Deploying,Dynamics,for,Distrib computer Deploying Dynamics GP for Distribution and Wholesale Industr

Gone are those times when the companies and the organisations didn't need a hi-tech system to handle them. Owing to the considerable increase in the business sector and thus, an enormous increase in the complexity of the organisational struc ----------------------------------------------------------Permission is granted for the below article to forward,reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website,offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as longas no changes a

We assume – if you are reading these lines, you are likely to be in the next Corporate ERP selection phase or in advancing existing Dynamics GP installation with Wholesale and Distribution industries related modules and add-ons, possibly looking for the ways to integrate GP with EDI channel, Warehouse Management System, ecommerce web application.  Let’s begin with entry level questions and then move on to technical details:1.What are the steps to purchase Dynamics GP licenses and have system implemented in my organization and in my area?  GP software licenses are sold via Microsoft Dynamics Partner channel.  You can either search google or yahoo, or Bing/Microsoft search engine to locate Dynamics GP Partner with reasonable expertise in Wholesale and Distribution, or you can call Microsoft Business Solutions directly to request them to recommend Dynamics GP VAR for you.  There is always dilemma to pick local Dynamics GP Reseller, who is next door to your facility, versus decide on Nationwide Dynamics GP ISV partner.  Local provider could be good enough, but you should understand that local Great Plains Partner typically takes each project coming to its way (without maybe having adequate expertise in your industry and Dynamics GP technologies, required to implement GP for Wholesaler, such as Barcoding, WMS, SCM, etc.).  Then you are coming through the sales cycle with your prospective Great Plains Reseller, seeing product demos, mapping GP modules and procedures to your business processes.  When licenses are acquired, you have implementation cycle with user training, data conversion.  We recommend pilot month or two to compare results with what you are getting in normal ERP production from your legacy accounting application.  If everything seems to be OK and your key accounting, AR, AP, Inventory management personnel seem to be happy, you are in Dynamics GP production mode2.Dynamics GP Distribution set of modules.  Specially for your industry horizontals and verticals GP has so-called Distribution suite, where you have such modules as Inventory Control with Bill of Materials, Purchase Order Processing and Sales Order Processing.  In addition to native Great Plains Distribution modules, you have overwhelming number of Add-ons, available and maintained by Dynamics GP ISVs, especially in such areas as Supply Chain Management, Warehouse Management System, B2B eCommerce, Electronic Document Interchange (EDI), Consignment, Fulfillment or Allocation on Order3.Barcoding technology and Dynamics GP.  Old fashioned barcode scanners (and cheap barcoding devices, typically connected to your computer via USB port) are in essence similar to keyboard data entering with barcode label scanning performance obvious advantage.  Modern barcode scanners are more sophisticated and you can have the whole software application to run on the scanner operating system and LCD screen.  Just that fact about contemporary scanner gives you additional advantages as batch mode scanning and following upload to your ERP system, or scanning and compiling the whole document (with document header and lines) in real time and then uploading it to the ERP.  Modern barcode scanner is absolutely powerful, but it requires you to have additional layer of Software – Warehouse Management extension to handle document preparation and storing in the scanner and then communicating with the ERP system to upload the document4.Warehouse Management System for Dynamics GP.  In its technology it has two layers: WMS client, running directly on your barcode scanner (including cheaper versions, DOS and text mode compliant).  Barcode scanner talks to WMS server via Wireless or RFID connections, where Warehouse Management Server is Windows computer on your wired (high volume of WMS transactions) or wireless (moderate or low level of transactions) network, talking to Dynamics GP Server via ODBC connection5.EDI for Microsoft Dynamics GP.  We recommend the solution, where you deploy EDI File Transfer Manager add-on.  In this case you don’t have to pay for high end full featured EDI Add-On for Great Plains6.eCommerce, likely in Business to Business scenario.  In wholesale environment the cost of transaction should be minimized to keep competitive advantage.  Electronic commerce is the best vehicle (along with ERI probably) to minimize the cost.  Next step, when ecommerce shopping cart is ordered and paid is to fulfill the order on the warehouse floor, where you have implemented WMS extensions for Dynamics GP.  Alba Spectrum offers ecommerce add-ons for Great Plains, completely and seamlessly integrated with our Warehouse Management System7.Beyond the out-of-the-shelf products for Dynamics GP.  We also offer you so-called “Solutions”, where we are giving you our source code to unique Dynamics GP customizations, integrations, modifications, custom reporting (SQL views and stored procedures)8.To request further help, please call us 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, in Michigan 1-269-605-0330 or email us [email protected]  If you are large wholesaler or distributor, you may expect that some level of WMS or SCM customized business logic should be programmed to automate your unique business processes.  We are available to serve you USA, Canada nationwide, and internationally.  Local service in Chicago, Southern California, Western Michigan, Houston, TX