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Keeping it Simple with Solomon IV
2/7/03
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Welcome to our first e-zine for Solomon Users. Our goal is to deliver monthly a
FREE newsy style newsletter with simple ideas about creating solutions and tips
for your Solomon software. If this newsletter can be of value to others in your
organization or friends who are also using Solomon, please forward it on to
them, so they too can subscribe. (see end of newsletter)
Keeping it Simple.... with Solomon Accounting Software
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Vol. 2002 Issue 1
Publisher: Jeff Cozens, Systematic Solutions
Inc.
Email: jcozens@systematicsol.com
Web Site: http://www.systematicsol.com
(C) Systematic Solutions Inc. 2000-2001
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Removal
instructions at the bottom of the page.
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IN THIS ISSUE
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1. EDITORIAL
2. CUSTOMER SOURCE
3. THIRD PARTY ADD ONS
4. .NET ASSURANCE
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1. EDITORIAL
By Jeff
Cozens
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Welcome to our
first e-zine for Solomon users. Our goal is to deliver newsy style newsletters
with some simple ideas about creating solutions and tips for your Solomon
software. As with any newsletter, we do not want to
be a nuisance. If you wish pass, this newsletter on to others who use Solomon
and they can subscribe to their own copy. If our newsletter is not helpful, then
follow the directions at the end of this article and your name
will be removed from future mailings.
This last summer I attended the Stampede program for resellers in Minneapolis,
MN. This was a big event, with over 2500 attendees, who represented the
Solomon, Dynamics, E – Enterprise and Nav - Vision accounting series from
Microsoft. The biggest impression that I received, was the pending changes as
the big marketing machine for Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS), starts
kicking off. Notably the old references to Solomon Accounting and Great Plains
accounting are going away. In it place is the umbrella
of the Microsoft Division which is being put in place; and they will be referring
to the accounting programs as the Solomon Series and the Great Plains Series.
In a recent trade journal, CPA software news, the editor of this magazine
forecasted that the hundreds of accounting software series was really narrowing
down to a Developer race. The key players were the developers: Intuit, Best
Software, and Microsoft. All three of these companies have been gobbling up
smaller accounting developers and pushing hard to reach the mid-market user.
Over the next few months, I will share with you some of these business strategies
placed by these three companies. In the meantime, as a user of the Solomon
series, you are in good shape to benefit from the development muscle and marketing
muscle which will be quite visible over the next three to four years.
Some of the ways you will benefit as part of the Solomon series will Be:
1)easier to find trained employees who know the product (i.e. lower employee
training costs), 2) more integration between accounting products and
Microsoft Back office products(i.e. improved ease of user) and
3) more management reporting tools, which are build upon the MS sql platform
(i.e. easier data movement and data warehousing of your company’s valuable
historical information).
To give you an idea as to the resources behind MBS, consider: 4000+ employees
and over 1500 programmers working on all versions of the code. This is the
current status at MBS. Microsoft is investing in development funding which is
over 50% total software revenues for MBS. Another important observation
was the importance of all current users of the Solomon/ Great Plains programs.
Repeatedly, MBS made strong statements about the longevity of the current
Products. I anticipate seeing development effort continue well beyond the
release of the next big backoffice accounting solution.
In my opinion, this translates into 5+ years of continued development activity
for Solomon, in my opinion. (see the article below called: .Net Assurance)
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2. Customer Source Web
Site- from Microsoft Business Solutions
By Jeff Cozens
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Customer Source has been
recognized as one of the "Ten Best Web Support Sites" by the Association of
Support Professionals (ASP). This prestigious award honors
web-based technical support for software and other technology products.
ASP, a professional association made up of more than 1,100 support managers in
PC software companies, previously awarded CustomerSource for it is outstanding
Web support achievement in 1998.
Many Solomon users have never taken advantage of the Customer Source web site.
This is a web site which is ONLY available to end users who have active support
plans. The url is: www.greatplains.com/customersource
We encourage all Solomon users, to sign into this web site and check it out.
You will need your user id and password, which was originally emailed to you.
and we will look it up.
Things to check out include:
1) Over 70 how to articles for using Solomon.
Examples of articles include:
How to print a Quick Check from Quick Voucher and Pre-Payment Entry? , or
How to Remove an AP Pre-Payment etc.
2) subscribe to a monthly MBS news letter called: Insights,
3) on line etraining for Solomon and Microsoft products (note: requires Foundation support level or
higher),
4) Technical support queries and Knowledgebase.
Using this tool can lower your cost of ownership for the software, because many
of your queries can be answered via the web on a 24/7 basis.
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3. THIRD PARTY ADDONS:
ANYVIEW EXPLORER
By Accountable Software
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How would you like to push a button and have an Excel listing of data be
exported? You ask, what data are you referreing too? The answer is any data
in Solomon. For years, users of the Great Plains Dynamics and
E Enterprise software have had a similar product functionality. Now this same
functionality is available to Solomon users.
Basically the User selects which fields in which they wish to see displayed in a
columnar format for logical grouped tables. For instance AR transactions or
employee master records for the payroll tables can be displayed
and filtered
into sub-lists of data. Next push a button and these records are transferred
to Excel or Word.
To see more, visit the site http://www.accountable.com/AnyViewInfo/default.htm
There are versions of this software that are run over your Lan as any other
module for Solomon. Also there are versions of this product which are
accessible via an internet browser. This later solution allows external access
to your Solomon data. The Solomon security model restricts all Anyview users
as to what data they can access and view.
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4. What (the Heck) is
.NET and What is the .net Assurance?
By Brent Goodfellow, CPA, MCSE, MCT, MST
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In the December 2002, of
CPA Software News editorial there is a short article which talks about .net and
what it is. As Brent Goodfellow believes, we will see more and more exchange of
data between different devices (PDA’s, Desktops, Tablet Pc’s, etc)and multiple
software platforms (Unix based hardware, Ms Windows based hardware,
Apple based hardware).
See this article for a good overview of this coming technology.
http://www.cpasoftwarenews.com/articles/2002/Dec02/heck.shtm
Now the next question is what is the .net Assurance. MBS Microsoft Business
Solutions is rewarding existing customers for Solomon products (Select and
Premier Version) which are running on the Microsoft MS SQL databases
(i.e. Solomon IV version 4.x and higher ) and under active support contracts,
that they will get A FREE upgrade to the .net version of the software when
it becomes Available. I am expecting that this next generation of software
which is merging the best of breed features between Solomon and Great Plains,
will be available in the 2004/ 2005 timeframe. The .net version of back office
accounting will be a single code based for all versions of the software, with
the basic option of buying the functionality you need at your
company and by flipping setup switches and entering unlocking keys, the new
product functionality will become active.
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Systematic Solutions
Inc.
1608 W. Campbell Ave. #364 Campbell, CA. 95008
Web Site:
http://www.systematicsol.com
Email: jcozens@systematicsol.com
Phone:
408)379-1111 Fax: 408)364-1947
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