Extending the Value of Microsoft Dynamics GP with Hybrid Cloud Reporting
There are around 40,000 Microsoft Dynamics GP customers world-wide and many are not planning to move to the cloud yet. However, if you are one of them, this does not mean that your company can’t start taking advantage of modern cloud-based reporting solutions today to drive better and faster decisions for yourself and your management team!
Hasn’t Cloud-based reporting for on-premise ERPs been available for a long time?
Yes, vendors like Prophix, Solver, Vena, Adaptive Insights, and Planful (formerly Host Analytics) have offered both cloud-based financial reporting and budgeting for years. However, all of these vendors have typical corporate performance management (CPM) architectures that require data to be loaded from the on-premise ERP and into the cloud CPM tool before the user can run reports.
The process requires a “refresh” of data from the ERP database into the CPM database which means that the data users see in reports is not real-time. This also mean that the drill-down on any number is only as detailed as the lowest level data that was loaded into the cloud CPM database.
Your executives are often ok with this because they want to wait on their report analysis until the accounting team has closed the books. However, the accounting team that is posting transactions in the ERP system almost always prefers live ERP reporting because they want to immediately see the impact of journal entries in their reports. They don’t want to refresh data into a CPM reporting database first, and then wait one minute, ten minutes or significantly longer to run reports after the data has been transferred to the CPM tool.
How do I get true live reporting for my on-premise Dynamics GP data?
The obvious answer is that you use an on-premise report writer like the default Management Reporter tool, GP Report Writer, Smartlist or SQL Reporting Services (SSRS). However, while none of these tools are inferior to what is offered by other ERP systems, and they have aged “gracefully,” they are just not comparable to many modern cloud reporting tools.
Key weaknesses of on-premise report tools include:
Not particularly user-friendly for accounting staff to design reports.
Lack of easy and professional formatting.
Typically requires VPN or Terminal Server to connect to Dynamics GP in order to run reports from outside the office network.
Maintaining multiple report writers for different data (e.g. Management Reporter for GL reports, and GP Report Writer and SSRS for sub-ledger reports.
In order to overcome these weaknesses and help GP customers maximize the value of their data with modern, cloud-based reporting tools, Solver has now launched what they refer to as “Hybrid Cloud Reporting.” You can see it live in this video. This is a unique integration technology that enables you to:
Use your web-browser to run beautifully formatted reports (looks like Excel formatting). Benefit from true real-time reports on your GP data without any data transfer to a separate reporting database.
Drill-down from any number in the report directly into your underlying GP transactional data. Easy internet and browser-based access with no need for VPN, or software like Terminal Server.
Enter budgets from user-friendly forms (looks like Excel) in the cloud and have the transactions stored directly into your budget table in Dynamics GP.
In other words, now your accountants and reporting end-users get the best of two worlds by only needing a web browser to run live reports on GP and drill-down.
Below is a simple architecture diagram to explain how it works:
What about budgeting and forecasting?
Like many other cloud-based CPM solutions, Solver also offers budgeting and forecasting. With the new Hybrid Cloud technology and Solver’s cloud-based Planning Module, users can store budget data directly back from Solver’s budget forms in the cloud, into the General Ledger budget table in Dynamics GP.
So, if you struggle with manual Excel-based spreadsheets for your budgets, you can save a lot of time by eliminating emailing files between users, linking between spreadsheets, and put better controls in place for the entire budget process with workflow and approvals.
As an example, users can access budget forms like the example below with their browser and instantly, until you close the budget process, update their department’s budget in Microsoft Dynamics GP. Since Solver’s Hybrid Cloud updates are real-time, reports can immediately be run to see the impact of these changes on the budget.
Enjoy Faster and Better Decisions in the 2020s
Companies like Solver, Prophix, Vena, Adaptive Insights, and Planful are driving the next generation cloud-based reporting and planning technology. However, with the lack of live reporting and live budget write-back to on-premise ERP systems like Microsoft Dynamics GP, accountants and very active ERP users have been left with their legacy tools for their real-time reporting needs.
With the release of Solver Hybrid Cloud for Microsoft Dynamics GP, these users now get the best of both worlds and can start ushering in the 2020’s by enabling themselves and other users with faster and better decisions. Learn more about the benefits of choosing Solver CPM solutions by contacting us today or requesting a demo.
