Since Microsoft announced the new Business Ready Enhancement Plan Renewal Policy, talks about whether the customer should stay current has increased significantly.

At 16% of your total software list price, it’s potentially a sizable recurring investment for companies using the software. Not just specifically to Microsoft, almost all ERP, CRM, business software out there requires users to pay an annual enhancement of some sort.

Other than the obvious questions of “what do I get for staying current?”, the benefits are numerous and I encourage you to get with your partner to learn what these benefits are. But the primary reason with the new policy is that you need to be current in order to purchase additional granules and users.

This may sound very scary at first, but hopefully this blog post will put in perspective on what this means should you decide to stay current or not.

1. How many years of Enhancement will I pay to pay for the software again?
Assuming your system list price is $100.00. At 16%, you’d be paying $16.00 per year. So $100.00 / $16.00 = 6.25 years. You would need to be current on the Microsoft Enhancement Plan for 6.25 to pay for the software again.

In another words, the bet you placed by staying current on the enhancement plan is that Microsoft will release new versions of NAV that you will upgrade to (full or executable only) during 6.25 years. In addition, with the new enhancement plan policy, you’re also betting that you’re business will grow and change, therefore, requiring additional modules and user licenses in the 6.25 year time span. So if you’ve purchased additional modules, upgraded, etc during the 6.25 year time frame, you’ve won.

2. How many years can I not pay the enhancement plan for the cost to accumulate to pay for the software again?
Again, assuming your system list price is $100.00. Assuming that you decided to skip the enhancement after the first year, the penalty you’ll pay is around 20% (you may have to check the exact percentage in your area). So $100.00 / $20.00 = 5 years. You can skip the enhancement for 5 years and pay for the software again in 5 years.

In another words, the bet you placed by NOT staying current on the enhancement plan is that Microsoft will not release anything of interest worthy of upgrading your system in the next 5 years. You do not expect your business to see growth or changes to purchase additional modules or user licenses. If you have not purchased any modules or done any upgrade to newer version in the 5 years since you skipped the enhancement, you’ve won.

Conclusion:
In a down economy, it may pay not to be current if you do not expect the cycle of your business to turn up again within the next 5 year period. Then again, it’s pretty tough to gage what will happen in the next 5 years.

Whether or not to stay current really depends on the business and the people that runs the business. For the enhancement plan, I always view this as an insurance and the same type of mentality as an insurance. Most of the time you pay for the insurance premiums complaining about it’s hefty price, but when problems occur, you’re glad you paid the premium. In Navision’s case, the time is 6.25 years.

This blog post is an overview of my experience at Directions 2009. In my opinion, this is THE event to attend if you provide software or service to Dynamics NAV (Navision).

Most of the sessions in Directions 2009 were about the RTC experience, upgrading to RTC, getting partners to buy into RTC.

Instead of posting a session summary ,which doesn’t really do the presenter justice with a few paragraphs, I just decided to write some highlights that stuck out for me during this event.

Numbers:
Now, for some numbers shared by the MBS executives:
- xx% of all Microsoft ERP sales is Dynamics NAV Navision - (Microsoft asked me to remove this number)
- There are now 1,350,000+ registered users for Dynamics NAV (Navision)
- There are 76,000+ Dynamics NAV (Navision) customer implementations worldwide
- No other mid-market ERP has more users and install base

Wow!! That’s some serious numbers! xx% of all Microsoft ERP sales is Navision! For all the people saying that Microsoft will discontinue or kill Dynamics NAV or Navision in favor of other products, I would seriously ask them to check their facts again.

New Cool Stuff in NAV2009 SP1:
(For all the people that covered what I’m about to write, I’m sorry if I’m duplicating)

- Dynamics Online - This is a Microsoft Software + Services thing. The demo they showed is a customer processing credit card transactions and have the credit card cleared by Dynamics Online. This is very neat and I’m very excited to see what other services they plan to offer with this program.

- Drilldown to Detail Reports - One of the best features in Quickbooks is the ability to drill down directly from the reports. For a long time, no other ERP product can duplicate what Quickbooks did unless they purchase BI tools or other report writing tools. This is now part of NAV2009 SP1. It’s about time!

- Edit in Excel and Import it Back - The folks demoed the ability to export to Excel, which was there since v5.0. But now, you can edit the data in Excel and import the data back into NAV. In addition, there is version control if the data is different from the time it was exported. But this functionality is not out of the box, it requires some programming.

Future of Dynamics NAV (Navision):
C/AL is Not Going Anywhere - One thing confirmed by Microsoft is that they will NOT kill C/AL either (the Navision programming language). It will continue to be used to develope Dynamics NAV (Navision). This means that partners do not have to rush to hire a ton of C# or VB programmers as previously thought. It also means customers do not have to fear about MSFT revamping the core logic of Navision making it unrecognizable.

Application Roadmap - In the Dynamics NAV (Navision) Statement of Direction, there’s talks about adding an Application Roadmap. This roadmap will list out improvements and new functionalities within the application to be added to the future releases.

I’ve confirmed with many Microsoft executives and managers that the NAV product team DO look at MS Connect for production suggestions. Even though they do not respond to most of the suggestions, they do put the suggestions into serious consideration. So if you want to make a difference in the future of NAV, this your chance!

Interesting ISVs:
- Centerline - They make reportings tools within NAV. Essentially, you can build queries within NAV and have it print very nice reports using SQL reporting services.
- Lanham Address verification - Lanham & Associates (the makers of EDI, eShip, etc) is developing a address verification grnaule within NAV. I have to say that it’s taking long enough for someone to come out with a good solution within NAV. No pricing is available on this product yet but this looks very exciting.

Session of the Conference:
For me, the session of the conference was not in Navision. It’s called Inventory Management devlivered by Jon Schreibfeder (www.effectiveinventory.com). His session described how to achieve profitability by managing your forecast and your items. Lanham’s forecasting granule is based on this guy’s teachings.

Other interesting observations:
- There were more than a few Microsoft Partners using a Mac
- Learned the approach for purchasing ERP software for Europe, US, and Asia. Very interest, but I’m not sure if the conclusion was based on too much alcohol or scientific proof.

I noticed this when I did a search on Google using the keyword Dynamics NAV or Dynamics GP (or AX or SL, or whatever).

http://thesource.ofallevil.com/dynamics … rview.aspx

It seems random, on top search results it displays www.microsoft.com. On the later pages, it displays thesource.ofallevil.com.

The source of all evil? Is this a Microsoft joke? Or did Google intentionally do this?

During a new implementation of Dynamics NAV (Navision), most Dynamics NAV (Navision) consultants understand how to load in A/R and A/P beginning balances. However, when it comes to bank beginning balance. The subject is usually more murky. On one hand, you need to put in the bank balance so it shows up on the bank ledger, on the other hand, if you put in just a lump sum, doing the first bank reconciliation will be a nightmare.

The goal when entering a beginning bank balance, is to update the bank ledger to ensure the amounts are correct. In addition, the bank transactions that are not cleared needs to be come up so it can be properly reconciled.

In this example, we’re going to assume the Navision client is going live on 1/1/2010.

Here’s the information we need from the client:
1. The G/L bank ending balance as of 12/31/2009
2. The last bank statement (from the bank obviously) on 12/31/09
3. The beginning G/L balance

First of all, the Dynamics NAV (Navision) client or the consultant needs to itemize what checks are outstanding (not cleared yet as of the 12/31/09 bank statement).

We all know that to load in beginning G/L balance, we use the General Journal. We typically use loading of beginning balance as the same step as we load in the bank balance.

Let’s say the Dynamics NAV (Navision) client has the following:
Bank Balance on 12/31/09: $10,000.00
Outstanding Check #123: -$2,500.00
Outstanding Check #124: -$500.00
Deposit on Hold: $1,000.00

While we load in the beginning balance, we set the Account Type as Bank Account. Doing this will automatically update the bank ledger and the G/L ledger based on your Bank Account Posting Group.

So your beginning G/L balance would look like the following:

Assuming you received a bank statement on 1/31/2010. There were no transactions that were cleared and no additional transaction made to the bank. Your bank rec would look like the following:

Doing so, the transactions will match exactly to the bank statement and to the G/L.

In conclusion, you can say that the bank beginning balance is the Bank Balance + Outstanding Checks - Deposits on hold.

Got a suggestion to make the product better? Go here to log your suggestions (or complaints, rants, raves, etc). It’s about time Microsoft has something like this.

https://connect.microsoft.com/dynamicssuggestions

Make your voice count! Microsoft is listening!

When a purchase of inventory is made, 4 accounts are hit:
Inventory
A/P
Purchases
Direct Cost Applied

When the items are sold, 4 accounts are hit:
Inventory
A/R
Sales
COGS

In this case, the COGS is automatically calculated and posted to your COGS account. The COGS posted by NAV is ALWAYS correct. Don’t assume otherwise.

Typically, when a CPA report COGS, it’s calculated and displayed based on the following formula:
Beginning Inventory
+ Purchases
- Inventory Adjustment
- Ending Inventory
= COGS

It has brought to my attention that this formula gives all sorts of problems with companies using NAV to use the account schedules and give a proper financial statment to the CPA’s desire.

This calculation is actually pretty easily defined in the NAV account schedules.

Let’s say you have the following Chart of Accounts:
12000 - Inventory
58000 - Purchases
58050 - Direct Cost Applied
58200 - Inventory Adjustment

The way to set the formula to give the proper COGS based on the CPA formula on the Account Schedules is the following:
A010 - Beginning Inventory (Row Type = Beginning Balance)
A020 - Purchases (Row Type = Net Change)
A030 - Inventory Adjustment (Row Type = Net Change) Set it to NOT show
A040 - Direct Cost Applied (Row Type = Net Change) Set it to NOT show
A050 - Inventory Adjustment (Formula = A020 + A030 + A040)
A060 - Ending Inventory (Row Type = Balance at Date)

B010 - COGS (Formula = A010 + A020 + A030 - A050 - A060)
What was the point for A040..A060? (Read only if you’re interested in the accounting and costing aspect of it)

The reason why we need to set this up is because of purchase returns. When items are returned using the purchase return order (or purchase credit memo), the cost being used to return the product is deducted based on your costing method, NOT what you typed in as the direct unit cost on the purchase return/credit.

Confused? Don’t be. Let me explain, when you invoice a purchase order for $10.00 for item A, the following happens:
- $10.00 Accounts Payable
+ $10.00 Inventory
+ $10.00 Purchases
- $10.00 Direct COst Applied

Now, suppose you need to return this product to the vendor and the vendor is only willing to give you credit for $8.00. When you post the credit, the following will happen:
+ $8.00 Accounts Payable
- $8.00 Inventory
- $8.00 Purchases
+ $8.00 Direct COst Applied

Additional, NAV will make these 2 entries:
- $2.00 Inventory
+ $2.00 Direct COst Applied

The extra $2.00 entries are posted because the cost of the item is $10.00. And that’s the cost it’s should be relieved from inventory. So you can say the sum of Purchases and Direct Cost Applied is the difference between vendor returns and the vendor purchases. For most companies, these amounts are lumped together to be displayed under inventory adjustment on the income statement. You can separate it out as a different line item on your income statement if you wish.

It doesn’t matter if you turn on Exact Cost Reversing or if your client says “this doesn’t happen, we always use the same cost that we bought it at”. ALWAYS do this.
Conclusion:
This example assumes that you set direct posting to NO on the G/L accounts described. As you understand the concept behind this, you can easily incorporate Item Charges, WIP, etc into this formula. Basically, everything that gets accrued into Inventory needs to be part of this formula.

Most companies would want to allocate additional line items into the calculation of COGS without accruing the expenses to the inventory. This is fine, you’ll just need to add the other costs into the formula. However, the total of your COGS will be different than NAV’s COGS.

Separate from the point of this post, as a rule of both thumbs, you always turn off the Direct Posting field on the inventory accounts. Always. ALWAYS. No exceptions.

If you want to make G/L entries to the inventory account, create a separate Inventory G/L accounts and combine them together on your Account Schedules to have them appear as one when you present it to your CPA or auditors. Making G/L entries directly to the inventory accounts is a one way ticket to reconcilation headache betweeen the Inventory Valuation and General Ledger.

If everything is setup properly, you’ll find that the COGS formula you setup will match, to the penny, the COGS account on your Chart of Account.

Dynamics NAV (Navision) can do anything for your business. Yep, you heard it right. Implementing Dynamics NAV (Navision) can solve all of the problems for your company. It’s true! Since working with Dynamics NAV (Navision) in 1999, I have never encountered a business problem that cannot be solved in Dynamics NAV.
Compliance? No problem.
Reporting? No problem.
Unique business processes? No problem.

AND! Implementing Dynamics NAV will solve your company’s problems within a reasonable budget!

But how is that possible? We all know every software has it’s limits. What if customers makes irrational requests? What if the salesperson over promised? What if the project will take 1000 hours to program?

You can probably think of a million more “what if”s. The bottom line is implementing NAV will resolve all of your client’s business problems. You absolutely need to keep this mentality or you won’t have a successful career in NAV.

First and foremost, you MUST believe this as well. All Navision programmers knows how quick it is to deliver on customer’s request and it’s unique ability to adapt to any environment. If you do not believe this is true, you’re working with the wrong software.

The first step in truly believing this is remove the word NO from your vocabulary.

By being closed minded and using the word “No” too often, not only are you diminishing the potential of NAV to your clients. You are training yourself to become close minded on finding clever ways to solve difficult problems.

Do not say no to customers, instead, find alternative solutions. You should have enough experience to know if the requirements does not make sense. And you should have enough understanding of business process to give alternative solutions to address the client’s pains.

Take for example the following scenerio:
Client: “I want to go to the moon”
You:    “Why do you want to go the moon?” (while at the back of the head thinking “Oh crap, the salesperson promised the moon”)
Client: “I want to see the surface closely”
You:    “If I can get close up pictures of the moon’s surface, would that be sufficient?”
Client: “Ok”

Or this scenerio:
Client: “I want to go to the moon”
You:    “Why do you want to go the moon?” (while at the back of the head thinking “Oh crap, the salesperson promised the moon”)
Client: “I want to feel the moon’s atmosphere”
You:    “At the Kennedy Space center, you can feel the moon’s atmosphere. Would that be ok?”
Client: “Ok”

Instead of:
Client: “I want to go to the moon”
You:    “No, you can’t go to the moon, it’s not possible with current technology”
Client: “The salesperson said I can.”
You:    “No. It’s not possible, your request is illogical”
Client: “Get your salesperson back here, I want a refund!”

I know this is a very, very simple example, but you get the point. Every problem is diffcult and easy depending on how to approach it.

In an implementation, much like in sales, you need to get as many people on your side as possible. By throwing the word “no” around too often, you will be seen as an enemy trying to make their daily lives miserable. Furthermore, the client will be convinced that they have bought the wrong solution.

It’s important to keep a positive attitude during an implementation. Instead of directing customers to dead ends and killing their dreams and hopes, show them the light at the end of the tunnel by addressing their problems and pains in a different way. Engage their illogical request and do the work to make it logical for them. Listen carefully to their request and dig into your experience and knowledge to provide the customer with a better way. If all else fails, ask your client to write their request logically on a piece of paper (this always works by the way).

Consider this: No business that can buy NAV operates on flawed or illogical business process. So you can safely eliminate the probability that the client request is flawed or illogical. So the solution must be on the implementor/developer. It’s your job to recommend:
1. A solution
2. An alternative solution
3. A better solution

No one in the world likes to pay for “No”. And removing “NO” from your vocabulary is the first step on becoming the best implementor and developer in the world.

I know there are experts in the community that feel very strong about this. All comments (flame or non-flame) welcome!

In Microsoft Dynamics NAV, when doing costing and profitability analysis, you need to differentiate between a transaction’s True Cost and Accounting Cost. Don’t bother looking up these terms in the manual, I made them up for a lack of better terms.

To better explain the difference between True Cost and Accounting Cost, we will use this example:

8/15/08 - Item A was received at 10 pieces for $2.00 each.
8/30/08 - 6 pieces of item A was sold for $5.00 per piece
9/1/08 - The vendor invoice for Item A is posted at $3.00 per piece
9/15/08 - The freight invoice came in and item charge is used to allocate an additional $1.00 per piece
9/20/08 - The rest of the 4 pieces of item A was sold for $5.00 per piece

Accounting Cost:
Assuming on 9/30/08, you’re asked to do a sales analysis for the month of August. When the costing is analyzed for the sales made on 8/30/08, the COGS that accounting recognize will be $2.00 per piece. This means that if we’re printing reports based on Value Entry posting date filter from 8/1/08 to 8/31/08, the profit margin would be 60% per piece. Not bad! For accounting, the cost is indeed $2.00 per piece since that’s the only amount that was recognized in that period. (Some companies makes an accrual on the G/L side for the expected cost of good sold, but that’s a separate topic). This number to management, of course, is incorrect.

True Cost:
In actuality, the cost of the item should be $4.00 per piece because each piece came in at $3.00 with an additional $1.00 in freight charges. The margin of the item should be 20%.

Another scenerio is you’re running the sales report from 9/1/08 to 9/15/08, you would show 0 quantities sold, but the cost recognized in that period would be $12.00 ($1.00 in the additional vendor cost + $1.00 in the freight cost * 6 pieces sold). If you did not check this report and you present this report to the management, be prepared field a load questions on the integrity of both you and the numbers.

Solution:
Both Accounting Cost and the True Cost are correct! Do not assume otherwise! It’s just a matter of how the user wants to look at the numbers. For accounting, they need the numbers to be recognized in the proper periods so the previous period numbers does not get changed. For management, they want to see the true cost of sales transaction. What to do?

As a simple rule, the Value Entry stores the accounting cost, the Item Ledger Entry stores the true cost. Since most NAV reports dealing with Contribution Margin uses Value Entry table, we typically remove those field from the report because they are misleading for everyone. We create separate reports using the Item Ledger Entry table taking the Cost Amount (Actual) since it rolls up all the costs associated with the sale transaction.

One thing to note when presenting the report off of the item ledger to the management, depending on when you post the vendor invoice and other landed cost charges, the profitability number will change. This means that, in our example, the profitability report ran on 9/1/08 will be different than the same report with the same filters ran on 9/20/08. However, in my experience, once you properly explain this concept to accounting and management, they will understand.

[EDIT] You can also use the Value Entry table for calculating True Cost. However, just filter on the Valuation Date instead of the Posting Date.

In Dynamics NAV 5.0SP1, the caption for Your Reference has been changed to Customer PO No. For us, we’ve always used External Document No. to store the Customer PO No. on the sales order.

It’s obvious that the change in 5.0 SP1 was done due to partner requests. I just want to get your opinion on where you put the Customer PO No. when entering a sales order. Please vote here:
http://dynamicsuser.net/forums/t/23238.aspx

First of all, let me state that I’m a amateur investor in the stock market. I have a discipline when it comes to stock investing in that I look for companies with good products and/or strong management. One of the major holdings I have is Microsoft (MSFT), in fact, my Microsoft stocks takes up about 20% of my portfolio.  As an investor, I want to see the stock shoot up and demostrate increased sales of the product quarter after quarter. Likewise, I want to see the profit increase quarter after quarter.

The reason I bought Microsoft stock is because I believe in their products. I believe in their vision of “business software” will be. As to what I believe their vision is, that’s a separate BLOG post.

As you all know, I’m also the principle of AP Commerce, Inc. based in Los Angeles. We are a small Certified NAV partner; we do nothing else other than to implement Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Navision). Personally, I’ve been working with NAV since 1999 and have been involved in hundreds of implementations to date. Our company is created to be a service company, not a software sales company. It just so happens that NAV is the product that we uses so we can help our customer achieve greater success.

However, this post is not to discuss accomplishments. It’s a genuine conundrum I have being an investor of Microsoft and a business owner doing business with Microsoft.

Before I continue, let’s make one thing clear about Microsoft. Microsoft is in the software sales company. Their core business is to sell software. Not service, not hardware, not internet content, not social media, not whatever. Yes, we all can see they’re trying to diversify, but at the end of the day, their business is to sell software. Period.

It’s not a secret that Microsoft loves partners that can sell and sell and sell. Since Microsoft channel reps are evaluated by how their region performs, channel reps throws all of their support and time into partners that sells. As an investor, I love this strategy. More sale means more revenue and hopefully fatter profit. By exceeding these arbituary numbers set by Wall Street, stocks shoot up. Wall Street loves growth. When I receive the annual reports from Microsoft, I always turn to the revenue and the profit section. I look at how much revenue growth this year as compared to the previous year, and the year before that. I look at the earnings per share, I look at what the cost of doing businesses. In short, I want to see growth and more GROWTH! In the world of Wall Street, public companies are evaluated by the quarter. If the quarter sucked, the company will get hammered and executives get fired…

As such, it’s not a surprise that Microsoft wants more partners to sell all of their product suites. And more and more hardware dealers and bulk software retailers find out about Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Navision), studies the manual, pass the required tests, and acquire the competency to sell Navision (among other softwares). In a push to sell more software, my suspection is that even larger solution centers, to be more aligned with Microsoft strategy have shifted their focus software-sales centric.

As a business owner working with Microsoft Dynamics NAV. I’m deeply concerned by this practice. As we all know, selling and implementating Microsoft Dynamics NAV is different than selling and implementing Microsoft Office or setting up a network using Windows 2003 Server or implementing Exchange Server with Sharepoint. Without proper skillset or the resource, the implementation of ERP usually fails. Once the software implementation fails, customers blame the software, the vendor, and ultimately, Microsoft. 

These bad implemenations creates a deep distrust in Microsoft; confirming their belief that Microsoft is an Evil Empire and all of Microsoft products suck. Pretty soon, word of mouth spreads (business executives and managers have powerful friends) and before you know it, more and more people have the mental imprint that Microsoft sucks because their friend of a friend got screwed. For the record, Microsoft products does NOT suck. Microsoft Dynamics does NOT suck.

Most of these companies either bite the bullet and live with a software that they can’t really use and hates Microsoft for the rest of their lives, or they call around for other solution centers to come help them out.

We have quite a number of situations where companies called us help asking us to help them with a failed implementation. In one instance, the owner of a company that bought NAV over a year ago expressed to me that he absolutely hated Microsoft and his lack of due dilligence in selecting the right vendor and the software. He couldn’t believe that his original vendor got to be a Gold Certified Partner. He was so upset that he wanted to sue the solution center and Microsoft.

To make a long story short, I accepted the task and decided to let the chips fall where they may be. Fortunately, we were able to help them out quite nicely and the owners and the employees became a fan of NAV. Not only did they became our reference and paid their bills in full and on time, but they also agreed to go back on the enhancement program with Microsoft and bought additional NAV sessions. In the end, by making the customer happy, they ended up doing more business with Microsoft.

When I started the company, I promised myself that we would be a service company, not a software sales company. What we did for this company took time. It takes time to ask the company to believe in us, then to believe in NAV, then to believe in Microsoft. Trust is the hardest thing to build once it has been broken. Unfortunately, the time Microsoft spends working with this customer doesn’t translate into revenue quickly.

As a business owner who believes in Microsoft, I want Microsoft to reward partners that can do the job correctly, not reward partners that can only sell. As an investor, I want Microsoft to spend the time and effort supporting people that can generate revenue quickly. So I can see an increase every quarter and meet Wall Street expectations.

How would you recommend balancing being a service company and being an investor?