Microsoft Great Plains does wonderful ERP job for horizontal markets and clientele. However in our opinion placement software market is underserved and needs custom modules to be developed. In the case of Microsoft Great Plains we see numerous examples of in-house or outsourced customization done for Great Plains Dynamics/Microsoft Great Plains in order to automate placement agency workflow and processes. In our opinion Great Plains is good choice, considering the side of placement and recruiting companies: mid-size or even small. Let us give you highlights from our consulting practice.

• Full-Featured custom placement business system. Technically Great Plains gives you functionality to develop integrated custom application, where you could build custom logic, extending Great Plains Receivables Management, Payables Management and other modules. You could implement complex recruiter commissioning schema, based on number of months of the placed employee work, etc. This is the most typical case – placement agency contracts Great Plains VAR to implement their custom Business Management System.

• Payroll Outsourcer. If you do payroll outsourcing – this is popular customization for Microsoft Great Plains. You usually have to create new Great Plains company for your client – who is typically placement agency

• Executive Search. The best fit in Microsoft Great Plains is Project Accounting. You usually have something like Microsoft CRM implemented to log your calls to prospective candidates and you log your expenses against project in Microsoft Great Plains Project Accounting.

• Reporting. In the old days you had to deploy Great Plains Software Dexterity reports to do the job over your custom Dexterity tables. Today you should consider simplification and deploying Crystal Reports, working on Microsoft SQL Server custom views and stored procedures. Consider phasing out Dexterity customization and replacing it with MS SQL Server integration, Crystal Reports, direct web publishing from Microsoft Great Plains company tables

• Commission Calculation. In our opinion the old Dexterity-based commission calculation mechanisms should be replaced with Crystal Reports or Microsoft SQL Server triggers (when customer pays invoice, which is subject to commission)

We encourage you to analyze your alternatives. You can always appeal to our help, give us a call: 1-866-528-0577 or 1-630-961-5918, help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), serving Microsoft Great Plains, CRM, Navision to mid-size and large clients in California, Illinois, New York, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Washington, Minnesota, Ohio, Michigan

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