(By: Shahzad Ali, CEO – Forte Business Solutions) – A year ago, Microsoft released a new version of the ERP Dynamics NAV software under the new brand name Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. This new release was and still is, Microsoft’s most widely used Dynamics ERP that replaces Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics SL products. In 2002, Microsoft acquired ERP Navision to modify and publish Microsoft Dynamics NAV, and in 2016, it integrated Dynamics family including CRM and ERP under Microsoft Dynamics 365. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is available both on-premise and on-cloud as well as in hybrid format. The new version of Dynamics NAV includes many new features and numerous technical and functional enhancements. This version includes finance management, supply chain management, warehousing, sales, customer relationship, purchasing, human resources, production, projects, services and more. Benefits of Dynamics 365 Business Central
“Characteristics of software Dynamics 365 Business Central It should be noted that Business Central is offered in two packages, Essential and Premium”
Your chosen package will determine the features available to you. Certainly, Premium will have more features than Essential. We will cover the features of these two sets separately for greater transparency, but first let’s look at some basic features that will be shared and accessible across all packages:
Essential License will give users access to most of the features of Business Central. This includes all of the features in the Finance and Operations Business Edition programs, plus a few other tweaks to synchronize the software with NAV 2018 functions, including expanded human resources and project management features. This section provides an overview of features that can be used in Business Central for operational tasks
Financial Management As an upgrade to basic business accounting software, Business Central includes a suite of business management capabilities at its core. This includes all the basic features one would expect from a beginner ERP, such as managing expense and receipts, cash flow forecasting, preparing VAT reports, and performing annual and periodic reports. The Business Central Initial Desktop allows users to configure and submit reports to their accounts, overview journals, and recurring journals. Business Central also helps users manage warehouse costs, and operational and departmental budgets. The user can also easily manage fixed assets and related transactions such as ownership, amortization, recovery, depreciation, and disposals. Business Central integrates accounting by automatically recording audit sequences and their descriptions of each transaction. Users can then improve their audit sequences by defining transaction cause codes and adding them to desktop entries. The program has allowed the aggregation of financial data from several companies, so that organizations can have an overview of their financial analysis capabilities. Bank statements can also be entered into the software and matched at Business Central. Businesses with multiple bank accounts can create and manage their own accounts in Business Central to meet business needs across multiple currencies. The system fully supports multiple currencies, including payments and receipts, desktop aggregate reports, and warehouse items, and automatically updates foreign exchange rates. The software also helps users get better results from their business intelligence, with the ability to create dimensions. Dimensions are labels that can be assigned to entries to facilitate their classification and tracking.
Relationship Management While Business Central is not a full-fledged CRM solution, it does have some essential customer relationship management features to help organize the business and improve their sales efforts. Through Business Central, users can store and manage contact information for all of their business relationships. These audiences can be segmented and used to target marketing campaigns. Opportunities can also be managed so that sales teams are aware of prospects and focus their energy on the key elements. For businesses that need more powerful CRM features, Business Central and Dynamic 365 for Sales can be integrated to coordinate information users such as resource levels and sales levels with their customer-related operations.
Supply Chain Management Keeping an up-to-date view of the supply chain is essential for businesses dealing with logistics. Business Central has helped organizations manage their demand chain, from managing orders and warehousing to delivering goods to their destination. With Business Central’s supply chain management tool, companies are able to process sales orders, send and manage transactions and receipts. Warehouse of a business whether inside a building, distribution center, warehouse, showroom, brick building or spread across multiple locations, Business Central will be effective in managing warehouse inventory and even tracking and reporting shipments. Software product reporting features are effective in improving warehousing, from sorting to loading, shipping to receiving. Warehouse management through Business Central can be applied at varying levels of complexity, depending on how orders are processed in a business and the volume of orders received.
Human Resources One of the features of Business Central that is significantly improved over the Finance and Operations is, human resource management. Business Central allows users to record employee details such as contact information, capabilities, and contract information. Codes can be assigned to employee records so that managers can group and track employee information based on characteristics such as experience, skills, training, and union membership. Similarly, employee absences can be reported, tracked, and labelled using cause codes. The software also helps manage costs. Staff costs can be reported to the general journal, and staff payments can be made easily using the same payment method to the seller.
Project Management For larger businesses or those requiring comprehensive project management software, D365 for Project Service Automation has been developed. However, as Business Central is a global business management software, it provides many of the essential features needed for a business during project execution. Software includes tools for core project management tasks such as job configuration, resource planning, budget management and project review. Business Central allows project managers to record, group, and sell resources in addition to reviewing and analyzing usage for project estimation, cost management, and project planning based on resource availability. Jobs can also be monitored with this software. PMs are capable of managing fixed and variable payroll jobs and generate customer bills based on tracked costs. Timesheets allow users to review hours of logging in and out of staff and equipment, and monitor resource allocation through management approval requests.
Premium licenses include all of the Essential License features in addition to Service Order Management and Manufacturing module.
Service Order Management Business Central’s Service Order Management software extension allows companies to provide excellent customer service, and helps improve customer satisfaction and brand loyalty throughout the process. Business Central aims to support field service repairs and operations allowing businesses to review their service management operations from order processing to contracting and expert management. This software includes tools such as new service requests and routine repairs, and the creation and updating of service charges to record and troubleshoot after-sales problems. It also allows users to manage key parts of their service operations, such as contract information, components, and warranty information. Service KPIs can be managed by Business Central, allowing users to record and review service level information, response times, and service history of each contract. Users can assign personnel based on capability and availability, report details of the order, and update order status.
Production Planning and Manufacturing Adding manufacturing tools to Business Central aligns it with NAV 2018 and offers a range of features to help manage and facilitate manufacturing business output. Users in the manufacturing industry can create production orders, create and manage alternative versions of material production receipts, and outsource specific operations to contractors in a production order. The program also assists in business plan and demand management with overall production planning and raw material planning tools and ensures that work centers operate at efficient levels. In addition, Business Central supports high-speed production, prepares businesses for scheduling peak times, and processes last-minute adjustments to facilitate change processes. Microsoft’s ERP and CRM integration in the Dynamics 365 family (Business Central and Sales) Dynamics 365 Business Central comes with built-in CRM capabilities including the ability to create a customer card and raise prices. The CRM capability is not only designed to help grow your customers and business, but lets you manage your customers. For Business Central users looking for more CRM capabilities, D365 for Sales is their answer. Dynamics 365 for Sales is Microsoft’s CRM solution for your sales team. It is a flexible solution and can be easily customized to suit your organization. These capabilities include guided tracking, workflow, reporting, managing opportunities and goals. D365 Business Central connects directly to Dynamics 365 for Sales and gives you the extra CRM capability you need. This allows you to synchronize data between two systems and have a fully connected experience of generating and identifying sales leads for cash. When you launch Business central to integrate with sales, you have access to sales data at Business Central and most importantly, this integration enables you to work with both types of shared data for both services such as customers, contacts and sales information, and synchronize data at both locations. For example, a D365 for Sales user can use the Business central price list when creating a sales order. When adding a product to a sales order, they can also see the level of availability in the Business Central. In contrast, Dynamics 365 Business Central users can get more information from D365 for Sales. When ordering at Business central, you can automatically manage the extra information you receive from sales orders. Such items as ordering the sale of goods or resources in the Business Central section will be entered in writing in the product information section. This merger is available as a standard for Business Central and Sales. The business central and Sales have a number of similar contexts, sometimes called entities, that contain the same information but appear differently in each settlement.
Do Dynamics NAV Users Need Updates? Customers currently using Dynamics NAV 2018 can receive the update. In that case, the Dynamics NAV will be updated to Dynamics 365 Business Central. No alt text provided for this image For more inquiries and assistance in your journey towards upgrade from NAV to Business Central, contact us on +9714-5808318 or email us at info@fortebs.com or visit our website www.fortebs.com
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