From the President-- Andrew Fass
Microsoft’s
Convergence Meeting Previews Navision 3.7 and 4.0
—Microsoft CRM also Highlighted
AVF attended Microsoft’s annual
Convergence meeting in
Navision invited AVF client, Sze-Kei Lee from The Mills Corporation, to present on her experience using Navision to successfully improve The Mills Corporation’s bottom line. The Mills Corporation is an international, publicly traded company that has been using Navision since 1998. AVF was honored to have Sze-Kei present with other Navision users from across the country.
Convergence
is Microsoft Business Solutions big event to showcase its ERP solutions and
upgrades to current customers, and this year provided an excellent opportunity
to promote the newest product: Microsoft CRM (Customer Relationship
Management). Many of AVF’s clients are already taking advantage of
Navision’s CRM module, which is a much more developed and sophisticated tool
than Microsoft’s CRM. Since all business needs are different, it’s great
to have the two options. Microsoft is capitalizing on the business user’s
familiarity and comfort level with Outlook, the email tool that almost everyone
uses. By integrating Microsoft CRM with Outlook, sales, marketing
and customer service professionals can easily learn to use this tool to manage
their prospects and customers. Microsoft CRM easily interfaces with
back-end financial software like Navision, but is not fully integrated.
If your organization is considering CRM, AVF currently offers Navision CRM and
expects to be Microsoft CRM certified within the next few months.
AVF
Welcomes New Clients: L&M Produce, John Edwards Campaign, Child
Trends, and Joe Lieberman for President. L&M Produce, located in
Fund Accounting for Navision Users
Conference! Serenic Software will sponsor the first annual User’s Conference,
Explorations, for not-for-profit organizations from July 20-23 in
Microsoft
Navision Enhancement Program (formerly Annual Maintenance Agreement): All
Navision customers who are not currently enrolled in the maintenance plan have
until
"Business Snapshot" Provides Real Time Financial Summaries
Business
Snapshot is a “Real Time” Financial Summarization Tool. It calculates
Cash Flow, AR Age,
Business Snapshot uses Navision’s real time functionality to present
information to the viewer that is always accurate. The formulas can also
be adapted to company specific requirements, but most of the common business
metrics are included.
Do you know where your cash is? To really know the health of your business you have to know where the cash is. Is it tied up in receivables? Is it committed to payables? Is it in pending orders? Does it exist at all?
Doing cash
flow projections can take hours and as soon as it is completed, things
change. The Business Snapshot eliminates the need to re-calculate these
numbers on a weekly basis. Navision is doing it constantly.
Navision’s flow technology gives you up to the second information on the status
of your business.
All the classic business management ratios are built right into the system: Quick Ratio, ROE, ROI, Debt to Equity, Days to Collect, and many more. Use the information to make strategic buying and selling decisions.
Features:
· Cash Availability Forecasts
· Quick Aged Receivables
· Perpetual Inventory Value
·
Monthly
· Profitability Analysis
· Mini-Balance Sheet & Mini-Income Statement
· Reports on each section for instant hard copy
Benefits:
· You always know where the cash is
· Make decisions with timely information
· Keep your Banker better informed
· No re-entry into spreadsheet to get this information
Contact
Jeremy Fass at 410-889-3400 or jfass@avfconsulting.com for more detail on how to
purchase Business Snapshot.
Shortcuts: Keystrokes for fast dates, easy math, and quick duplication
If you are
in a date field in Navision you can use the following shortcuts:
Dates
Type a “T” to get today’s date
M will put in the Monday of that week
TU will put in the Tuesday of that week
WE will put in the Wednesday of that week
TH will put in the Thursday of that week
F will put in the Friday of that week
S will put in the Saturday of that week
SU will put in the Sunday of that week
Normally
you won’t need to type in the year or even the month. For example if the
current month is March and you want to enter a date of
Easy Math
If you are in an Amount field, you can use the +, - , * , / signs to do the math for you.
Quick Duplication
Finally you
can always hit the F8 key to copy the field above. A good example of this
is if you have a 50 line journal entry and you want to copy the description
field to each line. Start on the second line and hit the F8 key then the
down arrow key. Repeat this until all of your descriptions are changed.
Dataports 101
Have you ever tried to copy 60,000 records from your Navision G/L and paste them directly into Excel? It takes a long, long time and you’ll probably think that Navision has “frozen” on you. You might even go to task manager which will tell you that Navision is not responding. So you end the task and forget about doing that again. Actually what is happening is that Navision is frantically transferring the records to your clipboard and if you let it sit long enough it will finish. A quicker way to accomplish this is to create a simple dataport in Navision that will export the data for you.
A Dataport is a Navision Object (like a table or a report) that allows you to import from a text file directly into a Navision table or export from a Navision table to a text file. For those of you familiar with SQL, it is similar to DTS. Dataports can be programmed to do just about anything, but to keep things simple I will explain how to export from the G/L Entry table to a text file that can then be opened in Excel.
In Navision, go to Tools, Object Designer. You need the proper license and permissions to do this. Click on the Dataport button on the left hand side of the screen. You should see a list of all the dataports in your database. Find the first number that is greater than 50,000 that isn’t already used and write it down. For this example I will use 50,003. Hit the New button at the bottom of the screen. You are now inside your first dataport! You should see a screen that has two columns: DataItem and Name. Under the DataItem field do a lookup and double click on G/L Entry. Next, go to View Properties. Click in the value column of the ReqFilterFields and an ellipsis button (3 dots) appears on the right hand side of the screen. Click on the 3 dots. This will open another screen called the Field List. On the first line do a lookup and choose G/L Account No., click “OK”, go to the next line, do another lookup, choose Posting Date and hit “OK”. Now make sure you click “OK” at the bottom of the Field List screen which will bring you back to the Properties screen. Close the property screen and go to View, Dataport Fields. Go to the SourceExpr field, do a lookup and choose G/L Account No. On consecutive lines below choose the following fields: Posting Date, Document No., Description and Amount. Your screen should look like this:
These fields will end up being columns in your Excel spreadsheet. Close out of this screen to go back to the DataItem screen. Go down to an empty line below your G/L Entry DataItem. Now go to View, Properties. On the Import property type in N for No in the Value field. Then on the FieldSeperator property type in <TAB> exactly. Close out of this screen and then go to File, Close. It will ask you if you want to save, say yes. Under ID, type in the number you wrote down earlier; I chose 50,003. Under name type G/L Export and click “OK”. You’re almost done!
Make sure your newly created dataport is highlighted and click “Run” on the bottom right of the screen to start your dataport. It should look similar to running a report. Set filters on the first screen for Account No. and/or Posting Date. Click on the options tab, hit the ellipsis button (…) and browse to a file location where you want to save the file. After you browse to a location, type in a name in the File Name field (for example GLExport.xls) making sure it ends in .XLS. Click “Save” then click “OK” at the bottom of the screen. A status bar will pop up showing the progress of your export. As soon as it is done, open Excel. Go to File, Open and browse to the file you just created. When the Text Import Wizard pops up, just hit finish and voila your data is in Excel! Add headings and formatting and then you are all done. Now that your dataport is created you can run it over and over, but don’t forget to set filters to control what records are exported. Have fun!