WebSan Solutions’ Microsoft Dynamics GP and CRM interactive demos help evaluate the two software’s capabilities within minutes and gives an overview of each system’s look, features and functionality. The demos serve to give a preview of the software before deciding to purchase and insight into the additional functionality for those who have experience using the systems. With over 200 downloads, our demos have given businesses an inside look into what Dynamics GP and CRM can offer.

An updated version of our Dynamics GP and CRM demos are now available. The demos’ interactive functionality allow the user to click through and type in data, making for an engaging experience.

The Dynamics GP demo now features common business issues faced such as poor project management and limited project visibility and addresses how Dynamics GP’s modules and functionality can solve these issues.

The Dynamics CRM demo presents new features available in the newly released CRM 2015 version. The demo gives a sneak peek into Dynamics CRM’s top features including Global Search and Nested Quick Create Forms.

Get started and download our free interactive Dynamics GP and CRM demos to see the systems’ capabilities today! 

On Thursday, June 25^th, WebSan will present a free webinar to teach attendees how to jumpstart their Marketing efforts using Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The webinar will feature tactics to create and manage Marketing lists, differentiate Quick Campaigns from Campaigns, manage Campaigns from start to finish and use Dashboards to track performance.

The 30-minute webinar will discuss the key components of the Marketing area in CRM, give tips on how to use Marketing lists to create Quick Campaigns, how to manage responses and measure the performance of Marketing efforts.   

Register and don’t miss out on your chance to take part in this new CRM Marketing webinar!

Register for “Get the 4-1-1 on Dynamics Marketing Webinar” on June 25, 11 AM EST

 Linz Tan, Web Marketing Assistant, WebSan Solutions Inc. a 2014 Ontario Business Achievement Award Winner for Service Excellence

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 R2 was released in the beginning of June. Set to target small to mid-sized businesses, the release brought in new functionality that was unavailable in previous releases. Here are some notable features that the release offers:

1. Ability to Display Debits Before Credits

Under the account transaction reporting options, the debit column is now displayed before the credit column by default.  This new feature applies to SmartLists, Excel reports, database tables and views where the reports are based on.

2. Email Capability on All Sales Order Document Formats

For any document format, users now have the email option for all Sales Order documents when printing from the Transaction Entry Window, Print Sales Documents window, and Navigation Lists.

When evaluating an ERP software and choosing a partner that will provide implementation, it’s important to consider how well both can support your organization’s needs. Along with our ERP Assessment, which measures how well an organization is optimizing their ERP software, WebSan’s ERP Whitepaper is a valuable resource that will give insight into ways an organization can benefit from a new ERP system.

The “27 Powerful Questions to Ask ERP Providers Whitepaper” addresses a variety of topics, including possible business opportunities, security and risk, implementation, training and support and scalability. The different sections of the ERP Whitepaper aim to provide information that will give an overview of the ERP software, data ownership, additional resources, tech support, and system updates.  

Download our free ERP Whitepaper and learn how you can improve efficiency and make better business decisions with the right ERP software. When you download our free ERP Whitepaper, you can take our free ERP Assessment and gain access to our Microsoft Dynamics GP and CRM demos! 

Click here to download our free ERP Whitepaper!

 Linz Tan, Web Marketing Assistant, WebSan Solutions Inc. a 2014 Ontario Business Achievement Award Winner for Service Excellence

Come July 14, Microsoft is set to end support for Microsoft Server 2003. After this date, Microsoft will no longer provide security updates, fixes or online support for Windows Server 2003. Businesses across Canada who choose not to upgrade could leave themselves and their customers exposed to security risks, increased compliance, electronic data loss, hackers and may lose the ability to accept credit cards.

According to Microsoft Canada, big companies would take about 150 to 200 days to upgrade its servers. While migrating to an updated operating system comes with some challenges, the gains would ultimately outweigh the risks that not upgrading would pose to businesses and customers. Businesses should see this as an opportunity to modernize infrastructure or consider hosted options for securing data.

Microsoft Canada suggests that customers can either upgrade and migrate to a new server software (such as Windows Server 2012 R2) or use cloud services which would cost less than a migration, reduce hardware and still provide adequate protection.

For businesses considering hosted services on the cloud, WebSan Solutions offers Microsoft Dynamics GP and CRM which allows for rapid deployment, low total cost of ownership and a robust solution that scales and grows depending on a business’ needs. Reduce the number of days it would take for your business to upgrade by switching to one of WebSan Solutions’ Microsoft Dynamics GP and CRM offerings.

Click here to learn more about Microsoft Dynamics GP and CRM

On Thursday, May 28^th, WebSan will present a webinar that will feature fascinating Microsoft Dynamics CRM Tactics that can help your business grow. The webinar will highlight the sales area, data that will comprise charts, different types of dashboards and tips on how to use visual data to drive your sales process.

The free webinar will discuss valuable concepts and processes such as the business process flow, global search and goal setting. A rundown of timesaving tips to help users make the most efficient use of their resources when navigating through CRM will also be given in this webinar.

Our CRM webinars have been some of our most requested, so register below to reserve your spot and take part in this webinar!

Register for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Tactics Webinar on May 28, 11 AM EST

 Linz Tan, Web Marketing Assistant, WebSan Solutions Inc. a 2014 Ontario Business Achievement Award Winner for Service Excellence

 WebSan Solutions Inc., a cloud Microsoft Dynamics Certified Partner and IT consulting and solutions provider has moved to a new office that offers a bigger and brighter workspace. The new office space will support a significant expansion of WebSan’s team and the growth that the Canadian company is continually experiencing.

The previous office space that the company occupied had limited space which could no longer support the increase in WebSan’s team. As WebSan continues to experience business growth, an expansion in office space was a natural next step to better accommodate the team’s needs and an increase in new clients.   

Over the past year, WebSan has acquired a substantial number of new clients and particularly strengthened its Dynamics CRM practice.

“Our team is excited about expanding our office space to accommodate WebSan’s growth. The new office space will not only allow us to better serve our customers, but also reflects our progression as a company,” said Andrew King, Managing Director of WebSan Solutions Inc. 

Linz Tan, Web Marketing Assistant, WebSan Solutions Inc. a 2014 Ontario Business Achievement Award Winner for Service Excellence

Purchasing ERP software is a major investment for any organization as it is one of the most important technologies used to manage business functions and processes.  For an organization to determine if they are optimizing their ERP software’s capabilities, taking an ERP Assessment will prove to be extremely useful.

An ERP Assessment is used to evaluate the capabilities of an organization’s current ERP system. A valuable ERP Assessment will help determine whether an organization’s team is equipped with the tools and information it needs to function effectively and find out whether or not the organization’s ERP system is meeting the business’s needs.

An ERP Assessment will look into different aspects of the organization, such as system integration, quality of received data, use of Microsoft Excel, budget, and dependence on paper forms and templates.

Understanding how an organization utilizes their ERP system will provide insight into possible opportunities, potential risks, and areas that require improvement.

Take our free ERP Assessment and learn how you can best leverage your ERP software. When you take our free ERP Assessment, you will gain access to our free Dynamics GP and CRM demos and an ERP whitepaper!

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 was designed to address businesses’ needs to collaborate among different divisions and groups within the organization, and to meet the changing needs of their customers. In line with this release, WebSan will offer a “Top 5 Features in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015” webinar on Thursday, April 30, 2015 at 11 AM EST.

The free webinar aims to offer attendees insight into the key features introduced and understanding of the advantages of upgrading to Dynamics CRM 2015. Some of the features that will be discussed in the webinar include: global search, calculated and rollup fields, hierarchy visualization and nested quick create forms.

This webinar has been one of our most requested training sessions, so register below to reserve your spot and take part!

Register for “Top 5 Features in Dynamics CRM 2015 webinar” on Apr. 30, 11 AM EST

 Linz Tan, Web Marketing Assistant, WebSan Solutions Inc. a 2014 Ontario Business Achievement Award Winner for Service Excellence

On April 23^rd, WebSan will present Part Three of the Manufacturing webinar series for Microsoft Dynamics GP, which will focus on machines, labour codes and work centres. The webinar is a continuation of WebSan’s Manufacturing series, where Part One featured Manufacturing concepts, and Part Two discussed Items and Bill of Materials.

Part Three of the webinar series aims to teach attendees about work centre terms, tips and techniques to assign employees and machines to a work centre, and how to enter, edit and/delete machine records and labour codes.

The Manufacturing module continues to be one of our most popular webinar series, so register below to reserve your spot and take part in this webinar!

Register for Part 3-Machines, Labour Codes and Work Centres on Apr. 23, 11 AM EST

Linz Tan, Web Marketing Assistant, WebSan Solutions Inc. a 2014 Ontario Business Achievement Award Winner for Service Excellence

WebSan Solutions Inc., a cloud Microsoft Dynamics Certified Partner and IT consulting and solutions provider, has been recognized as one of Canada’s top 100 Solution Providers in 2014 by Computer Dealer News (CDN). WebSan has over a decade of experience in Enterprise Software solutions, along with business and financial accounting software.

The list was announced on April 15, 2015 at the Top 100 Solution Providers Awards Gala. CDN has been the voice of Canada's IT channel community for more than 25 years and defines an information technology solution provider as an organization that resells computer hardware, software or peripheral products along with providing IT related professional services, support services, or consulting in a cloud or on-demand environment, on-premise fashion or as managed services.

“We are thrilled to be on this list for a third year in a row.” says Andrew King, Managing Director, WebSan Solutions Inc. “We continue to provide small to medium sized business with outstanding support and training and our growth has enabled us to reach this milestone.”

The Top 100 solution providers produce strong growth, and 2014 was no exception. With an above industry norm jump of five percent, the $6.7 billion dollar mark in annual Canadian revenue was reached, according to tabulations from CDN and IDC Canada.

“The CDN Top 100 Solutions Providers is a tough list to get on and to stay on. Each year we see many companies move up and down or even off the list. It demonstrates the great resolve of these Canadian entrepreneurs and the true innovation being developed by this community. CDN believes it’s important to recognize this community for its outstanding work and the CDN Top 100 Solutions Providers list and gala is a great outlet for that,” said Paolo Del Nibletto, Associate Publisher and Editor of Computer Dealer News (CDN), Canada’s No. 1 IT channel publication and Web site.

When organizing your business’ data and sorting through multiple categories and headings, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the time-consuming process. Structured Query Language (SQL) used in Microsoft Dynamics GP serves to retrieve information from databases through the use of basic statements and clauses. Here are some SQL features that can help you sort through data quickly in Microsoft Dynamics GP:

• Select clause – Allows you to pull and read data from the database. Often using the Select * format, this statement enables the user to select data from columns and tables such as a list of customers.
• Where clause – Used to filter your list based on a certain condition, such as to specify a customer’s country or location.
• Alias syntax – Enables the user to rename a database table or a column in a table. This function becomes especially useful when there are multiple tables in a query or when column names are long and not easily readable.
• Join clause – Helps to combine and add more columns in your data. The join clause is often used to combine fields from two tables by using values that are common to each. 
• Group by clause – Allows you to compress, consolidate and summarize data. This clause is used together with aggregate functions to group a result set into one or more columns.

To learn more about SQL queries and common functions in Microsoft Dynamics GP, register for our online course! 

Register for SQL 100 course in WebSan University

Linz Tan, Web Marketing Assistant, WebSan Solutions Inc. a 2014 Ontario Business Achievement Award Winner for Service Excellence.

With the recent release of Dynamics CRM 2015, Microsoft has introduced calculated fields in Dynamics CRM. Calculated fields allow you to define the value of a field using calculations operators or functions. You no longer need a developer on hand to write code, you can now create calculated fields using the CRM user interface. For example, a salesperson might want to automatically apply a discount based on an order greater than “X” dollars. The calculated field would be able to change the value using basic math operations or conditional operations.

Here is an example of a calculated field:

Order Total = ((quantity*unitprice) – ((quantity*unitprice) *Discount%/100)) + ((quantity*unitprice) – ((quantity*unitprice) *Discount%/100) *Tax%/100)

Here are some fields that are considered calculated fields:

•           Weighted Revenue: Estimated revenue multiplied by probability
•           Net Worth: Assets subtracted from the liabilities for a given account
•          Follow Up By: Follow up on an activity by a specified number of days based on priority

The type of mathematic operations that you could use are:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is set to see a substantial update this spring, with the release of Carina. This will serve as the first major update to the new CRM 2015.  Although an exact date for its release is yet to be determined, CRM users and partners are abuzz with the features and added functionality that Carina promises. Here are some notable features that can be expected:

1. Enhanced Excel Integration

The new update will allow Excel users to open their data in spreadsheets within CRM. This serves as a valuable feature for quick visibility and analysis of data, and eliminates any compatibility issues that may arise should you have a different version of Excel installed.

2. OneNote Online Integration

Users can now take notes, create voice memos, capture photos and clip web pages from any mobile device (such as iPads or Android phones) and attach them to CRM using OneNote.

WebSan Solutions, the largest Canadian Cloud Dynamics partner, offers users the ability to access Dynamics GP on a tablet. Customers now have an alternative way to access and create accounting transactions, without having to log in through their desktop computers.

“We see this as a natural extension of our Cloud Dynamics offerings. No other partner has made the commitment that WebSan has to provide this much flexibility to our customers,” says Andrew King, Managing Director of WebSan Solutions.

As long as there’s an active Internet connection, users would be able to use all of the capabilities of Dynamics GP, which also includes exporting SmartLists to Microsoft Excel with ease. WebSan’s Cloud Dynamics GP solution  allows users to quickly and securely access Dynamics on-the-go using Android, iOS and Windows devices.

An element that makes Dynamics GP on a tablet even more valuable is the feature that lets users print and email documents (i.e. Invoices) on the fly.

The ability to provide access to critical financial information to executives on devices other than a computer is important to a business. Get the insight you need to manage your business and improve the decision-making process by making it portable. 

WebSan Solutions, the largest Canadian Cloud Dynamics partner, offers users the ability to access Dynamics GP on a tablet. Customers now have an alternative way to access and create accounting transactions, without having to log in through their desktop computers.

“We see this as a natural extension of our Cloud Dynamics offerings. No other partner has made the commitment that WebSan has to provide this much flexibility to our customers,” says Andrew King, Managing Director of WebSan Solutions.

As long as there’s an active Internet connection, users would be able to use all of the capabilities of Dynamics GP, which also includes exporting SmartLists to Microsoft Excel with ease. WebSan’s Cloud Dynamics GP solution  allows users to quickly and securely access Dynamics on-the-go using Android, iOS and Windows devices.

An element that makes Dynamics GP on a tablet even more valuable is the feature that lets users print and email documents (i.e. Invoices) on the fly.

The ability to provide access to critical financial information to executives on devices other than a computer is important to a business. Get the insight you need to manage your business and improve the decision-making process by making it portable. 

The menu bar in Microsoft Dynamics GP helps a user to easily manoeuvre around Great Plains. To optimize this feature, you can benefit from modifying and adding commonly used buttons in the menu bar. You can add buttons that fall under a variety of categories such as Financial, Sales, Purchasing, Inventory and Manufacturing.

In the menu bar, right click to add buttons:

Users are not limited to the default buttons presented in Great Plains. Buttons can be customized depending on the features that your business will need. 

To customize a button, right click on “Customize,” then choose the “Main” option and click “Add” to follow along the menu path to select which button you’d like to add. 

To learn more about Microsoft Dynamics GP’s capabilities, download our FREE interactive demo!

There are many articles that can be found detailing year-end processes in GP, but what about your month-end processes?  Dynamics GP uses a ‘soft’ close concept wherein periods are not required to be closed.  Further, periods can be reopened if needed.  However, performing a month-end is critical to ensuring you can move forward within your system without any fear of inaccuracies.

Prior to performing any special or unfamiliar processes, it is always recommended that users have a proper backup of the system.  Your system administrator should ensure backups are regularly scheduled and available if needed. 

It is recommended that the month-end process start with the POP and SOP modules.  One can think of both of these modules as feeder modules to Payables, Receivables, Fixed Assets, Bank Reconciliation and the General Ledger.  In these modules, you should ensure all batches are posted within Series Post.  Ensure all Customer Orders, Vendor Receipts and everything in between are posted.  Further, within Purchasing, one should print the Received Not Invoiced report via Reports > Analysis.  This report should tie to your accrued purchases. 

Once the above are reconciled, one should move onto the Payables and Receivables module.  For each, users should ensure all documents are properly applied, especially if multiple currencies are in use, as this will affect realized gain and loss entries.  Users can check for unapplied documents by navigating to Sales > Reports > Analysis > Unapplied Documents Report.  Further, users should also run the Reconcile to GL option within Financials in order to ensure these subledgers and GL match.  The same routine should be performed for the Inventory module.

Once all subsidiary modules are complete, uses should close out the Financial modules.  First, users should complete bank reconciliation and reconcile the Bank to the GL via the associated Financial Routine.  Users can then move onto closing the Fixed Assets module.  Remember to ensure Payables are closed prior to processing anything in Fixed Assets given the Payables feeds the Fixed Assets module.  Within Fixed Assets, users need to double check that all additions and retirements are posted.  Depreciation will need to be run and all related GL processes complete. 

Businesses looking for a Hosted Dynamics CRM solution are driven by key needs that include: Integration with third party marketing automation software, a holistic view of each customer on the go, and a need to increase productivity without increasing costs.

So what makes Dynamics CRM stand out from the rest? Here are a few reasons why Dynamics CRM is right for your business:

• Focuses on critical factors for building long-term customer relationships, such as Sales Automation, Customer Service and Marketing Excellence.
• Familiar Microsoft interface that makes the system easy to use.
• Native Microsoft Outlook client and embedded Microsoft Office features.
• Access anywhere, anytime, using a web browser, a tablet or directly within Microsoft Office Outlook.
• Customization options allow the system to adapt to your business needs and then continue to grow along with your organization.
• Automation features, such as workflows, increase your employees' productivity and reduce errors.

If you are interested in viewing Microsoft Dynamics CRM in action, download our free interactive demo!

Natalie Williams, Marketing Manager, WebSan Solutions Inc. a 2014 Ontario Business Achievement Award Winner for Service Excellence.

On February 19th, WebSan introduced a new webinar series to put a spotlight on the Manufacturing module of Microsoft Dynamics GP. Part one focused on Manufacturing concepts, where attendees learned basic Manufacturing terms and were given tips to help make implementation successful. The webinar was well-received and generated good feedback from the attendees. Part two of the Manufacturing webinar series offers a look into the Items and Bill of Materials (BOMs) module and includes a discussion of item classes, position numbers, Manufacturing accounts, BOMs entry and inquiries.

The Manufacturing module has been one of our most popular webinar series, so register below and take advantage of this free webinar!  

Register for Part 2-Items and Bill of Materials on Mar. 26, 11 AM EST

Linz Tan, Web Marketing Assistant, WebSan Solutions Inc. a 2014 Ontario Business Achievement Award Winner for Service Excellence