Microsoft Great Plains- Switching From Accpac, Peachtree, MAS90, Quickbooks - Overview

It is natural process of growth and at some point you will need to walk away from old mini ERP to something suitable for mid-size and even large business accounting package. You maybe very concerned about how to really do this, however you are not the first one and you are not the last one facing this dilemma. Let's review the options and steps

• Old system will be for inquiry only. Yes, you do not want to delete the old ERP, keep it, but all new transactions and master records will come to new ERP – Microsoft Dynamics GP in our described case

• Beginning Balances Approach. Naturally you as IT professional, DBA or business owner seek the cheapest and at the same time reliable way to switch to new MRP application. After extensive homework you will probably come to the following conclusion – I don't want expensive data conversion: historical transactions, customers and vendors history files, payroll checks and transactions history. I will only do entering beginning balances for the period where I switch from my old ERP to Microsoft Great Plains

• Master records migration. Even if you are entering beginning balances only – you will still want to convert and be able to use your customers, vendors, employees, GL accounts – these are referred as master records in Microsoft Great Plains. In this case you can try two strategies – first is Microsoft Dynamics GP Integration Manager and the second one (if you are short of funds) is SQL scripting. If you bring master records via SQL scripting – you will need to run check links routine in GP

• Historical Data Conversion. We recommend you to resist and try to avoid this option as much and as long as possible. The reasons are simple – you will be in the small rank of customers who decided to do full data migration and you should expect that not every VAR knows and has experience to do this plus even if somebody did this historical full conversion – not necessarily that it went smooth and customer didn't have problems with the following system use.. If you think that there is no way, but history conversion – try to deploy Integration Manager and post transactions into history instead of direct SQL scripting to bring data over to GP.

• Extracting data from your old ERP. Typically entry level accounting packages have proprietary database platform or utilize inexpensive DB, such as Ctree or Pervasive SQL. Try first data export through reporting – this should be definitely possible if you are sticking to beginning balances entry approach

Microsoft Dynamics GP Consultant Selection Overview

If you think about purchasing Microsoft Great Plains as your company ERP solution, the important part if finding Microsoft Business Solutions VAR or if you are mid-size or small operation – probably just Microsoft Great Plains functional and technical consultant. Microsoft Dynamics GP is successor of former Great Plains Software Dynamics/eEnterprise, and modern Microsoft Great Plains is pretty complex MRP system, so if you think one person is capable to support all the module, plus provide technical consulting: installation, data conversion, massage and migration, integration with your legacy applications, train your people in all the modules: GL, Manufacturing, Sales Order Processing, plus implement web based GP Business Portal – you are probably a bit idealistic and should think about experienced consultant who can do implementation and at the same time be your project manager, capable to manage third party consultants, who specialize in specific modules. In this small article we would like to orient you:

• Nation-wide consulting companies. We should give you well-known names here. These companies typically present in major business metros and are pretty aggressive in their marketing and sales campaigns. At the same time these companies might be at the high end of consulting rates and very robust in their collection policies. Good point here is this – nation-wide companies are capable to bring over resources from other offices to support all the spectrum of GP modules

• Regional consulting practices. These MRP consulting companies typically specialize in several product lines and hit regional and local clientele via aggressive direct mail and telemarketing. In comparison to nation-wide MBS VARs regional companies have to subcontract technically challenging projects offshore or to GP ISV, so what out if you will get the job done under the same umbrella

• Remote Support MBS consulting companies. These implementation partners typically have few offices within USA or Canada, from where they do sales and project management. Remote support is typically done from country side support centers or even from offshore facilities