It’s hard enough to manage a sales staff. It’s on the sales manager to set quotas, deal with egos, track results, enforce policies, coach reps, and lay the groundwork for success. But even when things are working out well, you still have more work on your plate. Something we discussed in a recent blog, it … Read more
In today’s business world, it pays to be in the know—and it pays to be in the know now. Any delay in reporting is money going down the drain, any time spent compiling these reports is time that your staff could be spending helping the rest of your business, and any time these reports have … Read more
In the words of twentieth-century journalist, satirist, and writer of aphorisms H.L. Mencken: “strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him.” One could say something similar about their business … Read more
Microsoft has long been a leader in business solutions. Their Dynamics solutions; such as, Dynamics GP, Dynamics SL, and Dynamics CRM, have gone through many changes over the years to continue to bring you improved technology. Many customers have been wondering if their current Dynamics solution will be supported in the future as Microsoft has … Read more
It’s awards season—a time when everyone turns on the television to see if their favorite movie, television show, album, or musical took home the big prize for successes in the past year. While we can’t say whether Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or Joker will take home the prize for best picture, we can … Read more
I’m writing this with the Day 1 Keynote music still ringing in my ears. Wow – what a presentation. Acumatica 2020 R1 is going to have a lot of exciting new features (as always) but this felt special in some way. Maybe it’s because this is the first Summit since EQT Partners acquired Acumatica in … Read more
Have you ever used Track Changes in Microsoft Word, or received comments on your spreadsheets in Excel, or even PowerPoint, then questioned why a certain change was made? You try to contact the person who made the edit, but can’t locate them, they’re either in a meeting, or on vacation. So, now you’re stuck until … Read more
I was asked to write a blog on new features of the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2019 release. Since I’m not an expert, I turned to someone who is: Crestwood’s Mary Lenehan. Mary has been working with Dynamics GP for over 20 years, conducts all our year-end training seminars, and presents at GPUG conferences every year. … Read more
I have noticed a ton of new videos, tutorials, documentation, and overall training materials coming out lately for Dynamics 365. Seems that the New Year is going to be booming for Dynamics 365! Here are a couple of recommended and free training places. Crestwood First, don’t forget, Crestwood has a YouTube channel with a playlist … Read more
2019 is coming to an end. However, leading up to the end of the year, there’s a holiday coming up, one that your employees may be heading home for. “Home” means different things to different people. For some, this may mean a few miles down the road, for others, it’s a cross-country flight away. Unfortunately … Read more
Sales keeps the business running, but who keeps the sales team running? The role of a sales manager is by no means an easy one. Whether you moved from rep to management or saw this as the ideal opportunity to move up the ladder, you know that managing a sales team is stressful. Just because … Read more
Hopefully by now, you’ve upgraded to Acumatica 2019 R2! Acumatica is routinely adding new features and improving on current functions. Below are three quick how-to videos for previously added functions; one is exporting Generic Inquiry Parameters to Excel and Pivot Tables, another is Landed Costs and finally GDPR Compliance for Acumatica. Stay tuned for more short … Read more
Microsoft is set to update Tasks in Outlook on the web at the end of October, with the full rollout be completed by December 2019. What does this mean to you? Nothing really, just a new name, from “Tasks” to “To Do.” Personally, I’ve never used the Tasks feature to its fullest potential. I’ve added … Read more
Microsoft just made an exciting announcement: the next release for Dynamics GP is dropping on October first of 2019, and will be called simply “Microsoft Dynamics GP.” You read that right! No year or version marker at the end. Dynamics GP has made the move to a “Modern Lifecycle Policy.” What is a Modern Lifecycle … Read more
So many things go into the process of getting paid. Even if the quoting, the negotiations, and invoicing went smoothly, the process of getting paid, allocating a payment to an invoice, and accounting for a transaction presents its own challenge. Following last month’s blog discussing the challenges that go into getting the collections process, we … Read more
There are many good reasons to switch your ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) solutions to the cloud: cost, convenience, versatility, security, etc. But one especially good reason is the amount and types of risk that can be mitigated with Cloud ERP. What Risks are On-Premise Systems Vulnerable to? One of the major risks that organizations face … Read more
You probably already know that you can email invoices directly from Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central with its seamless integration with Outlook. But the integrations don’t stop there. Did you know that you can take it a step further by accepting electronic payments using Microsoft Pay or PayPal? Do you know how easy it is … Read more
Recently, while attending our Acumatica team meeting, the conversation evolved into unfiltered comments from our consultants who are working with the new version, Acumatica 2019 R1. Here’s an overview – highlights, pros & cons, and some questions: Highlights First of all, everyone is excited about how many added features and changes were packed into Acumatica … Read more
It’s been a long time since I’ve found something this cool in Microsoft PowerPoint, so I had to share! Motion paths for animating objects in PowerPoint. Using power point animations to move objects is a great way to stand out in your presentations. PowerPoint Motion Path : My manager came to me one morning with … Read more
Are you interested in Power BI? Maybe you’re wondering what it can do for your business and Dynamics GP data? We recommend starting with this Microsoft self-paced, hands-on learning tutorial, “Explore what Power BI can do for you.” You will learn: Understand Power BI service basic concepts and terminology. Find your content in dashboards, reports, … Read more
Microsoft Office 365 provides so much more than just the ability to access Microsoft Office suite (Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.) from any device. One important feature (that I learned about the hard way) is the ability to restore deleted files with OneDrive version control. What is OneDrive? When I first started with Crestwood, I didn’t understand OneDrive, the cloud storage service … Read more
Big News…this morning, Acumatica announced they have been acquired by EQT, a global private equity firm that also manages IFS, an enterprise ERP product well-known in Europe. This will give Acumatica a very significant step towards globalization of their systems, specifically to address regulatory and lingual support. At Crestwood, we see this as a positive … Read more
Our very own MVP Acumatica Developer, Joe Jacob, recently published a guide to help all you developers convert Dynamics SL over to the Acumatica xRP Cloud Platform. “Joe’s Guide offers a quick reference for those already familiar with the Dynamics SL SDK and are new to the Acumatica development platform. This guide will help direct … Read more
Customer Relationship Management software is one of those necessary products for businesses, but finding the right one for yours is rarely an easy task. Whether you’re in the market for new CRM, are considering a change alongside another business management solution like ERP, or just looking to understand what options are available, it’s important to … Read more