Dynamics GP in Retail and Warehouse Management: Notes from the Field

It is probably good idea to log all your Distribution related records in GP and have it as centralized part of the ERP and MRP infrastructure, from where you can easily track financial results.  Regarding POS and Retail – our recommendation is to use Microsoft RMS (Retail Management System). MS RMS traditionally comes with its integration to Great Plains (several flavors are available – the one directly to GL and AP and others from Dynamics GP ISV partners where depending on the vendor transactions are sent to Sales Order Processing, Purchase Order Processing, Inventory Control, bi-directional logic is also available).  Regarding barcoding, Microsoft RMS covers POS and some routines in the warehouse.  We personally believe that it is reasonably simple to extend Dynamics GP distribution modules for barcoding: SOP, POP, Inventory control to enable Warehouse Management features:
1. Microsoft RMS bidirectional integration with Dynamics GP.  Our solution sends individual POS transaction from RMS Headquarter (in multi-store scenario) or from Store Operation (single store) database to Dynamics GP SOP transaction.  Here you may have various mapping options, for example, if you own all the stores in one legal entity – everything could go to one company and inventory site (or each store has its own site, or few stores could be assigned to one site).  If you have multiple legal entities (and multiple companies in Dynamics GP) and each owns one or several stores – you can map them accordingly.  Bidirectional integration is probably very important or even critical for Inventory Transfers and Adjustments in Dynamics GP and RMS – you need to synchronize the changes in each system automatically.  Purchasing side – here again in our opinion large organization is more geared toward doing this function in Corporate ERP directly, in our consideration case in Dynamics GP.  We also heard desires to print Barcode Labels from Great Plains directly
2. Warehouse Management System, Barcoding and Great Plains Logistics and Distribution modules.  Barcode scanning, probably is not really supported in out-of-the-box Dynamics GP with Distributions modules set included.  We do not think that you should experiment with having your warehouse worker to walk along the bins and shelves with netbook with cheap barcode scanner connected via USB port (this may work if all you are doing it yourself and you are familiar and trained as Great Plains Dynamics user to popup relevant form, tab through the field, until you got the one for Item Number or Serial; Number entry – this job is for barcode scanner).  You need either external WMS with connectors or another option (we rather favor this one) Warehouse Management Extensions for Dynamics GP.  Extensions work directly out of Great Plains company database and they integrate scanned transactions in real time or in the butch mode
3. eCommerce with automatic Picking List or Allocation order sent to Dynamics GP Warehouse Management.  E-commerce shopping cart (such as Magento, ASP .Net Storefront) probably does wonderful job in covering Items Catalogues, Price List, Credit Card Payment – and now the logic next step is to send customer invoice for fulfillment to Dynamics GP SOP transaction entry (which is immediately seen via WMS extension on the warehouse floor and your worker with barcode scanner begins picking and packing)
4. EDI, or Electronic Document Delivery.  We believe that one of the simple approaches in FTP upload, EDI document processing and logging the report, EDI module is available for demonstration.  With the EDI concept we had some polemic with traditional EDI Dynamics GP Partners, where we were suggesting simple way of opening EDI in precisely formatted SQL Select and Insert statements – this is exactly what we have done for many EDI scenarios related to Great Plains
5. How to request information.  You can call us 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918 or email us help@albaspectrum.com  We are favoring Nationwide remote support customers (USA, Canada, Mexico, Central America, Caribbean), where we serve you instantly (or in quasi real time) via web sessions.  Barcoding often requires hardware orientation.  Local support is available in Southern California, Northern Illinois (Chicago and suburbs), Southwest Michigan and Northern Indiana (from location in St. Joseph, MI) and Houston, TX.  International customers are welcome!