Technology Management Concepts (TMC) is very pleased to announce that we have successfully renewed our Microsoft GOLD Competency in Enterprise Reporting Platform.  The Microsoft GOLD Competency in ERP is designed by Microsoft to recognize the very best of their Dynamics partners, and TMC has now earned this prestigious honor for consecutive years.

GOLD Competency demonstrates the best-in-class expertise within Microsoft’s marketplace. Earning a gold competency is evidence of TMC’s deep, consistent commitment to a specific, in-demand, business solution area, along with the distinction of being among only 1 percent of Microsoft partners worldwide that have attained this outstanding degree of proficiency.

The Enterprise Resource Planning GOLD competency provides TMC with a unique opportunity to develop a trusted advisor relationship with our customers’ key decision makers. By providing solutions that address critical business priorities, TMC can build the foundation for longer-term, deeper customer relationships.

Earning a GOLD Competency in Enterprise Reporting Platform is a team effort, requiring virtually every one of TMC’s Management team, Consultants and Developers, and the Sales Team to have demonstrated the highest level of success and achievement within the Microsoft realm.  TMC has met or exceeded every requirement for this prestigious accomplishment.

Welcome to January 2012!  Ready to start the New Year?  With Dynamics GP, the next few steps are easy. For many professionals, the first day of the New Year signals the beginning of a long and difficult period in their work lives.  Perform the Year End close, then prep for the auditors visit, and then tax season.  Of course, for those professionals using Dynamics GP as their ERP system, these three steps are quick and painless.

If you don’t already have Dynamics GP, well, maybe next year?  Most Dynamics GP implementations can be completed in 3 – 4 months, so you have plenty of time to make the switch.

Three steps to go:

Begin by closing out 2011.  This process is straightforward, and trouble free, just be sure to follow all of the steps, in the correct sequence.  For a detailed step-by-step process guide, click here.

Here is the summary:

–      US Payroll Close

–      Inventory Close

–      Receivables Close

–      Payables Close

–      Fixed Assets Close

–      General Ledger Close

Be patient, follow ALL of the steps, even for those modules you are not using.  It won’t add much time to the total process and your Dynamics GP system will be that much happier starting the New Year.

Prepping for Auditors

As you begin to prepare for the annual visit from the Auditors, Dynamics GP can make this process much smoother and more comfortable.  First, rest assured that no auditor will give you stink eye for using Dynamics GP, which cannot be said for all of the various shrink-wrapped packages that are available.

Second, make use of the Reports Group function in Dynamics GP.  You know that the auditors will always want to see the same basic documents every year:  Trial Balance of the General Ledger, AP aging report, AR aging report, Inventory reports, etc.  With Dynamics GP, you can create a Report Group that includes all of these basic reports, and then print them for the auditors as a single exercise.

Third, use the Risk Management Suite to provide superior internal controls to protect the integrity of the data in Dynamics GP.  The Risk Management Suite consists of the Audit Trails module and the Electronic Signatures module.  Audit Trails allows you to monitor the critical data elements within your system, tracking the changes made to specific data fields, and recording whom made the change, date and time stamped, and preserves the former data value for reporting and auditing.  Electronic Signatures can be deployed to require a second approval to a change before it can be finalized and saved.

Finally, at Tax time, you can rest assured that Dynamics GP is ready to help you with your various tax filings and reportings.  From Sales and Use taxes, 1099 and W-2 filings, Amortization and Depreciation, property tax filings, and the back-up materials for income tax filings, Dynamics GP provides a smooth and efficient tool for meeting your needs.

TMC has a long tradition of volunteering for and donating to charitable organizations throughout the year and especially during the holiday season. It is a special time and this year TMC is giving back to the community by donating $10 on behalf of each of their clients to the LA Regional Food Bank and the Goodwill of Orange County (a client of TMC’s!).  The Los Angeles Regional Food Bank partners with over 600 charitable agencies with more than 1,000 sites to distribute food to those in need throughout LA County.  Since 1924, Goodwill of Orange County has helped people with disabilities find employment, become independent and support themselves and their families. TMC feel the need to continue to support one of our favorite charitable organizations in the LA Regional Food Bank as well as one of our newest clients, the Goodwill of Orange County.  They are both great organizations that help many people in need.

TMC will also be participating in One Voice Holiday Program based out of Santa Monica, CA.  They will be volunteering their time along with hundreds of other volunteers to help put together Christmas food baskets, toys and books to 2,500 families (12,500 people) living in poverty in the Los Angeles area.  In the spirit of the holidays, each child receives books and toys given personally by Santa and every family takes home a basket overflowing with all the makings of a wonderful holiday meal.  Please join TMC the weekend of December 15-18th, 2011! For more information about the program click here.

This year supports the extensive history of TMC volunteering for and contributing financially to charitable organizations.  TMC take great pride in giving back to the local community of Los Angeles, as well as organizations around the world that we are passionate about and touch our families closely. Some charities and organizations that we have been involved with in recent years include the the International Cancer Advocacy Network in honor of the late Brenda Diener, TMC Co-Founder, LA Food Bank, Jr. Blind of America, AIPAC, the OC Arthritis Walk and the LAGLC.

TMC is pleased to welcome two new members to its team this year:  David Laumonier & Brett Hensley.

David has joined our Technical Team and will be working on development and programming, bringing with him over 7 years of experience in Dexterity Customizations, VB.Net, Custom Data Integrations, Integration Manager, and SQL Reporting Services in the Microsoft Dynamics GP World.  David has a BS in Computer Science from Pace University and enjoys fitness and motorcycle riding in his spare time. 

Brett has joined our Sales Team as the new Marketing Manager. He will manage and coordinate all marketing, advertising and promotional activities as well as having an integral role within the sales team to help generate new revenue. Brett has over 4 years of experience in Sales and Marketing since graduating from the University of Missouri with his BS in Marketing. He enjoys ice hockey, snowboarding, surfing, traveling and cheering on all St. Louis sports in his spare time.

Please join me in extended a heartfelt welcome to both David & Brett to TMC!

On March 31st, 2011, Technology Management Concepts (TMC), held a free Training Class on Microsoft Dynamics GP (formally Great Plains) FRx and Management Reporter. The class was open to all interested and aimed at educating Dynamics GP users to fully utilize the powerful reporting tools, and in doing so, bringing a better understanding and control to the financial process within their organization.

The class was organized by Pat Quimby, TMC’s Client Account Manager, and was a huge success with over 48 people attending. The free class was held at the Microsoft Office in Downtown Los Angeles. The class was presented by Julie London, TMC’s Senior Implementation Specialist. Julie has been with TMC for over 12 years and has been involved in countless Dynamics GP implementations. The class was split over two sessions: beginners and advanced.

Dennis Jones, CFO of Hof’s Hut who attended the class said “The Controller and I attended an FRx reporting class conducted by TMC in an effort to learn how to optimize our use of FRx. The training session was very professional and definitely exceeded our expectations. We already had a good working knowledge of FRx and considered ourselves intermediate/advanced, but we cam e away with several new concepts, shortcuts and time-saving tricks that will allow us to take our Financial Reporting to a whole new level. I would recommend this class to any user of FRx, even if they think that they are at an advanced level”.

The morning session covered FRx basics, which involved creating both a Balance Sheet and Income Statement. The class was fully interactive with all attendees given access to a PC with a virtual image to create a balance sheet and income statement for themselves during the class. This enabled all attendees to practice what they were learning enabling them to take back what they learned to their organization.

The afternoon session focused on the advanced topics and covered some tips and tricks when using Microsoft FRx. Some tips and tricks that were covered were:

Adding variance columns and print control in reports. Specifically, when including Budget to Actual columns and being able to get your variances coming out in the correct direction for both revenue and expenses;

Being able to create one report using multiple column layouts. By using the ‘Effective Dates’ a user is able to control the number of columns printed based on the report date;

Creating dynamic actual to budget reports. This allows the user to have one report that will, based on the reporting date, report the actuals for your date, then prefill the remainder of the report with Budget information;

Using conditional if, then, else statements. A good example of this is when showing the intercompany account as an asset when the balance is a debit or as a liability when the balance is a credit.

The afternoon session finished with Dynamics GP’s new financial reporting tool, Management Reporter. Management Reporter is a powerful corporate performance management solution, which provides real-time financial reporting for midsize businesses. Going forward, Management Reporter will replace Microsoft FRx. It is a comprehensive financial reporting and analysis application available to Microsoft Dynamics ERP customers. The afternoon session explained the main differences between these two reporting solutions.

“The participants left the training course with very satisfactory comments and an extremely positive view towards Management Reporter,” said Jennifer Harris, Director at TMC.

As a part of TMC’s continuing commitment to providing high-quality training classes, they are proud to offer board approved classes for CPA’s. TMC’s FRx training course and webinars allow attendees to earn CPE (continuing professional education) credits. Each of the attendees who completed the FRx Class earned six credits for the day.

TMC continues to offer webinars on various topics, each earning CPA’s one credit per webinar. The next webinar is on Smartlist Builder, scheduled for April 20th, 2011 at 10am. Future webinar topics are on SalesPad, Formatting Excel & Word Templates and GP Light Users. Please check the webinars page on TMC’s website for future class times and topics.

For more information on TMC’s training classes and webinars please contact Pat Quimby pquimby@tmc-la.com.

Technology Management Concepts (TMC), the leading Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in Southern California, has been selected by Goodwill of Orange County as their new consulting partner. Goodwill of Orange County has recently selected Dynamics GP (formally Great Plains) as their new ERP solution. TMC is extremely excited by the partnership and looks forward to a successful implementation.

Goodwill of Orange County provides people with disabilities and other barriers the opportunity to achieve their highest levels of personal and economic independence. In order to continue to provide these levels of services to their program participants, they have decided to streamline their systems. To that end, Goodwill of Orange County has an initiative for 2011 to reduce costs and increase efficiencies by replacing as many of their disparate systems with one integrated system as possible.

The organization turned to the comprehensive functionality of Microsoft Dynamics GP to integrate its point-of-sale systems and leverage their world-class business intelligence and reporting functionality.  They have selected TMC to provide implementation services.

Some immediate goals include: (more…)

In October 2010 Microsoft made a major change to its partner program and the criteria by which partners are ranked.  The new Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) accreditations were introduced as well as new partner logos.

The two main changes that took place with this switch were:

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TMC (Technology Management Concepts) is very pleased to announce the availability of a new product offering:  Microsoft Dynamics NAV.  TMC has long supported Dynamics GP (formerly Great Plains), and has now expanded their Dynamics Business Solutions sales and services to include Dynamics NAV.  TMC is recognized by Microsoft for their commitment and experience, and has awarded TMC a GOLD Competency in Enterprise Resource Planning, a recognition that is made to less than 2% of Microsoft partners worldwide.

Dynamics NAV is a fully-featured Enterprise Resource Planning system, emphasizing an easy to use interface, full end-to-end integration, strong analytical tools and business intelligence capabilities, and robust integration and development tools.  Dynamics NAV leverages Microsoft SQL Server as the database engine, and extends SQL server’s reporting tools.

With Dynamics NAV 2009, you will benefit from a role-tailored experience designed to promote those features and capabilities that are suited to an employee’s job requirements, and then either minimize or hide those features that are irrelevant or sensitive.  Dynamics NAV provides important tasks and reminders direct to the Home Page, providing rapid access to those critical situations.  Dynamics NAV includes 21 pre-defined Role Centers, and variations on these are easy to do.

TMC will also bring their highly experienced team of project managers and consultants to deliver the consistent results we have always provided to our Dynamics GP clients.  TMC has also supplemented the staff, bringing on certified Dynamics NAV team members.  Count on TMC to offer our best in all implementations.

Contact Pat Quimby for more information.

310.559.3982 x 784 or

pquimby@tmc-la.com

For many restaurant owners, transitioning from a paper-based accounting system to a computerized system, is no longer a luxury, but now is a necessity. As competition within the industry increases, reducing operating costs and producing accurate and timely business reports, becomes ever more critical.  Using an MRP/ERP software system such as Microsoft Dynamics GP (Great Plains) provides a simplified process and accuracy of financial records. (more…)

4 Ways to Ensure Success During Your New ERP System Implementation

Switching to a new ERP program, like Microsoft Dynamics GP (Great Plains), presents great opportunities within your company for increasing efficiency, improved reporting and analytics, and reducing the overall costs of operations. You have successfully completed the software evaluation process and signed the contracts. Should be smooth sailing from this point forward, right? Not so fast. In many ways, the toughest part of a companywide software implementation is just beginning. Your software Implementation project will take time, hard work from everyone involved, and the dedication of your project team. By following these four guidelines, you will have a much easier time with your implementation.

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