Reading headlines about tax evasion, fraud, and other common tax mistakes gives most of us a shiver and the incentive to place a call to our accounting team. The tax codes are constantly changing and often require the assistance of a tax professional to interpret.  Protect your financial data, and sleep well at night, by collecting your important financial data in a robust enterprise resource planning (ERP) software solution, such as Microsoft Dynamics® GP.

You’ve heard the stories about people that save their receipts and financial summaries in a shoebox that they hand to their accountant when tax time comes around.  While it may seem like an exaggeration, it isn’t too far off the mark and not limited to individuals. Businesses that use disparate software programs, basic accounting software, and fancy spreadsheets are similar to the person with the shoebox. Using different methods to collect and analyze your business data leaves you with a collection of information in different formats that may include redundant data, errors, and lead to false conclusions. Get everything connected and on the same page with a comprehensive ERP solution like Microsoft Dynamics GP. 

Microsoft Dynamics GP provides a single, easy-to-use solution to manage all of your core business functions including finances, supply chain, manufacturing, project and services, human resources and payroll, and much more.  Each of your team can use a Role-Tailored interface to enter and analyze data pertinent to their jobs, eliminating distracting features that they don’t need or won’t use. Data can be routed automatically for approvals, shared and analyzed by the team, and Microsoft Dynamics GP offers full audit control. You can grant full or limited access to certain parts of your software, customer data, or features by using security features. Protect proprietary or customer financial data, for example, by limiting access to directors or managers. You can also monitor data edits by using notifications to alert when data changes are being made. Know who made the changes and why so you can control data integrity.

Storing all of your financial information in a single software solution, like Microsoft Dynamics GP, will make it easier to access the data you need to make swift business decisions or prepare reports to regulatory or taxing agencies.  Contact BroadPoint Technologies for more information about protecting your most important data, your financials, which can also protect your business from making tax mistakes. 

Contact BroadPoint Technologies, a Microsoft Dynamics partner for Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and Washington, DC, for more information.

Choosing new ERP (enterprise resource planning) software for your organization can be a complicated process, and the outcome will have important long-term consequences. Choose correctly, and your new ERP solution can help you achieve the control, productivity, and insight you need to take your business forward with confidence. Choose incorrectly, and you risk diverting time, money, and management focus to making the solution work instead of making your business succeed.

At BroadPoint Technologies, we stand by solutions from Microsoft because they ultimately help businesses reduce:

• Core business risk—A business solution from Microsoft goes beyond stand-alone accounting or ERP software to create an integrated, end-to-end view of your entire business. This helps you reduce business risk by proactively managing all of your business processes, including production, purchasing, warehousing, distribution, marketing, and sales. In addition, a unique combination of business intelligence, collaboration, and communication tools are embedded throughout our business management solution, providing an intuitive and familiar user experience that increases user adoption and inspires productivity. 
• The risk of the unexpected—On-demand access to critical information and integrated business intelligence tools help you and your people spot potential problems before they occur and quickly address those that arise before they can impact customer satisfaction and sales.
• Change-related risks—Microsoft is a stable organization with a demonstrated history of innovation and a solid reputation for service after the sale. Our global network of locally based technology partners are available to help you take the risk out of deployment, integration with other business applications you use, upgrading, and extending our solutions. Flexible on-premises or subscription-based licensing options let you decide how best to purchase and deploy your software.

Learn more about a business solution from BroadPoint Technologies, request a quick quote on Microsoft Dynamics GP, download one of our white papers or register for an upcoming webinar.

Contact BroadPoint Technologies, a Microsoft Dynamics partner for Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and Washington, DC, for more information.

Business intelligence holds more weight than most people can imagine.  The importance of real-time, accurate financial data can make or break a company's backbone.  You may have a gut-feeling about what companies are buying your products or services or who your best customer may be, but why take guesses when you can access the facts with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, such as Microsoft Dynamics® GP.

Microsoft Dynamics GP is a comprehensive ERP solution that provides management of your core business operations from the front office to the back warehouse.  You and your team can manage financials, manufacturing, supply chain, project and services management, human resources and payroll, and much more from this single software solution.   In addition, Microsoft Dynamics GP offers powerful business intelligence and analytics so you can make sense of your business data and use it to leverage growth.

An integrated solution introduces automation and eliminates the need for redundant data entry, both of which protects data integrity.  Your entire team can enter and share data within this single solution, which means your data won’t get lost in translation from one software program to the next creative spreadsheet.  You can set up notifications to alert you when there are changes or updates to certain customer accounts, product sales data, or other financial data.  Audit trails will tell you who is making edits and why, so you can validate changes.  The built in reporting features make it easier to determine which product or service is sold the most, has the highest profit margin, or if sales are lagging.  Once you know what is going on, you can take swift action to respond.  You can boost sales by offering your customer a product that may complement the products they already buy.  Streamline manufacturing or supply chain operations to squeeze more profit or productivity out of your efforts.  You can also monitor key metrics, in real time, to make sure operations are running as smoothly as possible. 

Disparate software and creative spreadsheets create bottlenecks to collecting accurate, meaningful data.  An integrated software solution, like Microsoft Dynamics GP, puts your data at your fingertips and in a format that is easy to understand and can be used to drive growth. 

Contact BroadPoint Technologies, your Microsoft Dynamics GP partner for Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and Washington,DC, for additional information about Microsoft Dynamics GP and the powerful reporting and business analytics that can take your business to the next level.

Many organizations attempt to manage business processes with disconnected systems only to find they're wasting a lot of time and resources cross-referencing inaccurate and untimely data.  There is no reason to get your IT department to integrate different programs when there is already a viable solution available.  Microsoft Dynamics® CRM integrates quickly and easily with the suite of Microsoft Dynamics® ERP software solutions.  You can connect financials and other core business data with customer data to get the real time data you need to increase sales.

A lot of businesses are getting their feet wet with social media and start with having someone monitor popular social sites.  You also have a marketing team that wants to deliver a message and a sales team that wants to sell your products or services.  Your teams have their own set of directives and goals and their own ways of collecting and sharing data.  Compiling and analyzing their data leaves you with a creative mess of information that is likely old by the time it reaches your desk.  Acting on unreliable, outdated data can send you down the wrong path.  Give you entire team a single software solution that will help them work together and provide you with meaningful, timely data.  Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a comprehensive customer relationship management (CRM) solution that collects prospect and customer data, integrates with social media, and delivers insight you can use to improve marketing efficiencies, boost sales, and connect with customers.  

Microsoft Dynamics CRM offers an easy way for your team to collect and organize information about customers, prospects, leads, marketing efforts, and more.  Built in behavioral and marketing analytics provide insight into your customers’ needs and buying habits.  Learn about what they buy, when, and what keeps their interest so your marketing team can deliver meaningful marketing materials to keep their attention.  Similarly, determine the types of businesses that are most likely to buy your products or services and focus marketing efforts on the prospects that will respond to your marketing efforts, instead of hit delete or throw away your mailings.  You can also use Microsoft Dynamics CRM to tap into social media to see what people are saying about your products or services.  Use ideas or respond to new opportunities that your customers are sharing online.

Connecting your business data with Microsoft Dynamics CRM will provide current, reliable data you can use to create successful marketing campaigns and communicate with prospects and customers in a new ways. 

Contact BroadPoint Technologies, a Microsoft Dynamics CRM partner for Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and Washington, DC, for more information.

Are you getting your message out there properly – to the right people and in the right way?  Are you sure?  Blanketing social media, email inboxes, and the postal service with your message and product information is not effective and can be very costly.  Fine-tune your marketing efforts and measure results with Microsoft Dynamics® CRM.

Even if you had the time to personally shake hands with all the business leaders and other prospects in your region, or beyond, there is no guarantee that there will be a high rate of success.  It isn’t really about how many people you reach, but whether you reach the right people in the right manner.  You have a lot of options at your disposal to reach prospects and customers – radio and TV, billboards, email and internet marketing, traditional mail, and the ever-growing field of social media.  Using a software solution like Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you can tailor each marketing campaign to attract the ideal prospects, keep the attention of current customers, as well as measure the results of your efforts.

Mass marketing campaigns are often so broad, with such a diluted message, that your efforts are more likely to get deleted or tossed out than seriously considered.  Using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution will provide the data and insight you need to customize marketing efforts to address specific interests for both prospects and customers.  Knowing the types of businesses that are most likely to be interested in your products or services will make it easier to design a focused message and get it in the hands of the right prospects.  Similarly, sending a meaningful message to your existing customers will strengthen your business relationship and can lead to increased sales.  The right message, sent to the right people, using the ideal channels, can save you valuable time and money.

Another benefit of using Microsoft Dynamics CRM is that you can measure the results of your marketing efforts and further fine-tune future marketing activities.  Determine what efforts yielded the best results and which efforts missed the mark.  There is no reason to waste time or money on marketing activities that don’t work.  Focus efforts on what works well in attracting new prospects, as well as maintaining the interest of existing customers.  Contact BroadPoint Technologies for additional information about how Microsoft Dynamics CRM can help you reach prospects and customers so you can shake hands with the right people.

With each passing day, mobile CRM becomes increasingly more embedded in day-to-day business activity. In fact, almost 90% of executives state that within three years, mobile devices will be critical to their company’s success.

As recently as a few years ago, we would not even consider leaving the house without our wallet or purse. Now, smartphones and tablets go with us everywhere and keep us connected from anywhere.
But those mobile devices are being used for more than just chatting and updating social media. We are seeing real business value being achieved through the use of mobile CRM across all kinds of industries.

Recently, BroadPoint teamed up with other members of the CRM Software Blog to create a white paper that discusses some real-world applications of mobile CRM. The white paper is titled, “Why Go Mobile? Six Strategic Objectives You Can Conquer With Mobile CRM” and describes how organizations are using mobile CRM to increase sales value, reduce the sales cycle, accelerate cash flow and improve productivity.

And mobile CRM doesn’t only apply to your customers and prospects. This white paper will show you how you can empower your workforce to work faster and smarter using the latest mobile technology. Download the white paper today to learn more about the impact of mobile CRM on today’s business and how your organization can take the next step to success.

A Day in the Life Series: Part 2

BroadPoint is committed to help Nonprofits, Associations and member-based organizations make measurable business improvements and succeed. That’s why we’ve created an educational series of blogs and webinars based on your very real challenges.

Register to attend this webinar

Read Part 1: How Nonprofits can go from Manual to Automatic and Kick the Paper Habit for Good.

Meet Jim, Association CFO

As we hear from many CFOs for nonprofits and associations, Jim’s role requires him to wear many hats and encompasses a spectrum of responsibilities from financial management to human resources to IT. His executive director depends on him to consistently evaluate performance, forecast growth and deliver actionable insight so the board can make the best decisions for the future of the organization.

While it is understood that Business Intelligence is critical to execute on the objectives of the association, there are few (if any) adequate financial reporting tools which makes it difficult to use key performance data as a competitive advantage. Limited access to data means others can’t view important information or generate custom reports, putting the responsibility directly on Jim’s team. The lack of visibility into financial and performance data is becoming a huge barrier to the association’s ability to collaborate, grow and succeed.

Jim's Biggest Challenges:

1. Inability to analyze and utilize key performance data
2. Inadequate financial reporting tools
3. Inefficient process of getting the right information to the right people
4. Inability to query and drill down into relevant financial data
5. Limited access to performance information across the association

Transforming Data into Actionable Insight

As members and donors are engaging more online and through multiple devices, the sheer amount of valuable data available to associations and nonprofits is exploding. The challenge becomes not only how to access and manage the data, but how to use the data profitably for stronger marketing, better communication and strategic decision making. Association leaders like Jim have asked BroadPoint to help them implement tools to improve their financial management including business intelligence, analytics, forecasting and reporting.

Real-time Analytics & Financial Reporting

The ability to analyze performance data is key for Jim and other leaders of the association to break through obstacles and discover new opportunities. It’s important for any organization, but particularly in the highly competitive world of associations and nonprofits.  

• Ad Hoc Smartlist Reports: Microsoft Dynamics GP has a handy built-in tool that allows users to select specific data and to craft their own reports to export directly into Excel or Word. This is makes it much faster and easier when you don’t have time to write a custom report in other software.


• Built-in Excel tools: Excel offers several reporting and analytics features like pivot tables, graphs and charts in an already familiar and easy-to-use environment.  

Self-Service Business Intelligence

Part of the problem for Jim and many association leaders is that the tools and resources to transform data into meaningful business intelligence are extremely limited. With simplified BI tools, everyone can participate in gathering, analyzing and utilizing information to drive success.

• BroadPoint BI:  Designed to align with your ERP system and automate BI across the association with a streamlined suite of tools.

• Custom Dashboards and Alerts:  With Microsoft Dynamics GP, everyone can setup their own custom dashboards to view the information they need in real time with alerts to ensure timely action on approvals and decisions.

Collaborative Insight

To realize the full potential and value from the association’s data, Jim’s team can’t be the only players on the field. When executives and staff can securely access information and collaborate from anywhere, work gets done in a fraction of the time.

• Microsoft Interoperability: With collaboration at the core, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Office and SharePoint make it easy to extend access to real-time data, reports, and collaboration tools whether people are working in the office or on the road.

How can you start using data as a competitive advantage?

Join us for a free webinar where you’ll have the opportunity to see for yourself the same processes, tools and technology used to solve Jim’s biggest challenges and how they might benefit your own organization. BroadPoint experts will be on hand to break down the challenges, show innovative solutions and answer any questions.

Webinar: 5 Ways Association Leaders can use
Data as a Competitive Advantage

REGISTER NOW

Date: May 16, 2013

Time: 2:00pm EDT

If you’re like a lot of small and midsize businesses today, your current systems are nudging you further and further out of your comfort zone. They get the basic job done, as long as nothing out of the ordinary happens. But what will happen when you want to open a new store or warehouse, expand to new markets, or add an additional line of business? Do you find it harder to connect with suppliers and customers, comply with new tax laws or environmental regulations, or keep customers loyal with the new competition you face in a global economy? These scenarios aren’t business as usual, but they’re part of the new normal. And if it’s getting harder for your existing systems to keep your business moving forward, now’s the time to take action.

You’re sure to find several vendors that offer improved financial reporting, inventory management, budgeting capabilities, and so forth. But do they offer a unified solution that goes beyond business process automation and basic ERP (enterprise resource planning) functionality to deliver a complete and unified vision for your business? A comprehensive and modern solution delivers capabilities that are out of scope for many product offerings, such as:

• Integrated business intelligence, collaboration, and communication tools that span your core business processes.
• A user experience that blends personal and work computing and inspires your people and your customers.
• Anytime, anywhere access to make your people more productive.
• Flexible cloud or on-premises deployment options that won’t hold your data hostage.
• Affordable pricing models to reduce or eliminate up-front capital expenditures.

So after taking these things into consideration, we have an assignment for you today: Make sure you can mark the box indicating that the solution you choose can take you beyond business as usual.

While doing so, please learn more about a business solution from BroadPoint Technologies, request a quick quote on Microsoft Dynamics GP, register for an upcoming webinar, or contact us for more information.

There are multiple components to properly managing your customers and keeping them happy.  While you may want to spread the workload amongst several teams, you can use customer relationship management (CRM) software, like Microsoft Dynamics® CRM, to keep your team working seamlessly together.  You do not need separate, specialty software programs to manage marketing efforts, sales, or customer service activities.  You can take care of the entire process from reaching out to prospects, to closing a sale, to following up with customers with an integrated CRM solution. 

Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides the foundation for managing multichannel marketing activities, such as social media, web, email, billboard, and other marketing efforts.  Plan, create, and execute marketing campaigns, and measure the results to determine which efforts are more successful than others.  In Microsoft Dynamics CRM, built in workflows can route assignments faster so that campaigns are released faster.  Then, as you begin to make real connections with prospects, you will learn the effectiveness of your campaign efforts. 

Your sales team can access Microsoft Dynamics CRM anytime and anywhere using a browser and a mobile device.  They can quickly and easily access customer data while they are waiting in the lobby for their next sales meeting or out for lunch.  Detailed customer data will empower them to answer questions, track orders, or follow up after deliveries.  Customer sales histories will also provide insight into your customer buying habits.  Your sales team can cross-sell or up-sell based on customer preferences and can be pro-active for customers that require replenishment orders.

Reach out to your customers in their preferred way with a meaningful, personalized message.  Your sales team can add detailed customer notes in Microsoft Dynamics CRM such as whether you customer prefers a phone call, email, or letter; as well as contract data, product specifications, or other important information.  Don’t forget to make a phone call or mail out the latest product guide.  Review a history of each touch point so you know that your customer has up-to-date information about the products or services you offer.  Providing customers with such personalized care will enrich their experience with your team, generate loyalty, and could lead to new business with other companies within their network.

There are a lot of elements to manage in order to attract new customers and provide unsurpassed customer service.  Control marketing and sales efforts, as well as customer service activities in a single, integrated CRM software solution like Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  Contact BroadPoint Technologies for more information about this one-stop-shop software and how it can help you boost sales and improve customer service.

Similar to the police force, Microsoft Dynamics® GP holds true to this motto for your accounting information.  Your financial data is the lifeblood of your business.  Of all the possible areas throughout your organization, financial data is not the place to make miscalculations, lose data, or make other mistakes. 

That’s why it’s extremely important to protect your most critical data, financial and other core data, by using a powerful enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, like Microsoft Dynamics GP. You can manage your general ledger, payables and receivables, cash flow, debt expenses, assets, collections, and much more from Microsoft Dynamics GP.  This integrated software will save you and your accounting team a lot of time and trouble by streamlining how information is entered and shared.  For example, you can transfer data between Receivables Management and Payables Management to create a customer record using information already present in a vendor record.  Automatically sharing data between different accounting functions will save time and improve productivity.  This type of data-sharing also protects the integrity of your data by reducing the need to print or email customer data to another co-worker to double-enter data in another portion of the accounting software.  This automation also extends to bank reconciliation, account management, payment scheduling, check printing, and even refunding credits to customers, as well as updating the general ledger.  Connecting all of these important financial elements in a single software solution will reduce the chance for data-entry errors, losing important information, and other common mistakes. 

An integrated ERP software solution, like Microsoft Dynamics GP, also provides control and insight over supply chain, manufacturing operations, project and services management, and other core business processes.  A thorough understanding of the inner workings of your business provides a higher level of business intelligence which will serve you well.  You can determine your best selling products or services, top customers, as well as areas where you can make improvements.  Microsoft Dynamics GP will help you control inventory levels so you have the inventory when you need it, without overbuying and putting pressure on cash flow.  You can also use historical customer data to find new cross-sell or up-sell opportunities.  Big picture insight, above and beyond basic accounting data, will help position your business for growth.

Protect your critical business data in a comprehensive ERP solution like Microsoft Dynamic GP.  The control and insight will provide the insight to make the swift decisions to grow your business and provide top-notice service to your customers. 

If you feel your current accounting system isn’t meeting your security and business needs, join us on February 26^th for a free webinar: Top Five Reasons Why CFO’s are Leaving QuickBooks.

By BroadPoint Technologies, a Microsoft ERP Partner with offices in Virginia, North Carolina and Washington DC