Microsoft Great Plains Project Accounting – overvi

Microsoft Great Plains Project Accounting – overview for IT Director/Controller

by: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Business Solutions is now in process of creating so called Microsoft Suites: Microsoft Financials, Microsoft Logistics, Microsoft Manufacturing, Microsoft Professional Services this last one will be based on Solomon Project module. The long story of Great Plains Software Project Accounting it was originally created by MatchData, which was bought by Great Plains in late 1990th and renamed into Great Plains Project Accounting. Great Plains Project accounting future is uncertain it will not ( according to rumors in Microsoft) become the base for one of the Microsoft suites. However right now it is used by variety of businesses and has good functionality to fit general project accounting needs.

Strong Points:

It is very simple and intuitive if you are certified accountant and know the GAAP on project accounting you should be able to understand all the data flow and distribution in GL Great Plains Project Accounting is following the rules.

Simple budgeting and project tracking if this is your goal consider it, especially if you already have Great Plains implemented in your company.

Microsoft SQL Server platform allows you to deploy all the industry tools, such as Crystal Reports, SQL Stored Procedures and Views

Seamless integration into Great Plains interface Great Plains Project Accounting is Dexteritywritten module, so it is in Dexterity interface and security model.

Weak Points:

Poor customization possibilities I would say that Dexterity is now a good option here, because Project Accounting is itself Dexterity third party dictionary Dexterity is good to customize core DYNAMICS.DIC, not third parties. VBA/Modifier are available but we would not recommend them, because they are now legacy technologies.

Poor integration with Microsoft Office tools as of right now Microsoft is in process of moving all its ERP packages: Great Plains, Navision, Solomon into .Net platform. So, this is where all the efforts are applied. Microsoft Office is now the second priority

Good luck deciding and implementing and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job give us a call 18665280577! [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, based in Chicago, California, Texas, Florida, New York, Georgia and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is CMA, Great Plains Certified Master, Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. You can contact Andrew: [email protected].

[email protected]

This article was posted on September 15, 2004

by Andrew Karasev

Great Plains DOS Support – notes for consultant

Great Plains DOS Support – notes for consultant

by: Andrew Karasev

Great Plains Accounting, accounting package for midsize and small companies was in its peak of popularity back in earlier 1990th. It first had DOS interface, later on migrated to classic Windows version (remember earlier event driven Windows and its strange and at the same time revolutionary programming model – guys who remember Borland C++ and Microsoft C++). As each product has its life time – it is almost over for Great Plains Accounting – Great Plains Software was purchased by Microsoft and incorporated into its business systems subdivision: Microsoft Business Solutions. Support for Great Plains Accounting was discontinued several years ago. Great Plains Accounting is btrieve based application and typical installation has GPDATA (with all the database files in) and GPCODE (with executable code – this code is copied over the network and is executed on each workstation). Typical problems we see with GPA:

No Techknowledge database for customers. In the case of Great Plains or Great Plains Dynamics/eEnterprise – customer can do selfsupport. You need to login to Customer Source and open techknowledge database and try to get your problem found there with the solution. Great Plains Accounting techknowledge database is not available for former GPA customer – you should call to your Microsoft Business Solutions Partner to have them access to proprietary information.

Old Hardware. Great Plains Accounting typical system sits on Windows NT 4.0 (sometimes on Windows NT 3.5 or Novell). It was probably installed 5 or more years ago and sits in the very old computer hardware. You may expect (and we see it with our oldtimers GPA customers) hard disk failures and RAM failures. We have to do regular fixes – simply reinstalling either code base or database portions or both.

Workstation Locks and crashes – btrieve origin of the system architecture uses brtieve files to store current processes status (batch posting, for example) in the file, controlled by posting workstation. In the case of the crash you often see the error message, like: ขUnable to access btrieve file for transaction recovery. Must run Btrieve first.ข Multiple scenarios might be applied for recovery. In this exact case you have to delete of rename BTR.TRN file to BTR.OLD this file controls posting process and will be recreated next time you post

We (and Microsoft Business Solutions itself) strongly recommend you to migrate from Great Plains Accounting to Microsoft Great Plains standard 8.0 (budget version) or Microsoft Great Plains 8.0

Happy supporting! if you want us to do the job give us a call 16309615918 or 18665280577! [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving Chicago, California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York, Australia, UK, Canada, Continental Europe, Russia and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 15

by Andrew Karasev

Great Plains Accounting Migration to Microsoft Gre

Great Plains Accounting Migration to Microsoft Great Plains overview for IT Specialist

by: Andrew Karasev

This is short article, written in question/answer/FAQ style to give IT Specialist/developer/programmer balanced top level information on Great Plains Accounting migration to Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains. If you have Great Plains Accounting as main accounting and ERP system you need to know some technical details on the migration to Great Plains and what is going on behind the scenes. As of right now it is reasonable to upgrade to Microsoft Great Plains 8.0

Is migration required? Not actually, but you have to consider these factors

Great Plains Accounting is in phasing out Great Plains Software began this process back in 1995, when it did introduce Great Plains Dynamics and then Great Plains Dynamics/CS+.

Old Btrieve platform Microsoft Business Solutions is pulling out all itกs products from Btrive/Pervasive SQL.2000/Ctree.

Following the Technology and Microsoft rules Microsoft wants you to be on the newest platform and provides you the best support when you follow this rule

What is migration in the language of technology?

Migration reads Btrieve tables of Great Plains Accounting and moves the data to Microsoft Great Plains tables

Do I need consultant? As our experience indicates you have to have a consultant to do GPA>Great Plains migration. There are two options to choose from

You can call Microsoft Business Solutions they can do migration for you they will ask you to forward them your btrieve files and theyกll send you back the backup of SQL database where your migrated data sits with instructions on how to install Great Plains and restore data from backup

You can use Great Plains VAR/Partner in this case your cost is usually lower but you need to do due diligence find the partner who has experience and has done at least couple of migrations

Good luck with migration and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help, weกve done 200 migrations! If you want us to do the job give us a call 18665280577! [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, based in Chicago, California, Arizona, Minnesota, Texas, Florida, New York, Washington, Georgia, Canada, UK, Australia and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is CMA, Great Plains Certified Master, Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. You can contact Andrew: [email protected]

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 18, 2004

by Andrew Karasev

Home Business Tax Tips

Home Business Tax Tips

by: Rebecca Gilbert

If you have recently started an Internet or home business, your probably a little intimidated by having to submit a tax return and the possibilities of being audited. Simply follow these guidelines and rest assured that filing your next tax return will go smoothly.
Get yourself an accounting ledger booklet
The first thing that you need to do at the beginning of every year is purchase yourself a accounting ledger booklet. These can be found at your local office supply store and can be found for under $10. You can deduct your millage and the accounting legder also.
Keep a millage tracking sheet in your car
Each year I make myself a simple spreadsheet that I keep in the glove compartment of my car. Each time that I need to get office supplies, or I go to the post office to mail flyers, I write my beginning and ending millage down on the spreadsheet. At the end of the year, I just transfer the millage over to my accounting ledger.
Keep track of your Utilities
If you have a room in your home that is used only for your internet business and nothing else, you will be able to deduct a portion of your utilities. I especially like this because I have to have these things anyway with or without the internet business and now they are tax deductible. Everything from gas, electricity, long distance and garbage pickup are allowable deductions. Be sure that you keep your payment receipts in your accounting ledger.
Other Business Expenses
You will also be able to deduct any payments to your internet service provider. If you have a website you will be able to deduct your domain name and hosting plan expenses. Other deductable items could be anything you have purchased to maintain your business such as: fax machines, copy machines, scanners, ink cartridges, desks, chairs, phones, pencils, paper, etc.
Advertising / Membership Fees
If you pay for advertising or your internet business has a membership fee, these expenses can be deducted also.
Labor Expenses
Many home business owners pay members of their family to help with the home business. Be sure to keep track of the wages that were paid to employees or family members.
Entertainment Expenses
I don’t have too much to deduct in this category, but several times a year I will meet a potential client over dinner. Keep track of your dinner expenses, including tips…this is all deductable also.
Income
In addition to all your deductable expenses, you will also need to keep track of any money that you make with your business.
In closing, simply keep track of all your millage, utilities, office supplies, labor and income in your accounting ledger. Be sure to attach a copy of your receipts. Total up each category at the end of the year and take the entire booklet into your tax preparer.
You will find that having a home business can be hassle free at tax time if you have taken the time to keep track of your expenditures and income.
Best wishes for your future success and prosperity!
Sincerely,
Rebecca Gilbert

http://www.101homebusiness.org

About The Author

Rebecca Gilbert is the owner of a successful internet business located at: http://www.101homebusiness.org.
For more tips and articles written by Rebecca, please visit: http://www.101homebusiness.org/home_based_business_articles.html

This article was posted on June 09, 2004

by Rebecca Gilbert

Microsoft Great Plains Project Accounting overvi

Microsoft Great Plains Project Accounting overview for consultant

by: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Great Plains – now it is one of the four ERP solutions, owned and promoted by Microsoft subdivision – Microsoft Business Solutions: Microsoft Great Plains, Navision, Axapta and Solomon. Pretty interesting mix and of course, each product has its own realization of Project Accounting. We would like to give you short overview of Project Accounting module, coming with Microsoft Great Plains.

History.

Great Plains Software had wise strategy when it did allow high level software development – so called satteltes of third party modules for Great Plains Dynamics and eEnterprise, written in Great Plains Dexterity. Project accounting was developed by several ISV: Intellisol International (Australia based company, existed back in 1990th , then relocated to Fargo in 1998 and then sold its products), Match Data – this was very successful ISV in Philippines. Great Plains Software bought Project Accounting module from Match Data and made it Great Plains Project accounting.

Pros:

1. It is very simple and intuitive if you are a certified accountant and know the GAAP on project accounting you should be able to understand all the data flow and distribution in GL; Great Plains Project Accounting is following the rules.

2. Simple budgeting and project tracking if this is your goal consider it, especially if you already have Great Plains implemented in your company.

3. Microsoft SQL Server platform allows you to deploy all the industry tools, such as Crystal Reports, SQL Stored Procedures, and Views

4. Seamless integration into Great Plains interface Great Plains Project Accounting is Dexteritywritten module, so it is in Dexterity interface and security model.

Contras:

1. Poor customization possibilities I would say that Dexterity is now a good option here, because Project Accounting is, itself, Dexterity third party dictionary Dexterity is good to customize core DYNAMICS.DIC, not third parties. VBA/Modifier are available but we would not recommend them, because they are now legacy technologies.

2. Poor integration with Microsoft Office tools as of right now Microsoft is in the process of moving all its ERP packages: Great Plains, Navision, Solomon into the .NET platform. So, this is where all the efforts are applied. Microsoft Office is now the second priority.

Good luck deciding and implementing, and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job give us a call at 16309615918 or 18665280577! [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving clients in Chicago, California, Texas, Florida, New York, Georgia, Colorado, Europe, Australia, Canada and having locations in multiple states and internationally, he is CMA, Great Plains Certified Master, Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.

[email protected]

This article was posted on December 30, 2004

by Andrew Karasev

Ten Steps To A Well Optimized Website Step 1: Ke

Ten Steps To A Well Optimized Website Step 1: Keyword Selection

by: Dave Davies

This is part one of ten in this search engine positioning series. In part one we will outline how to choose the keyword phrases most likely to produce a high ROI for your search engine positioning efforts. Over this ten part series we will go through ten essential elements and steps to optimizing a site. Some steps take a few hours, some may take months depending on the competition, but in the end and if done correctly you will have a well optimized site that will place well and hold itกs positioning.

Of course all websiteกs fluctuate up and down however well optimized sites will spend more time on the upper end of the rankings than poorly optimized or spammy sites which may see high rankings but which will lose those rankings over time.

The Ten Steps We Will Go Through Are:

Keyword Selection

Content

Site Structure

Optimization

Internal Linking

Human Testing

Submissions

Link Building

Monitoring

The Extras

Step One Keyword Selection

Arguably, keyword selection is the single most important stage in the entire optimization process. If you do not choose the correct keyword phrases you will not maximize your ROI on this campaign. I mention ROI and use it as a reminder that keyword selection is not necessarily about looking for the most searched phrases. A profitable optimization is one which produces the greatest return on investment for the time and money that are available to put towards it.

Bigger Is Not Always Better

If you are a web designer in Seattle who has just started your own business, you could make กweb designก the targeted keyword phrase for your site as it certainly has the highest number of searches with 707,962 in September 2004 according to the กOverture Search Term Suggestion Toolก. If you have thousands of dollars and many months to dedicated just to attaining those rankings it could be done however, would that be the best use of your time? Alternatively you could target กseattle web site designก with 5,070 searches in September. A Google link check shows the number of links for the top three competitors for the Seattle search had 132, 21, and 47 respectively whereas for กweb designก the top three had 18,700, 5,420, and 1,310 incoming links each.

With a good site you would get more work than you could handle with 5,070 searches on Overture alone if you were ranking well on the major search engines. This would clearly provide the highest return on investment for the small business owner who most certainly does not have the time and money available to target กweb designก and who wouldn’t have the manpower to take advantage of the rankings even if they were attained.

This is an extreme example however it clearly illustrates that sometimes the phrase with the highest number of searches is not necessarily the best target for your business.

Phrases That Sell

Another consideration you will want to make when choosing your keyword phrases is whether or not they are กbuy phrasesก. Phrases with a high number of searches that are not กbuy phrasesก will tend to bring a lot of traffic, however the conversion ratio will be far lower. Should you choose to target กbuy phrasesก you may not get the same number of visitors however your ratio of visitors to sales will be much higher.

In this example letกs assume you are the marketing director for a wellknown accounting company. There will be many choices you can make for your targeted keyword phrase. The top searched phrases in September 2004 that were accountingrelated are:

กaccountingก with 156,095 searches

กaccounting softwareก with 54,621 searches

กaccounting jobก with 32,015 searches

กaccounting servicesก with 19,260 searches

กaccounting firmก with 13,089 searches

Many might go with their gut instinct and attempt to target กaccountingก. The problem with this phrase (other than the competition for it) is that the people doing that search are not necessarily even looking for an accounting firm. They may be accounting students, small business owners not interested in hiring an accountant but just looking for tax information, etc. กAccounting softwareก and กaccounting jobก are irrelevant, which leaves us with กaccounting servicesก and กaccounting firmก as the two main options.

From this point an evaluation of competition should be performed and the pros and cons of making each the primary target should be weighed based on the amount of work it will take to attain the phrase vs. how many searches there are for that phrase.

Often promotions that target multiple กbuy phrasesก will end up far more successful that those targeting phrases based solely on the number of searches due to the increased conversions and generally decreased competition.

Tools To Use

Armed now with knowledge on how to recognize and choose between different phrases there remains only one question, how do you know which phrases are even searched? Fortunately there are a couple great resources out there to help you find out how many searches are performed for specific phrases. They Are:

The Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool

A decent tool for researching keyword phrases. It indicates which phrases had the highest numbers of searches on Overture during the previous month. The biggest weakness it has, as far as applying it to the natural search engines, is that Overture counts singular and plural as the same and also corrects misspelling so the totals are all lumped together in this tool whereas on the natural engines they are considered differently.

WordTracker

WordTracker is very similar to Overtureกs Search Term Suggestion Tool except that this tool differentiates between plural and singular searches, does not correct spelling (i.e. it gives the number of searches for misspellings rather than correcting them and giving a total for correct and misspelled words) and gives the results in predicted numbers of searches over all the engines per day rather than just one engine over a month.

They have a great free trial that doesn’t give you as many results but which can be very useful.

When using these tools I recommend beginning with the Overture Search term Suggestion Tool and once youกve narrowed down your choices, switch to WordTracker to insure that you’re getting the right information in regards to tense (singular vs. plural) and also that the numbers match. Sometimes you will find that the numbers are completely different from each tool. In this event you will have to use your best judgment.

Don’t forget to check misspellings when using WordTracker!

Tips & Tricks

There are no real ‘tricksก to uncovering the keywords you should target however there are a few tips. A few pointers that will help you maximize your keyword selection:

Think like a layman. Just because you know your industry terms doesn’t mean that everyone does. Don’t just think of the words you use to describe your products/services, think of the words you would use if you knew nothing about it other than the fact that you needed it. You may want to recruit a friend and have them run some searches for you.

Think like an expert. On the other side of the coin, there may be phrases used specifically in your industry that people กin the knowก would use to search for your products and/or services. Be sure to look into these phrases. You just may find some hidden gems that no one else has thought to target.

Don’t target too many phrases. Some SEOs and webmasters target dozens and sometimes even hundreds of phrases. The end result, they often miss the ones they most wanted to attain. Keeping yourself and your keyword list focused will keep your site focused. If your site is focused youกll rank higher for the phrases that will produce the highest return on investment.

Testing

Test your phrases. If there is any debate about whether a search phrase is worth targeting itกs often a good idea to test the conversions through payperclick engines. Set up an account with a PPC engine and bid on the phrases that you would like to target.

You have to remember that the PPC engines do not provide for the same amount of traffic as the natural engines. Test the initial phrases, test alternative phrases, and see which produce the best results. Something else to keep in mind is that PPC are not natural engines. If your ROI is not as high on more costly phrases that doesn’t mean they won’t produce the higher return on the natural engines where a top ranking does not cost money per click.

In the end you will have confirmed a solid list of keyword phrases and if the PPC campaign is providing a good return on investment you might as well keep it running and enjoy the กbonusก traffic that it provides.

Next Week

Next week in part two of our ‘ten Steps To an Optimized Websiteก series we will be covering content. This will cover everything from the optimization of existing content to the creation of new content for your website.

About The Author

Dave Davies is the owner of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning (http://www.beanstalkinc.com/). He has been optimizing and ranking websites for over three years and has a solid history of success. Dave is available to answer any questions that you may have about your website and how to get it into the top positions on the major search engines.

[email protected]

This article was posted on October 24, 2004

by Dave Davies

Great Plains Accounting Support – overview for IT

Great Plains Accounting Support – overview for IT specialist

by: Andrew Karasev

Great Plains Accounting was popular accounting package for midsize and small companies back in 1990th. As each product has its life time – it is almost over for Great Plains Accounting – Great Plains Software was purchased by Microsoft and incorporated into its business systems subdivision: Microsoft Business Solutions. Support for Great Plains Accounting was discontinued several years ago. Great Plains Accounting is btrieve based application and typical installation has GPDATA (with all the database files in) and GPCODE (with executable code – this code is copied over the network and is executed on each workstation). Typical problems we see with GPA:

No Techknowledge database for customers. In the case of Great Plains or Great Plains Dynamics/eEnterprise – customer can do selfsupport. You need to login to Customer Source and open techknowledge database and try to get your problem found there with the solution. Great Plains Accounting techknowledge database is not available for former GPA customer – you should call to your Microsoft Business Solutions Partner to have them access to proprietary information.

Old Hardware. Great Plains Accounting typical system sits on Windows NT 4.0 (sometimes on Windows NT 3.5 or Novell). It was probably installed 5 or more years ago and sits in the very old computer hardware. You may expect (and we see it with our oldtimers GPA customers) hard disk failures and RAM failures. We have to do regular fixes – simply reinstalling either code base or database portions or both.

Workstation Locks and crashes – btrieve origin of the system architecture uses brtieve files to store current processes status (batch posting, for example) in the file, controlled by posting workstation. In the case of the crash you often see the error message, like: ขUnable to access btrieve file for transaction recovery. Must run Btrieve first.ข Multiple scenarios might be applied for recovery. In this exact case you have to delete of rename BTR.TRN file to BTR.OLD this file controls posting process and will be recreated next time you post

We (and Microsoft Business Solutions itself) strongly recommend you to migrate from Great Plains Accounting to Microsoft Great Plains standard 8.0 (budget version) or Microsoft Great Plains 8.0

Happy supporting! if you want us to do the job give us a call 16309615918 or 18665280577! [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving Chicago, California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York, Australia, UK, Canada, Continental Europe, Russia and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 09

by Andrew Karasev