Formerly known as Great Plains Dynamics, Dynamics GP was included into Microsoft Dynamics family of Corporate ERP and CRM applications. If your company is engaged on the market as mid-size or large wholesaler and you are evaluating your options for ERP system, it might be recommended as introduction into Dynamics GP implementation for Wholesale business.
Besides Financial core modules,
such as GL, AR, AP, Great Plains also offer several suites and modules sets, for example Distribution, Manufacturing, HR. Distribution includes Purchase Order Processing, Inventory Control (and Bill of Materials), Sales Order Processing – distribution is essential in the Wholesale business logic implementation. If you are selling something which has industry regulation: healthcare products, drugs, jewelry (especially diamonds and precious metals, such as gold) – these compliances should be considered as additional documentation for each individual item, where item has Serial Number (or lot number, as in most of the cases with medical drugs). If you are “pure” wholesaler, where you do not have physical warehouses and do all your work from the office in the downtown putting retailers and suppliers together on the sort of mercantile exchange virtual area – this is really great news and you are ready to do the job directly in Dynamics GP user interface, however for the rest of us, who are more traditional wholesalers with warehouses, RMA, Picking and Packing, Shipping and Receiving, Manufacturing on Order – please read on Barcoding in Microsoft Dynamics GP:
1. Dynamics GP and Barcode based Warehouse Management. Dynamics GP out of the box is great Corporate ERP software, but when you need barcode scanning, you are entering industry specific hardware area (such as Symbol barcode scanner, for example). GP is technically ready for real time scanning, if your Barcode scanner operator is able to surf Great Plains interface, open Inventory Transfer window, for example, then tab through the fields, assigning next transaction number and place the cursor to the Item Number field in the scrolling window. At this point Barcode scanner is ready to scan and fill in item number field, and then you do the rest of the Inventory transfer combining tabbing and scanning. We do not think that you like the idea (however if your barcoding is really occasional, it might be fine to walk on the warehouse floor with netbook with barcode scanner attached to the USB port) . You will need WMS (Warehouse Management System) extensions for Microsoft Dynamics GP. Classical WMS has three components: Merchandise Restocking (implemented by opening POP Purchase Receipt screen in GP for Barcode integration), Sales Order or Invoice Fulfillment (manual allocation of Sales Order Processing Order or Invoice lines via barcode scanning) and Transfer merchandise from one warehouse to another (typically on customer order), and inventory adjustment transactions (including physical monthly or cyclical counts)
2. Manufacturing on Order in Wholesale operations. The routine is probably simple and doesn’t require full-featured manufacturing suite to be purchased and implemented, just Bill of Materials module
3. Industry Regulation Compliance. Please, as we already mentioned, consider serial and lot number tracking functionality in GP. If you have to disclose Serial or lot number info – consider just putting it into comment section (as simple text – this would be the advisable way of doing compliance). You can also consider such procedures as placing holds on SOP Invoice, Order, Fulfillment Order where the person who releases the holds is trained to document the decision. If you think that you need more complex compliance business logic to be introduced, we can do custom programming for you in Great Plains Dexterity, VBA/Modifier, Extender, eConnect
4. Supply Chain Management and EDI. Electronic Document Interchange might be crucial in reducing each Sales transaction cost dramatically, as EDI order is processed automatically via FTP, Email, HTTP post, or simply shared text file with EDI code. Modern EDI standards also embrace XML EDI file format
5. Wholesaling via Ecommerce channels. In B2B ecommerce scenario you open your ecommerce order placement to your business partners/customers. We are offering ecommerce module for Dynamics GP completely integrated with our WMS extension. We are supporting such ecommerce shopping carts as Magento, ASP .Net Storefront
6. How to discuss your case with us? Please call us 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918 or email us help@albaspectrum.com Our mission is to serve Corporate ERP, MRP and CRM customers Worldwide. We travel USA, Canada nationwide and internationally. Local service is available in Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, California, Southwest Michigan (St. Joseph, Benton Harbor, Kalamazoo, Holland, South Haven, Grand Rapids, Muskegon, Saugatuck, New Buffalo), Chicago and Northern Illinois, Houston and Dallas areas of Texas
