra information about a sales order or a question for a colleague you can write a note.

This note will be available on the sales order window for you and any of your colleagues to look at the sales order. You can have the note appear as a notification on your colleague’s Role Centre – or even on your own Role Centre, as a reminder.

When you or your colleague reads the notification, they can open the sales order just by double-clicking the notification.

In the My Notifications part, highlighted in green above, you can see notes that your colleagues have sent to you. You can click on a note to open the document that the message is related to. On list places and tasks pages you can add and use notes in much the same way as on a Role Centre.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 is a business management solution that works the way people do. Easy-to-use Role Centres give everyone in your organisation new ways to organise work and prioritise relevant tasks, increasing productivity and effectiveness.

Breakthrough Role Centres Boost Productivity

Based on research into the way people really work, Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 delivers simplified access to RoleTailored views and business processes – giving your employees an appealing, easy-to-navigate window into their work world.

Out of the box, Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 delivers 21 Role Centres optimised for different key employee functions. Working with your Microsoft Dynamics Certified Partner, you can customize Role Centres or create new ones that meet specific business and industry needs.

Fuel Business Agility and Growth

Meet changing business needs without disrupting your operations or your IT budget. Working with flexible, three-tier architecture, your partner can extend or adapt Microsoft Dynamics NAV and add more users efficiently and cost-effectively.

A Sound Investment for Your Business

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 can give you the right solution, at the right price, and the support you need to focus on building your business, rather on your technology systems.

To find out more please click here or call Paul Woods on 1300 303 973.

Evolution Business Systems specialises in business solutions that free you up to focus on managing your business, EBS use Microsoft Dynamics NAV as the base to these solutions.

EBS do this by automating your core business processes and integrating your specialist business applications with the right financial management solution.  With deep expertise in the leading financial application Microsoft Dynamics™ NAV, EBS works alongside their clients to understand their business and vision, and offers solutions to support these both now and into the future.

One key to the flexibility of Microsoft Dynamics NAV is the large number of add-on solutions available. Horizontal add-ons support basic business systems with, for example, human resources and financial applications. Vertical add-ons are industry-specific specialist business applications, supporting the integration of all software tools required to operate a business of any type.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV brings all business functions, from finance to supply chain management, into an integrated system. Microsoft Dynamics NAV ERP software supports core business processes with the simplicity provided by Role Centres, enabling employees to work more effectively to create business and vision success.

To find out more about Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Evolution Business Systems, click here

Richard Jay Laundry Equipment is now the supplier of the largest range of commercial & industrial laundry equipment Australia-wide. They are very proud of the infrastructure and resources they have available to ensure their customers receive the advice and support they require.

Evolution Business Systems are proud to be able to provide the expertise Richard Jay Laundry required to maximise their use of their business system.

Richard Jay was excited to learn that Evolution Business Systems had launched its same-day support services for Adelaide based businesses in early 2010.

At a meeting with Evolution Business Systems, Ms. Cattanach outlined Richard Jay’s requirements to optimise the performance of its Arrow Financials system. “We gave them a list of what we wanted, some of which were immediate needs and others ongoing improvements,” she said.

Ms. Cattanach found Evolution easy to work with; “as well as being willing to visit our office to discuss issues, they are available by telephone and can also provide us with support through remote access.”

Ms. Cattanach said EBS had established itself as Richard Jay’s trusted support partner for Arrow Financials. “It has been a very good experience,” she said.

For more details Click here

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009’s RoleTailored hides the 90 precent of the features you don’t need to see. It promotes the actions and information that you do need, leaving you with an uncluttered window and an overview of upcoming tasks helping you prioritise your tasks, and keeping your work productive.

Business management software has simplified business processes. But the Microsoft Dynamics NAV RoleTailored approach takes this one step further; it promotes simplified processes for each individual in your company.

For example, in the Role Centre, the “Activities” tab displays each process you are involved in at that particular moment, giving you a constant overview of the work in that process.

The result; increased productivity and greater job satisfaction, while providing a positive feedback loop as an integral part of your work processes. Easy to personalise for maximum agility the benefits are clear.

You can personalise Role Centres, lists and task pages very quickly to reflect changes in staff, shifts in employee responsibilities or an expansion in your company’s activities, without having to use a member of your IT department.

You get a solution which is easy to use. It provides people with tools and information that can unleash their individual potential and, in turn, fuel new levels of business performance.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV has 21 ready-made Role Centres ready for action. Because most people have more than one ‘role’ in a company, especially if it’s quite a small operation, you can combine different roles to make up each user profile, which becomes a Role a Role Centre.

The RoleTailored approach provides a positive impact on your company’s agility and each Role Centre is extremely easy to personalise, each user can personalise their own Role Centre very quickly.

For more on the RoleTailored Clients see our highlights page here

Role Centers for every role in your organisation:

Microsoft Unveils New Functionality for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2, in a press release today:

“We’re delivering this release in response to customer and partner feedback,” said Crispin Read, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics ERP at Microsoft. “Microsoft is committed to continuously bringing forth innovation in our ERP solutions, including the integration with cloud services. These latest enhancements to Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 are an important step in delivering solutions that drive real business productivity.”

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 Should be available in the fourth quarter of 2010.

So what does this mean for our clients? Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 clients will benefit from the following:

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM integration. Today’s fast-paced business environment demands instant access to customers and vendors. Microsoft is providing built-in integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Benefits of customer relationship management (CRM) integration include eliminating redundant data entries, keeping information up to date in both ERP and CRM solutions, and providing salespeople with the ability to quickly access detailed business information about contracts, pricing and product availability. Customers can choose between integration to on-premises Microsoft Dynamics CRM or Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online with the option to migrate to either option over time.  
• Online Payment Service for Microsoft Dynamics NAV. This enables customers to process payment transactions from the Microsoft Dynamics NAV interface across multiple channels, including e-commerce, point of sale and call center transactions. The Payment Service works with leading payment processing services and all major credit cards.  
• RoleTailored interface access for remote or roaming users. Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 supports direct access from the Microsoft Dynamics RoleTailored experience over the Internet. This allows for remote or roaming users to take advantage of the richness and Microsoft Office integration of the RoleTailored interface and the many integration features connected to local resources, such as the operating system and Microsoft Office. This reduces the complexity and overhead compared with using other applications such as Citrix Systems and Terminal Services, especially for hosting partners offering cloud-based Microsoft Dynamics NAV deployments. 
• Microsoft Application Virtualization support. The Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 RoleTailored interface can be deployed using Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) technology, which is relevant for both on-premise and hosted solutions. This provides a better experience for the end user as all integration with local applications is done on the desktop. It also cuts IT costs by centrally managing Microsoft Dynamics NAV client installations with automatic deployment to the desktop after an update. 
• Windows 7 user experience improvements. Through Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2, jumplists can be used to open recently accessed customers and vendors for increased business productivity and efficiency, and the icon overlay functionality provides information on system events and status streamlined with the Windows 7 user experience. 
• Treemap visualization. Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 showcases the possibilities around business data visualizations abilities in Microsoft Dynamics NAV through rich ad hoc data visualization. It provides treemap analysis that enables the comparison of any two values, for example sales and profits, which increases business productivity and business insight. The innovative client extensibility framework used allows partners to extend the user experience of Microsoft Dynamics NAV to integrate visualizations into any end-user scenario.

About Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft Dynamics is a line of easy-to-use, integrated and adaptable ERP and CRM applications that enable business decision-makers to quickly respond to market shifts, take advantage of new trends, increase their competitive edge and drive business success. Microsoft Dynamics NAV is delivered by Evolution Business Systems providing specialised services and additional innovation to help customers excel in their industries.

To find out more about Microsoft Dynamics NAV and how EBS can help you get on with your business:

Call Paul Woods on 1300 303 973

 To view a demonstration of this client in action see below:

You can read the full press release here:

Featured article on:

Evolution Business Systems (www.ebsys.com.au) and

DBG Technologies (www.dbgtechnologies.com.au)

Sometimes we are truly blessed;

We sometimes work long hours and people come to us when they need our help, at the end of the day, we live for that moment where the situation that is causing our client grief is resolved and that feeling of satisfaction is second to non.

We continually look for Arrow software clients, and recently we have had a few new clients come on board, who shall we say, have had challenging times. It’s amazing what people live with.

As all Arrow software clients would be aware, the main printing application for documents in Arrow is a product called Quickforms, now let me say before I go any further, we believe this is a fantastic product and provides great flexibility, it also provides us with the ability to deliver a solution that clients want and need… But as with all things in life, these tools only work effectively when installed and configured correctly.

EBS have the largest deployment of Quickforms in the world, with the product servicing 150 machine across all states of Australia, not to say all are used at once, but the fact remains; we have this application running without any problems across a network of 150 machines and guess what?.. We never receive one phone call from this client in regards to printing issues.

Now back to our recent experiences, when we receive a call from an existing Arrow Software client who was looking to EBS to help them, we have a process that we like to follow, we like to do an ERP health check for prospective clients; this is a process where we look at the data and basically look for any incumbent problems, it becomes a project plan for work that is required to get the client up to our standard. We feel all clients should be able to get the beast out of their Arrow software system, so it is very important for us to make sure we get them on track. We also look at the network configuration and any SQL server configuration issues. We have two certified MCTS (Microsoft Certified Technology Specialists) on staff, which is a Microsoft SQL server certification, basically we know what we are doing as any of our current clients would attest.

We often find one of the biggest issues on these client sites is Quickforms, why… as I said, we think it is one of the best tools in the suite, the answer is simple; it shouldn’t be!

We were once asked to take over a site who had many problems, one of which was Quickforms. This site had some interesting problems, depending on who printed an invoice for example; would depend on what the invoice looked like, now this was not by design, the idea was the same invoice printed from every machine (as you would expect in most cases) but for this site it was not the case, by the time we took over this site they were tearing their hair out with Quickforms. We identified this as a priority and the first visit we made to the site we set out to correct the Quickforms issues. We were there for about 4 hours in this case and all the problems were resolved, it embarrasses me to say that the client had been dealing with the problem of “Quickforms” for 9 months prior to EBS taking over the site and fixing it in one afternoon.

So, you must be asking now, why did it only take EBS 4 hours to fix a problem that was ongoing prior to EBS for 9 months? My answer to this is simple, we have a standard methodology when it comes to Quickforms (for that matter, we have a methodology for all things), but what we did in this case was just remove all of the setup that the prior partner had performed and started again. A fresh install using the EBS method and a quick polish of the forms design and the site was back on track.

If the product is install incorrectly the first time, no matter how many times you try to “fix it”, you may never get there, I think this may have been the case in the above situation. We also understand that people have different skill sets and not all shoes fit the same foot. All I can say is if you have Quickforms problems you don’t have to have them.

Another site we recently took over had Quickforms working… in a fashion, but were unable to email documents via Quickforms. Again this can be a common problem with non EBS clients. In this case we basically took the same approach; although Quickforms was working (well as I said in a fashion) we didn’t feel it was the most effective way for it to be “working” so we reinstalled it, configured it the EBS way and setup Quickforms emailing. I’m not sure how many years the client has had Arrow for, I would guess between 8 and 10 years; but for the first time after our first site visit they were able to email Arrow documents via Quickforms… Back to my original line, we are truly blessed; the satisfaction of providing a solid resolution to our clients is why we get out of bed in the morning.

When Melbourne-based company Evolution Business Systems decided to launch a same-day support service in Adelaide, they turned to DBG Technologies for help.

Click here for full story

This Arrow financials release will include support for Windows 7 and also an update to Quickforms to make it compatible with both Vista and Windows 7. Further news with this release brings support for SQL 2008 with the Arrow software, which will require a driver update; news we’re sure you are happy to hear as clients upgrading hardware generally look to purchase SQL 2008.

The software component of the upgrade is free for clients with up-to-date ESP, to schedule your upgrade to the latest version please contact our office on 1300 303 973 or email support at support@ebsys.com.au 

Arrow Research Corporation (ARC) was established in Australia in 1989. Their 21 year commitment to developing cost-effective, reliable and integrated business solutions has won acclaim from leading business associations and publications around the globe, Arrow financials.

Arrow financials suite ‘Arrow Software’ of accounting products have been successfully implemented in a wide range of industries across Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. The installed user base includes more than 50,000 registered users.

Arrow Research Corporation’s dedication to product development, innovation and adaptability to technological advances, has gained them the reputation of delivering, dependable, progressive and robust products to the mid-size business market and is what has given Arrow financials the success it has today.

Visit our Arrow financials website to find out more information on Arrow software here

The Purchase Order release candidate ‘W2 RC2′ incorporates new order entry transaction types, and includes new features such as; Purchase Order shipment tracking, where a shipment is used to acknowledge a shipment of stock allocated against a particular Purchase Order. New pop up order entry screens are also available, such as the Purchase Order history screen, which will help to make order entry simpler and more streamlined. The inclusion of a return authority function will also enhance the Purchase Order feature as the return authority will be used to acknowledge the return of stock partial or complete against a creditors invoice, when the return is refunded the return authority can be converted into a suppliers credit note. These new functions, as well as many others will augment the overall user experience.

Evolution Business Systems are continuing to work with Tencia, we continue to put it through its paces to ensure it is a solid solution for our clients to upgrade from Visual Arrow to the new platform. At EBS we like to ensure our clients are getting good solutions so as is the EBS way, unless it passes our testing it will not be deployed in a live enviroment.