What's New: Application Changes for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016

What's New: Application Changes for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2015 

     

Hosting Dynamics NAV on a Private Cloud or on Microsoft Azure. As a business partner of WatServ, ABCSI offers its customers the ability to run Microsoft Dynamics NAV on the Cloud. The WatServ Dynamics NAV private cloud service, or Microsoft Azure, provide high availability for small to large Dynamics NAV environments. Please contact us for details. 

 

Job Manager is a powerful and easy-to-use Activity Based Costing tool for your Project / Job Costing applications. As a complete Project Management and Costing solution, Job Manager provides a very easy way to manage resources, track the status of production or service jobs, record consumption and output, schedule job tasks, monitor dates, activity cost and material requirements, and manage subcontractor activities within a single integrated system. 

 

Microsoft SharePoint makes it easier for people to work together. Using SharePoint your employees can set up web sites to share information with others, manage documents from start to finish, and publish reports to help everyone make better decisions. SharePoint is available as an 'On-premises' system that can be installed on your server, and also as an 'Online' system as part of the Office365 Cloud option. Many applications that are integrated with Microsoft Dynamics have been built using SharePoint, such as SharePoint Purchase Requisition System &  SharePoint Expense Management System. SharePoint includes many different modules that can be customized to your specific requirements such as: document management, approval process, website creation and maintenance, task management and business intelligence. 

Gemfields, the world's leading supplier of responsibly sourced colored gemstones has locations in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia. The company's mission statement is: "Gemfields' unprecedented mine to market strategy allows us to guarantee the provenance of every gem: Our promise to both the trade and the consumer. Supported by a world-class management team of seasoned industry experts, Gemfields prides itself on transparency. Business aside, our dedication to preserving the environment, nurturing relationships with local communities and upholding human rights remains paramount to our success." The company works in partnership with their dealers and manufacturers to ensure a consistent supply of rough colored gemstones and offers full disclosure of rough sales directly to these discerning clients. Gemfields has a proven track record of delivering a consistent supply of professionally graded, uncut colored gemstones to world markets through a program of private auctions.
   

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Business Software Definitions and Tips

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) : More and more companies are implementing state-of-the-art cloud based CRM systems that allow them to bolster customer loyalty, reduce duplication and costs, and increase management control and profits. Some of the most important features to look for are: management of leads, contacts, opportunities, territories, quotas and pipelines. Other important features are customer service case management, contracts, and marketing campaign planning.    

Accounts Receivable: Important functions to consider when selecting a new system are invoice and credit memo entry, easy to use deposit entry and cash application, flexible postings to the General Ledger, credit and collection system, ability to attach documents to master files and transactions. Other important functions include full integration with other modules such as sales order entry, flexible payment terms, finance charges, customer specific pricing and discounts, inquiries with the ability to drill down, and good searches and filters.

Document Management System: Software application that helps businesses 'Go Green' by reducing the mountains of paper they use. It delivers greater business efficiency, increased productivity, improved customer service and lower carbon footprints. 

 

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI): Application software that handles the transmission of data between organizations by electronic means. It is used to transfer electronic documents or business data from a computer system of one company (called a trading partner) to another. Adhering to standards called transaction sets, EDI replaces paper documents such as purchase orders, invoices and warehouse shipping advices. 

Business Intelligence: Incorporating Business Intelligence into your ERP system will help you improve decision-making by providing your team with tools such as online analytical processing, graphical displays, data mining and business performance management. Forrester Research defines it the following way: "Business Intelligence is a set of methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information used to enable more effective, strategic, tactical, and operational insights and decision-making." Microsoft Power BI, now integrated with Dynamics NAV 2017, is a suite of business analytics tools to analyze data and share insights. Power BI dashboards provide a 360-degree view for business users with their most important metrics in one place, updated in real time, and available on all of their devices. With one click, users can explore the data behind their dashboard using intuitive tools that make finding answers easy.

Microsoft Office 365: Subscription plans that include access to Office applications plus other productivity services that are enabled over the Internet (cloud services). Office 365 includes plans for use at home and for business. Office 365 plans for business include services such as Skype for Business web conferencing and Exchange Online hosted email for business, and additional online storage with OneDrive for Business. Many Office 365 plans also include the desktop version of the latest Office applications, which users can install across multiple computers and devices. The fully installed applications include: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, and Access. (Publisher and Access are available on PC only.) And you can install them across multiple devices, including PCs, Macs, Android tablets, Android phones, iPad, and iPhone. When you have an active Office 365 subscription that includes the desktop version of Office, you always have the most up-to-date version of the applications.  

 

Dynamics NAV Tips

Payment Services for Microsoft Dynamics: To enable online credit card payments and to use payment services, you must sign up with Payment Services for Microsoft Dynamics ERP and sign up with a payment provider that offers online payments. Receiving and processing online credit card payments for online and retail business provides flexibility and faster payments. The online credit card payment feature automates authorizing credit card amounts at the time of the order and processing the actual charge when the order is shipped and invoiced.   

 

Accounting Services Role Center for Dynamics NAV 2017: With the Accounting Services Role Center, Microsoft is adding a couple of key tasks to a simplified Role Center that specifically supports using Microsoft Dynamics NAV with a smartphone. The Accounting Services Role Center targets users who have subscribed to an outsourced accounting service to allow the two parties to work more closely together.   

The Accounting Services Role Center supports the following activities on a phone:  

* Sales Invoicing - Create and process sales invoices.  

* Approvals - Approve requests from the accounting service provider.  

* Document Capture - Take a photo of a receipt to automatically create an incoming document.  

The Accounting Services Role Center has a very simple User Interface for phone users who need less functionality than offered with the Small Business Role Center. Both Accounting Services and the Small Business Role Center work on the same version of Microsoft Dynamics NAV and can be used side-by-side without conflict.

 

Dimensions: In financial analysis, a dimension is data that you can add to an entry as a kind of marker. This data is used to group entries with similar characteristics, such as customers, regions, products, and salesperson, and easily retrieve these groups for analysis. Dimensions can be used on entries in journals, documents, and budgets. The term dimension describes how analysis occurs. A two-dimensional analysis, for example, would be sales per area. However, by using more than two dimensions when creating an entry, you can carry out a more complex analysis, such as sales per sales campaign per customer group per area. Analyzing data by dimensions gives you greater insight into your business, so you can evaluate information, such as how well your business is operating, where it is thriving and where it is not, and where more resources should be allocated. Dynamics NAV enables you to organize and analyze your data by dimensions.

Production Master Planning: Before a detailed executable plan (MRP) is in place, high-level information must be established through master planning. Master planning considers all independent demand, including forecasts. Master planning also considers resource availability and the final-assembly production schedule, that is expected production orders for demanded end items. In Dynamics NAV, the Calculate MPS option (Master Production Schedule) is the system expression of the above master planning activities.

Warehouse Management - Item Putaway: The warehouse activity of putting items away after they are received or output is performed in different ways depending on how warehouse management features are configured. The setup complexity can rank from no warehouse features, through basic warehousing for order-by order handling in one or more activities only, to advanced configurations where all warehouse activities must be performed in a directed workflow. 

 

Synchronizing Microsoft Dynamics NAV with Outlook: You can synchronize Microsoft Outlook entities, such as appointments, and contacts, with comparable Microsoft Dynamics NAV items to keep both applications up-to-date. This enables employees like salespeople, who do not have continuous access to their company's Microsoft Dynamics NAV database, to share contact, to-do, and meeting information from off-site locations. With this functionality, you can easily update either Microsoft Dynamics NAV objects with Outlook entities or Outlook entities with Microsoft Dynamics NAV objects. Synchronization can be set up to take place automatically, or you can manually synchronize from within Outlook. 

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 introduces new approval types: These approval types provide flexibility for different scenarios and enable you to choose different types of approvals for different workflows. Out of the box, the following approval types are supported:

• Approver Chain
• Direct Approver
• First Qualified Approver

The Intercompany functionality allows you to easily and efficiently process sales and purchasing documents, as well as GL General Journals, among all your companies. It can help you to increase productivity, reduce data entry errors, and provide complete audit trail for each and every transaction. Outgoing transactions are moved to your outbox, and upon approval they will appear in the inbox of the company receiving the transaction.

From the Sales History inquiry in a sales order, you can use the 'Copy Document' button to copy the sales lines and header into the current sales order. This functionality works with Sales Quotes, Blanket Sales Orders, Sales Orders, Sales Invoices and Credit Memos.

Function keys that can increase your productivity: F9 to post entries such as in cash application, Shift+F7 = Open the related card, Ctrl+F2 or Ctrl+N = Create a new document, Shift+F8 = Drop-down or look up to view, and Ctrl+Shift+A to clear all filters.   

Please click here to view the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Keyboard Shortcuts document.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV Works Natively with Microsoft Dynamics CRM: Introducing a new, direct Microsoft Dynamics CRM connection that enables an optimal, seamless experience for our customers in the lead-to-cash process when they utilize Microsoft Dynamics CRM for customer engagement and Microsoft Dynamics NAV for order processing and financials. 

Summary of key benefits: Working in the two systems generates lots of data that is very useful in the specific process, but it also creates data that can be used to make other users more efficient. The focus of this integration has been to utilize the strengths of the two systems and then sharing it when needed.  

   

Drop Shipment orders can be created at the item line level by checking off the 'Drop Shipment' column. The next step is to 'Get Sales Orders' in the Purchasing Requisition 'Drop Shipment' option. That will allow for the creation of the purchase order that is now linked to the drop-ship sales order.

To link files such as Images, PDFs and Spreadsheets to master files such as customers and vendors or to transactions such as orders or invoices, click on 'Links' at the top right-hand corner of your screen.

Click here to watch videos that demonstrate how a good ERP system can help your organization increase productivity and efficiency, reduce duplication and costs and increase customer satisfaction and profits.  

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