Microsoft Dynamics GP in Mid-Size Retail Network: RMS, Integration, Barcoding

On the front end or as POS (Point of Sale) terminals you are probably using Microsoft RMS, Counterpoint and the goal is to find optimal balance in business logic distribution across Dynamics GP and your retail system and reasonable integration between the two.  Let’s review several case studies and proposed solutions:
1. Stand Alone Mid-size or smaller store.  We assume that you are not part of the franchisee network, you found your own unique retail bushes niche.  Review Microsoft Retail Management System (also often abbreviated as Microsoft RMS) – it pretty much has all you may need for Retail business and it exports transactions to Dynamics GP General Ledger with standard integration available directly from Microsoft.  Standard integration integrates purchases (merchandise replenishment).  Sometimes we hear concerns suggestions to control Purchasing and Inventory Count in Great Plains Dynamics, but we think that for single store the cost of doing custom integration is not justifiable.  If you think that MS RMS is a little bit behind Counterpoint on your POS selection list – Counterpoint will do good job and it has out of the box integration to Dynamics GP, where it sends Daily sales into GL transaction and Store Purchases into Payable Management Vendor Invoice.  Traditionally Counterpoint integration was done on MS SQL Server DTS package level – if required you can alter its logic modifying DTS scripts
2. Retail Stores Network.  If your plan is to launch franchise and as one of the services included into franchisee package – provide POS and Accounting applications tandem, whatever was written in the paragraph above should be applicable, as each franchisee is independent business and there is no need to control inventory streams for the whole network.  However if you plan to own your retail outlets and distribute merchandise from your central or regional warehouses – consider more advanced integration between Dynamics GP and RMS.  Alba Spectrum integration sends Microsoft RMS POS transactions into Dynamics GP SOP Invoices with Customer deposits in the form of credit card, check or cash payments.  Integration is available on the MS RMS Store Manager or (preferred for the Retail network) RMS Headquarters.  Integration also synchronizes MS RMS and Dynamics GP Purchases and Inventory Site-to-site transfers
3. Balance Between Dynamics GP and MS RMS.  Here you may have reasons to control such business functions as newly arrived merchandise barcode labels printing, site-to-site transfers (with allocation directly to the customer order), Pricing and Items on Sale campaign, Manufacturing on the order directly in your Corporate ERP application (in our publication scope – Microsoft Dynamics GP).  Typically these alternative logics are available in so-called “Solutions”, where you pay your Dynamics GP ISV for the product and have them to modify their product logic to adopt altered procedures.  There is also the whole theory on Corporate ERP systems methodology, where you decide on which system is the so-called “master” and which one is the “slave”
4. Going to the ecommerce and web presence.  Electronic Commerce is sort of the requirement for modern established regional or nationwide business, and it is probably one of the real channels to apply your business secrets and entrepreneurial skills to expand and grow the business.  In ecommerce web presence the competition is really tough and this is one of the reasons we recommend you to take a little bit conservative approach.  The conservatism is in deciding on ecommerce Shopping Cart – you are not the first and the last business to decide on shopping cart platform, these applications are really advanced and sold to hundred thousands of ecommerce retailers.  Pick existing established Ecommerce shopping Cart platform, such as Magento or Asp .Net Storefront, instead of hiring PHP/MySQL/Linux or Oracle programmers to code your custom ecommerce Shopping Cart
5. Barcoding.  Normally Barcode scanner integration is supported in your chosen POS or Retail application, such as Microsoft RMS, Counterpoint.  We also have Dynamics GP WMS (Warehouse Management System) module which opens SOP Invoice for WMS Order Fulfillment, POP Purchase Receipt for Merchandise restocking, Inventory Transaction and Transfer for WMS Adjustments and transfers – these transactions are enabled for barcoding in our Dynamics GP ISV add-on.  Sometimes customers have more expectations in such modules as Dynamics GP Manufacturing, MRP, Bill of Materials – we are open to discuss these customizations
6. Industries.  The tandem of Dynamics GP and Microsoft RMS works with proven business cases in the following industries: Membership services, Customer Clubs, Deli Stores, Micro Breweries, Food Consignment, Discounted General Merchandise retailers, International Food Stores, Sport Small Business Stores: Bikes, Canoe, Generic Outdoor
7. How to get further info.   Please, call us 1-866-528-0577, or internationally 1-630-961-5918 or email us help@albaspectrum.com  We support all the versions of Great Plains Dynamics (7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, 4.0, 3.4), Great Plains Accounting for DOS, Windows and Mac (9.5, 9.2 and earlier) and of course Microsoft Dynamics GP versions 2010, 10.0, 9.0, 8.0, 7.5
8. Dynamics GP and Retail integration in international environment.  If you are USA or Canada based multinational corporation, we are happy to travel onsite to your international facility to implement our WMS or SCM solution and train your users in Microsoft Dynamics GP