4 Benefits of Upgrading Dynamics SL to Acumatica Project Accounting

Teams that require online, secure access look for a better solution and find it with Acumatica Project Accounting

As you've no doubt heard by now, cloud-based software has numerous benefits. If you're still using Microsoft Dynamics SL and finding it difficult to manage project accounting without web access. Read more how a virtual CFO firm trusted EIS Consulting Acumatica consultants to help implement and automate their accounting functions in the cloud.

Time For a Change

Recent challenges related to remote work cascading from the pandemic highlighted a key pain point of users of client-server architecture requiring you to be onsite to access the software, or having to use complex, third-party interfaces to access your data.

Here are some ways that cloud-based project accounting software such as Acumatica, implemented by experts, can transform your ability to serve your customers and maintain business continuity no matter where your staff needs or wants to work.

Case Study: 4 Ways Virtual CFO Firm Benefits from a Simplified Accounting Tool

In one example of what life after Microsoft Dynamics SL looks like, the team at Virtual CFO Inc. (vcfo) now enjoys real, web-based access through a browser to run project accounting. Since Acumatica has been implemented by EIS Consulting, the vcfo team solves a number of inefficiencies and pain points that were holding them back on Dynamics SL, including:

1. Simplified Time and Expense Entry and Approval is much easier for program managers at vcfo now that they have switched to Acumatica. They no longer have to manually review the imported data, then spend time to validate hours and billing rates. With Acumatica Time and Expense, data entry is easier, it's validated during entry, which means program managers can approve and validate data more quickly. EIS extended Acumatica using the Google Maps API to enable vcfo's users to visually record mileage for travel reimbursement on a map, saving time and frustration.

2. Simplified Invoicing in Acumatica enables an easy way to review and approve invoices before they are generated. If issues with time cards or billing rates are discovered after the invoices are generated, the team no longer has to manually create credit memos which then can often get applied to the wrong invoices. In addition, Dynamics SL had no way to print notes from the time cards on invoices, so invoices were exported as PDFs and combined with a time card notes report (using a product called Liaison) before emailing invoices to customers. This long, multi-step process to generate invoices, had to be conducted weekly. By switching to Acumatica, vcfo was able to take advantage of proformas to review and approve invoices and make adjustments before releasing the final invoice to the customer. As well, Acumatica was natively able to print the time card notes on the invoices, eliminating the need for another integration with Liaison.

3. Consolidated Billing: By switching to Acumatica, EIS made it easy for vcfo to merge any duplicate customers and create multiple projects under the same customer when needed. And with customizations, Acumatica is able to consolidate the invoices so customers only receive one invoice per month across all projects containing vcfo services. Previously in Dynamics SL, when a customer purchased multiple services from vcfo (e.g. financial services and HR services), they were forced to create duplicate customer records due to a software limitation. This resulted in the customer receiving multiple invoices for each service line, which caused confusion for both customers and vcfo's accounting staff, which can delay payment and hurt cashflow.

4. Dashboards and Reports meeting vcfo's needs were natively available in Acumatica, and could be easily modified to match what was built in Power BI which they were using alongside Dynamics SL which lacked the reports and dashboards they needed. And because Acumatica has a native integration to Power BI, vcfo was able to reuse their Power BI reports and dashboards and make them available right inside Acumatica. This brought all dashboards and reports into one application, making it easier for users to get the information they need.

Read the full success story here.

Specialized Experts Make the Difference

At Eclectic Innovative Solutions (EIS), our subscription-based services model helps reduce your upfront costs, gives you a faster ROI (return on your investment in ERP), and is designed to help your system continually evolve with you as your business evolves, grows, and changes over time.

Contact the EIS Acumatica consulting team today!  Visit our EIS website, call 833-347-5190 or email us.