Microsoft Dynamics GP Internationalization Notes

You should be aware, that Corporate ERP often requires so-called localization, which includes two aspects: local language support and country tax and government financial reporting compliance (plus often for large countries, such as Brazil, China, India, Russia it is often subject to strict government enforced industry legislation)
1. Accounting Application localization for Foreign country.  As we already mentioned it is not only the local language support, it is also compliance to legislation.  Microsoft Dynamics GP is localized in most of English speaking countries, plus in Spanish speaking Mexico, Central, South America and Caribbean islands.  It is also available in French Canadian in Quebec.  In South America it is not localized in Brazil (it is not localized in Continental Portugal, so you cannot expect Great Plains screen to be already translated into Portuguese).  If you foreign subsidiary is located in small country (where tax compliance is not very complex and probably close to international GAAP) - you can try the route of translating restricted set of Dynamics GP screens (such as Sales Order Processing Transaction Entry, AP Payment, GL Entry) and modifying several reports to cover compliance to local legislation.  However for large countries, such as Brazil, China, Russia, India, Kazakhstan, Ukraine we do not recommend this simplification and rather have you choose different Corporate ERP, localized for your targeted country
2. Translating Microsoft Dynamics GP screens and reports technology.  Assuming that your target language is supported in ASCII table (8 bits per character - most of Latin and Cyrillic based alphabets, also Arabic, Persian, Farsi, Dari and other Arabic alphabet based languages) - you can open Dynamics.dic dictionary in Microsoft Dexterity and translate string resources from English to your foreign subsidiary country language.  This is only part of the story - you also have to install Dynamics GP on the SQL Server with local language and respective collation support (usually, if you install Microsoft Windows 2008 or 2003 Server for your local country, SQL installs itself with appropriate locals and your Dynamics GP installation will be tuned automatically).  If you install SQL with local language and collation support and if you have your local user Windows workstations installed with locals for the country - Microsoft Dexterity Dynamics GP user interface should be able to accept and record local characters into MS SQL Server DB correct
3. Limited support for Chinese customers.  Microsoft Dexterity doesn't support Unicode (16 bits per character - typically hieroglyph based languages: Chinese, Korean, Japanese), however you can review such product as NJ Star, which offers limited support for hieroglyphs in Dynamics GP and older versions of Great Plains Dynamics.  You can also consider combining Chinese or other hieroglyphs with English based Dynamics GP records in Crystal Reports
4. International Corporate ERP alternatives to Dynamics GP.  Microsoft Business Solutions promotes Microsoft Dynamics AX (formerly known as Axapta) internationally, and it is supporting Unicode and most of the markets: China, Japan, Brazil, Russia, Europe.  Normally Dynamics AX is considered as being a bit higher in price range, comparing to Dynamics GP Great Plains.  If you are deploying GP as Corporate ERP in USA, there might be high chances that your largest operation is in US and internationally you have smaller facilities, and respectively the budget for international Accounting application is relatively modest.  If this is your case, consider SAP Business One.  SAP B1 is also available in most of the large Corporate ERP international markets, including China, Korea, Japan, Brazil, Russia - and its price is very competitive in lower and mid-market
5. Limited support for Great Plains Dynamics old versions in Poland, Germany, France, Belgium, and some other countries in continental Europe.  Microsoft Business Solutions phased out support for continental Europe and to our information the last version available in German was Dynamics GP 9.0.  Our company with offices in Germany and Eastern Europe traditionally supports Great Plains customers in Western, Eastern Europe and Russian Federation since 1995.  Over the years we realized that the best support option is web session with phone or skype conference
6. Dynamics GP support and implementation in Central Asia and Afghanistan.  Especially in Kabul, Afghanistan, Microsoft Dynamics GP has positive future for local state enterprises and international non-for-profit organizations, assuming that government reporting is close to international GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles).  We are happy to help local implementation consultants and CPA firms in Dynamics GP localization in Dari and training Dynamics GP users via remote support or if required with visit onsite from USA or Moscow offices
7. Microsoft Dynamics GP Great Plains Support in Oceania.  We have successful old Great Plains Accounting version upgrade all the way to Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 for one of the customers in Palau.  It is very convenient for our organization to expedite our Dynamics GP functional and technical consultants from our Manila, Philippines office to Pacific states, or from Los Angeles for large and more challenging projects
8. Microsoft Dynamics GP alternatives in Russian Federation.  Our consultants speak Russian and we have local presence in Moscow, Russia.  At this time, February 2010, we are inclined to recommend SAP Business One for your Russian subsidiary (regardless where it is located: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Volgograd, Siberia, Far East).  We also have to admit strong competition from locally programmed and supported Corporate ERP systems, such as 1S Bukhgalteria - if you make that choice, we are happy to help you with 1C Accounting (1S Bukhgalteria in Russian) integration via FRx consolidated reporting to your Corporate ERP Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss and Cash Flow Statement in USA Headquarters
9. For Russian Owned Businesses in USA or Canada.  Our Microsoft Dynamics GP consultants speak Russian and we are ready to walk you through USA or Canadian Corporate ERP legislation and help you with local Accounting system selection: Microsoft Dynamics GP Great Plains, Dynamics AX Axapta, Solomon, SAP Business One
10. Dynamics GP FRx International Consolidated Reporting.  FRx Financial Reporting for Microsoft Dynamics GP supports multicurrency (you have to be on FRx Professional license or purchase FRx currency translation module) - Frx as an option to look directly into Dynamics GP multicurrency settings, including currency exchange rates.  Please, note that for consolidated financial reporting in FRx (and mathematically following the rules of double entry) you have to exclude intercompany due to and due from accounts, as these are not representing real multinational corporation profit.  If you are consolidating smaller international branches with SAP Business One - we recommend you the option to export SB1 GL trial balance to Excel and consolidate foreign subsidiary in FRx consolidated financial reporting as Excel worksheet
11. Dynamics GP Dexterity Customizations International support.  In late 1990th Great Plains Software were expanding rapidly internationally including such regions and countries as Poland, Arabic Peninsula, Brazil, Eastern Europe and Russia, Africa, Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy.  And we still observe old versions based Great Plains customers with Dexterity customizations.  We are committed to these orphan Great Plains customers support down to the versions of Great Plains Accounting for DOS, Windows and Mac
12. Great Plains Dexterity international user training offer.  We are happy to train your Microsoft Dexterity programmers via web sessions and phone or skype conferences from our Great Plains Dexterity software development factory (Southern California and Philippines)
13. New hopes with just released SAP Business One version 8.8.  Traditionally SAP Business One versions 2007 and 2005 were divided into so called A and B streams (A is for USA, Europe, Russia, most of the Latin America and B for China, Korea, Japan, Brazil).  With the release of new SB1 8.8 version both A and B stream are merged in one installation.  This means that from now on you can host all the SAP Business One international companies on the same server and provide remote connection and support via corporate VPN secured internet connection to your Headquarters based SAP Business One DB and user application server
14. Great Plains Dynamics GP support in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.  We have Dynamics GP Great Plains customers in Poland who are active in Great Plains Dynamics version 8.0.  We understand that SAP Business One is not available for Baltic Countries, so we are encouraging you to call us to be your agent in Corporate ERP selection cycle
15. Great Plains Dynamics GP for Uzbekistan Bukhara, Tashkent, Khiva, Urgench, Namangan, Mari.  Microsoft Dynamics GP supports in its core architecture current Uzbek alphabet based in Latin.  Our consultants visited Bukhara, Tashkent, Kokand, and we should be able to visit you place in Uzbekistan to train your Dynamics GP users or implement GP for our local Uzbek organization
16. Great Plains Accounting for DOS, Windows and Mac support internationally.  Microsoft Business Solutions expired GPA support in the beginning of 21 century.  We are supporting GPA in USA - all versions, GPA 9.5, 9.2, 9.1, 8.0 and others, if you are Great Plains Accounting customers in international environment, feel free to call us, we should be able to support you in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian, Latvian
17. Last flint.  Microsoft Dynamics GP for Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.  We should be able to give you Sales Cycle engineers from our Moscow or Chicago office, plus we should be able to send Russian speaking Great Plains Dynamics GP consultants onsite to Ashkhabad.  We are also in program to support Kazakh government based enterprises in Gas and oil industries for Corporate ERP selection, implementation, integration and customization
18. Please, give us a call in USA or Canada: 1-866-528-0577, internationally 1-630-961-5918 and our receptionist will switch your call over to one of our regional offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, Atlanta, Moscow (Russian Federation), Sao Paulo (Brazil).  Preferred methods are email: help@albaspectrum.com or skype albaspectrum.  Local and international Quotes are non obligatory and we will try to do our best to answer and help your (please refrain from emailing us with Dynamics GP support requests from public domain, such as hotmail, yahoo, gmail, etc)