cloud solutions

Article Dean Dorton

Underwhelming. Pressure. Security.

Those were the three words that headline predictions for Microsoft Dynamics GP for the year 2018. Certainly not words that you might expect to hear from a long-time proponent of Dynamics GP, but maybe these are the times we live in now.  This post and more include the most prolific proponents of Dynamics GP questioning Microsoft’s direction and potential prospects evaluating multiple solutions.

The first 40 days of 2018 have actually given us three major, interesting Dynamics GP news items.  For months now, many partners and insiders have wondered what effect Dynamics 365 would have on the existing product bases, including Dynamics GP and SL.  Founded or unfounded, those fears have left doubt in some people’s minds at a time when the cloud is picking up steam for accounting and finance professionals.  More and more end users are asking for cloud solutions, so they can focus on their business, not their servers.  Could Microsoft be heading in that direction as well?

Public-facing champion gone

First, let’s examine the latest news item, the termination of Pam Misialek. Pam was the Product Marketing Manager for Dynamics GP but her employment was terminated by Microsoft on January 21, 2018. Her responsibilities will be absorbed by Gordon Macdonald, the current Marketing Manager for all of Dynamics.  Layoffs happen all the time, but in one single move, Microsoft has eliminated the single biggest, public-facing champion for Microsoft Dynamics GP and put the job in the hands of a person already managing other products.

Product development behind the curve

Second, consider that – as Mariano Gomez exposed – Microsoft Dynamics GP is still dependent on TLS 1.0.  TLS 1.0 is a technology that has been mandated by PCI compliance authorities to be deprecated in favor of newer versions. To be fair, Microsoft has now stated that they are working on a fix but won’t commit to a timeline other than by June 30, 2018 – the mandated deadline.  Even if they make the fix in time for the PCI mandated deadline (already delayed two years), what does it say about product development that the ERP system has not already met the standard?

Only non-accounting features generating buzz

And last, but not least, the blog post from early 2018 in which Marc Polino lamented on the underwhelming feature set of Dynamics GP 2018.  Even msdynamicsworld.com editor, Jason Gumpert, noted reaction from many partners is good, but that it seems more iterative than anything else.  Only the non-accounting features like Azure, Power BI and Workflow are generating buzz. It’s also relevant to note that Polino predicts the pressure around Dynamics 365 will shift from customers to partners by offering partners incentives to get customers to transition.  But, how good is the transition?  Time will tell.

Impact of change

A new year typically brings new possibilities, but for Dynamics GP, it only seems to bring questions.  How will product direction change with the loss of its greatest public champion?  Will other issues like TLS 1.0 that have yet to be uncovered be exposed? And, will predictions ring true to the extent that the real buzz around Dynamics GP is not Dynamics GP at all, but other products that make up for GP shortcomings?  Only time will tell.

You have a lot to consider

You might be concerned about what all of this means for you. If you are interested in talking to us about your instance of Dynamics GP we’d be happy to help you assess the situation.  We can help itemize the risks and benefits of solution options for you.  If current developments have you more strongly considering the cloud, we’d especially recommend a consultation.  We have helped many companies move from Dynamics GP to cloud-based, AICPA-endorsed Sage Intacct.  Don’t hesitate to contact us: we’ll be happy to assess your situation for free.

Need Some More Convincing?

Check out our free white paper “9 Reasons Why Sage Intacct Beats Dynamics GP” to see why a cloud-based ERP software might be the best solution for the future of your business.

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Article Dean Dorton

For years, Geotechnologies, Inc. has been a highly-valued Microsoft Dynamics GP customer of Massey Consulting’s. However, after 12 years on Dynamics GP, they decided that their growing company was outgrowing their current software and chose to power ahead with the cloud.

A full-service geotechnical engineering firm located in Raleigh, NC and founded in 1992, Geotechnologies, Inc. is built on the foundation of technical expertise and cost-effective projects for clients. Their services come with preliminary site assessments and project testing across a diverse realm of market sectors.

As an industry where successful data analysis, project management, and customer relationship management is paramount, Geotechnologies, Inc. could not afford a financial management system with frail capabilities.

After using Microsoft Dynamics GP on-premise solution continuously for years, the firm was ready to adopt a more automated, real-time solution that would allow the finance team and business leaders to better analyze revenue, profitability, and project accounting.
Once the decision was made to move to Sage Intacct, a leading cloud-based financial management solution, Geotechnologies, Inc. has seen prominent changes within the company.

“Sage Intacct has delivered significant cost savings by allowing us to eliminate SQL servers and smaller custom systems for things like time sheets, invoices, and other workflows. It also allows our employees who spend a majority of their work week away from the office to input their time and expenses from anywhere, anytime,” said Debora Hester, Controller at Geotechnologies, Inc.
Geotechnologies, Inc. has also been able to embrace full financial visibilities across multi-operational dimensions. Sage Intacct’s project visibility through dashboards allows business users, markets, and their clients to merge in real-time, which leads to more efficient business decisions.

Additionally, the transition to Sage Intacct has been a smooth one, as the solution automates a variety of financial processes such as monthly closes, accounts receivable and accounts payable, and has led to more robust and customized reporting.
“The team from Massey provides great service, and is very accessible and prompt in replying to any questions.”

Read the Full Story Here 

Check out the full customer success story here or contact us to learn how you can revitalize your reporting and financial capabilities, too.

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Article Dean Dorton

Finding software that will work best for your company’s financials can be overwhelming. Choose the right solution, and your teams will thrive, feeling supported. Choose the wrong one and your teams may forever feel like they are working against the grain.  

At first, a choice between Microsoft Dynamics and Sage Intacct may not be so clear. Between two leading software solutions in the industry, how do you choose?

As experts in right-fitting software options for growing companies, we can often see some tell-tale signs that a company has outgrown their current systems:

  • Invoicing takes more time to complete.
  • Productivity bottlenecks where systems buckle under a growing workload.
  • Decision-makers have to wait longer for reports, or can’t get the metrics they need to make timely decisions.
  • Teams spend too much time on duplicate manual entry to transfer critical data into disconnected systems.
  • Accounting and sales rely more and more on spreadsheets and workarounds for their information.

When companies see these growing risks in their business, they need a solution that will address them.

These companies need the cloud.

THE CLOUD PROPELS PRODUCTIVITY: Data automatically updates in cloud-based systems. Teams can handle a bigger workload because more of their tasks are automated. Data re-entering disappears. Importing and exporting vanishes. Processes are more streamlined through automation. No on-the-fly reports to run. Everyone gets current data, wherever and whenever they need it.

THE CLOUD FOSTERS CONNECTION AND COLLABORATION: Cloud-driven systems often integrate well with other cloud-based solutions. Teams connect through the cloud to get quick answers from other team members and clients. Deals close faster. More happens in less time.

THE CLOUD REDUCES COSTS: Systems in the cloud often send updates and boost security automatically through the cloud. Your business can focus on your expertise, and reduce costs spent on someone else handling your IT and security.

For fast-growing companies, systems flexibility is key. These companies need a solution that will grow with them, to accommodate the product and service changes they will experience over time.

THE SOLUTION IS CLEAR

Microsoft Dynamics GP’s on-premises software system may fit your company now, but an on-premises software like this requires manual updates, and supplemental add-ons just to keep up with growth. If your company plans to grow and change over time, you should expect that it will outgrow this software too.

Sage Intacct, a best-in-class cloud accounting solution, provides the flexibility that growing companies need:

  • Accounting teams can close books faster with flexible reporting options designed for compliance.
  • Teams can collaborate under one roof, or on the other side of the world, any time of day, on multiple devices with the same high-level of security.
  • Stakeholders and decision-makers get real-time visibility into their business metrics, to build strategies based on real data and to-the-minute product and service success.

“After evaluating several top financial systems, including Microsoft Dynamics, (Sage) Intacct was the clear choice for us because of its pure cloud approach and seamless best-in-class integration.” –Reggie Alexis, Controller, Potential Church

We know the decision to grow your systems is an important one.

Contact us to feel confident in choosing the right solution that will fit your company’s needs now and in the future.

Learn more in our free whitepaper: 7 Reasons to Move to Cloud Financials Now

Article Dean Dorton

Imagine saving time for everyone in your company. Imagine the filing cabinets and cubes emptied of endless messy stacks of paper – or not having to sift through all of them hoping to find that audit detail from last fiscal year.  Better yet, imagine saving your teams from having to spend countless hours knee-deep in archives to find one small customer detail.    

When forward-thinking businesses transition to a digital workflow, they experience benefits they may never have considered, such as more in-depth collaboration, heightened client and company information protection, a more organized and professional workspace, and less liability threat resulting from lost documents.

While it’s no secret creating a paperless environment saves on money, space, time and resources, but when companies think about the unchartered territory of moving from a conventional to a paperless environment, many decision-makers stop dead in their tracks for fear of disrupting workflow, or causing more work to provide a system that is designed to improve efficiency.

If you’ve been putting off the conversation in your office, or digging in your heels, awaiting more answers, we’ve got a free Cloud Bytes session that will clue you in on everything you need to know to take that step into a more efficient and effective work environment for everyone involved.
Join us for our next Cloud Bytes Session: Going Paperless!, on September 21, 2017 at 2 PM ET. In this free webinar, you will learn:

  • All of the benefits in going paperless to save your company time, labor and resources.
  • How to get stakeholders and executives the information they need to feel confident with the new changes.
  • Details surrounding naming conventions, attachments and organizational details to streamline implementation.
  • Critical processes to consider relating to check signing, and creating a worthwhile ROi for your company.

At the end of the webinar,  we will have a Q&A session, and will address any unanswered questions in a follow-up email.

Massey’s team of experts specialize in helping businesses step into more efficient and effective workspaces with best-in-class cloud accounting solutions like Sage Intacct.

Article Dean Dorton

Repost from Avalara

With the myriad responsibilities involved in running a successful business, it should come as no surprise that preparing for a sales and use tax audit is not exactly a high priority or favorite topic of conversation among business owners. There are only so many hours in a day, and many companies choose to put examining their compliance process on the back burner; at worst, the idea is ignored entirely. Even business owners who are ready and willing to tackle the issue rarely know where to begin. But sales and use tax audits don’t have to be a specter that looms in the mind of every well-intentioned businessperson. Instead, in the same way we are told the benefits of “knowing thy enemy,” knowing one’s compliance process as it relates to industry-specific audit risk can make all the difference in the world.

First, an important clarification: Auditors are not the enemy in this scenario, audit risk is. The current tax system is, for many, extremely complex and difficult to navigate, but auditors are simply those tasked with ensuring that business owners — with all the tools at their disposal — are honoring what’s owed to the state. Every year, it seems there are fewer states not suffering from a budget deficit, and as a result, states are finding more ways to maximize the amount of sales and use tax revenue, including significantly increasing the audit workforce across the country. In short, auditing is easy money. Furthermore, not only are states adding to their audit divisions, but many of those newly hired auditors are setting up shop outside of their home state and auditing out-of-state businesses. With nexus legislation and use tax reporting requirements proving difficult to pass or enforce, it’s no wonder states turn to their audit professionals to save the day.

So, what do you do if you’re a remote auditor charged with bringing home the bacon? Easy: You target companies with an obligation to collect and remit your state’s tax, and you focus on the industries most prone to error when it comes to compliance. That list is shorter than you might think. According to a study Avalara conducted with Peisner Johnson & Company, nearly 60 percent of state audits are spread among just four or five industries: retail, manufacturing, construction, wholesale/distribution, and food service. This reality is the basis of the newest Avalara whitepaper, Sales and Use Tax Audits Uncovered: Who Gets Audited, Why They Get Audited, and the Impact on Companies.

As the whitepaper reveals, certain industries get targeted by auditors due to the nature of how they operate, like how food service companies are frequently audited because they’re cash-based and known to leave cash unreported. Beyond that, the primary reason these industries are targeted is that they historically fail to adhere to state and local sales and use tax regulations. In fact, according to the California Board of Equalization, the number one most frequent error of noncompliance made by businesses typically involves untaxed purchases from out-of-state vendors. Consequently, the data suggests that the bulk of audit assessments resulting from these errors came from use tax not being paid. And these are no small assessments: Avalara’s joint study also found that the average cost of an audit is approximately $114,000 including penalties, fees, and professional counsel. That’s quite a price to pay for something so avoidable.
Ultimately, when it comes to sales and use tax audits, the best offense is a solid defense. In the whitepaper, Sales and Use Tax Audits Uncovered, you’ll learn the most common audit triggers for each key industry, as well as how best to prepare and support yourself before or during an audit. Sales and use tax compliance may be tricky, but with the wealth of tools and information available today, business owners have never been in a better position to eliminate risk and safeguard themselves against a costly audit.

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Article Dean Dorton

When the Carolina Hurricanes were looking for ERP solution options, Massey Consulting stepped in to offer expertise. In their switch from Sage Platinum to a better fitting cloud-based solution, the Hurricanes wanted greater options in reporting, and data retrieval with maximum flexibility to provide details about all the unique event situations that often occurred at the PNC Arena.

Massey presented the Hurricanes with Sage Intacct –  a best-in-class cloud accounting solution. Sage Intacct’s dashboards, multi-entity reporting, greater depth of dimensions, real-time data transparency and paperless environment were huge must-haves for the Hurricanes.

With Massey’s help, once the Hurricanes were up and running they never looked back.

From the get-go they could access up-to-date information on all their departments and events quickly and effortlessly. With the transparency of the cloud, they could get in-depth data and analyze key financial performance information from the various revenue streams associated with their individual events.  Their financial teams could sort, label and categorize data with speed and flexibility.

“All the modules have met my expectations…There has not been any disappointments with (Sage) Intacct.” – Shaun Nicholson, Director of Finance, Carolina Hurricanes.

After switching to Sage Intacct, the Hurricanes saved time, and improved data retrieval and reporting.

With Sage Intacct’s dashboards, their key decision makers have budget vs. actual reports at their fingertips. Their paperless environment even allows them to skip report-sharing meetings because everyone already has the information they need, and can drill down as much as they like to access critical data with a click of the mouse.

In addition, the Hurricanes found Sage Intacct’s simple and intuitive User Interface – or UI, a great benefit during implementation, allowing the transition to the new software solution much easier than they ever anticipated. Its intuitive design made training easy for the Hurricanes end users.

Massey, with their expert team of accountants, along with Sage Intacct’s leading cloud solutions, together helped streamline the Carolina Hurricanes growing business complexities. Thanks to Massey’s discovery process and implementation excellence, the Hurricanes analyze their data with deeper dimensions for faster and more accurate decision-making, and more accurate reporting, and have simplified their chart of accounts.

“With (Sage) Intacct, we are always up-to-date on the latest improvements for our ERP solution. I do not have to worry about not receiving the updates or if we are using the most recent best practices – unlike our previous on-premise solution, where we would have to manually complete updates to stay current,” said Nicholson on Sage Intacct’s automatic software updates, thanks to the cloud.

If your business is feeling the squeeze of ill-fitting systems, now is the right time to look into your options. With the cloud, the possibilities are endless to modernize your financial processes, to start getting the critical data you need when you need it, and to discover better-fitting systems for your growing success.
Contact Massey today to find out how easy it can be to boost your financials to land a biscuit in the basket for your company too.