Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations
Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system that enables medium to large-sized businesses to automate and manage their global operations. It provides real-time visibility to support decision-making, forecast future outcomes, and foster organizational growth.
The software, part of Microsoft's Dynamics 365 family of products, was first released in November 2016, as Dynamics 365 for Operations. In July 2017, it was re-released as Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations.
Intelligent Budgeting and Forecasting
Accurate budgeting and forecasting are vital if businesses want to maintain financial stability. However, many organizations run into issues because they are managing multiple budgets across departments with no standardization. Using a cloud solution like Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations allows you to create budget templates and centralize your budgets and forecasts. We assist clients with:
• Budgeting with transaction-level detail
• Reporting accurate budgets and forecasts versus actuals
• Maintaining multiple budgets across the fiscal year
• Setting budgeting alerts
Holistic Financial Reporting and Analytics
Clear and detailed financial reports allow businesses to make sound decisions about their finances. Without clear financial visibility, business leaders are forced to engage in guesswork and rough estimates. Its financial reporting and analytics functions make Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations an ideal solution for managers and executives as it provides them with the insights they need. Our clients benefit from:
• Varied types of reports and inquiries in finance and operations
• Detailed financial reporting
• Detailed analysis of financial information
Automated Credit and Collections
Efficient invoice management systems help businesses to avoid cash flow issues by ensuring that they are paid on time. Using SSG’s Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations services, we can assist your company with credit and collection systems automation while efficiently improving cash flow. We help our clients:
• Track and manage customer invoices and open accounts receivable
• Schedule collections activities
• Create automated email notifications and collection letters
Touchless Vendor Invoicing
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations has a touchless vendor invoicing system that allows you to automatically submit an imported invoice to the accounts payable system. Using an integrated third-party OCR service allows all vendor invoices are imported without the need to enter information manually. This enables you to create an efficient process for vendor invoice management. We help our clients:
• Automatically submit imported invoices to the accounts payable workflow
• Easily view workflow and automation history
• Match product receipts to vendor invoices
• Pre-validate vendor invoice posting
Cost-Effective Compliance
Utilizing SSG’s Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations consulting, expertise allows your company to incorporate compliance tools such as eDiscovery and Audit, Information Protection and Governance, and Insider Risk Management. This centralized system for managing compliance across the enterprise is a cost-effective solution for your business. We assist our clients with:
• Detecting and classifying sensitive data
• Retaining and deleting files to meet data regulations
• Applying encryption
• Unified auditing
• Easily fulfilling subject access requests
Financial System Implementation
Much time and effort goes into the implementation of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. The key is to utilize time, money, and people efficiently and effectively. This system especially challenging since there are many software components (chart of accounts, dimensions, accounts receivable, accounts payable, cash management, fixed assets) and integrations to every other part of the system (manufacturing, purchasing, sales, inventory control, field service). Our clients benefit from our expertise in:
• Discovery and analysis
• Business process review
• Business process re-engineering
• Data migration
• Pilot testing
• Training
Master Planning
The Master Planning functionality in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations provides manufacturing and distribution organizations with the ability to turn sales forecasts into production and purchasing plans. Using this functionality, your company can purchase and make the right items at the right time, minimizing inventory and transaction costs. We assist our clients with:
• Sales forecasting
• Production scheduling
• Material planning
• Capacity planning
• Implementation and re-implementation
Financial and Operational Reporting
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations comes with many standard reports. However, our clients often ask us to create reports to streamline business processes or provide information in a form that the executive team can use for decision-making. Data visualization, with a Business Intelligence (BI) tool, of key metrics over time allows your team to clearly see when issues arise in your business. Our clients benefit from our expertise in:
• Developing and customizing financial reports
• Developing and customizing operational reports
• Creating reports from API feeds
• Design and deployment of a data warehouse
• Deployment of reporting in Microsoft Power BI
Financial Budgeting and Planning
The budgeting and planning functionality in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations provides manufacturing and distribution companies with the ability to transform sales forecasts and budgets into viable financial and operational plans. Using this functionality, you can measure performance against budgets and forecasts and generate alerts when your numbers deviate from plan. The primary objective is to minimize financial, material, and operational waste within the organization. We assist our clients with:
• Sales forecasting
• Budget development
• Automated load of the budget data
• Automated consolidation of division financials
• Periodic reporting of budget versus actual
Business Processes
The key to a successful implementation of any Enterprise Resource Planning application, including Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, is fit to your company's business processes. However, at the outset, the system rarely fits business processes well. With our guidance, clients have customized the system to fit their business processes or re-engineered their business processes to better fit the system. We assist clients with:
• Business process analysis
• Fit / Gap analysis
• Business process re-engineering
• Requirements definition development
• System customization
• Software development
Version Upgrades / Cloud Migration
Some thought must be given to upgrading your existing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application. This is especially true if the current, on-premises application has been heavily customized or if numerous third-party tools have been installed as well. In some situations, the cost of an upgrade could be as high or higher than the cost of migrating to a modern, cloud-based solution like Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. We help our clients:
• Assess the trade-offs of upgrading versus migrating to a new system
• Compare cost and level of effort for cloud versus on-premises implementation
• Navigate the timing for extended support or end of support for Microsoft Dynamics products
• Define a course of action to stabilize the current ERP system and then migrate it to the cloud
Manufacturing System Implementation
Much time and effort goes into implementing the Manufacturing module in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. The key is to utilize time, money, and people effectively (doing the right things) and efficiently (doing things right). The Manufacturing module is challenging since there are many components (items, bills of material, work centers, routings, tasks, and work orders) and integrations to other parts of the system (purchasing, sales, inventory control, quality assurance, finance). Our clients benefit from our expertise in:
• Discovery and analysis
• Business process re-engineering
• Customization
• Software development
• Training and testing
• Go live and post go-live support
Software Development
Software development is typically not included in a Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations implementation. It's perceived to make installing future upgrades more costly. In extreme cases, where lots of custom software has been written, an upgrade can be as expensive and time-consuming as a complete implementation. We recommend custom software development in situations where data must be transferred between systems or your business process is clearly more streamlined than the system's. The benefits of custom software development (i.e., less or no data entry, fewer errors) must outweigh the costs. We assist our clients with:
• Requirements definition
• Application customization
• Custom application development
• Power Automate and Power Apps development
• API integration across systems