One of the most exciting benefits of working on a Microsoft Power Platform (aka Dynamics 365 CRM) is not the platform itself, but all the other Microsoft products that can connect to it. In the past, we looked at accounting systems as an islands on their own with lots of security and with limited access. This worked when you first started your business, but as your business grows, so does the number of applications needed to support that growth. Now you have all these apps to manage, and islands of information stored in their own separate databases.
Simple things such as a customer address or phone number, vendor information, or complex information about jobs and their budgets are now essential across your organization. We should be past the point of creating islands on information. A business owner once told me that his customer’s information was spread out amongst eight disconnected applications. Finding customer data could take an hour due to logging into various apps, with different passwords, and different user interfaces. A good cloud solution allows your team to access important data and documents in a secure environment, virtually anywhere. Remote access and high-speed internet are readily available with today’s ISPs. Remote workforce is increasing. In a Harvard Business Review article, “A 2017 Gallup poll reported that 43% of employed Americans had spent at least some time working remotely, and US Census data released in 2018 reported 5.2% of U.S. workers being based entirely at home.” You’ll need a cloud-based application that works as one.
Related: How many apps does it take to run your business?
Cloud Accounting
Today, Microsoft has allowed us to leverage information from any part of the application where we are working. Let’s start with Gravity Software’s® cloud-based accounting solution. Built on the Microsoft Power Platform, Gravity opens the door to a powerful combination of tools and applications that can apply invaluable elements that help companies maximize the operational efficiency of their people.
Business Intelligence
Let’s add Power BI, Microsoft’s Business Intelligence app that allows you to easily visualize trends and pinpoint issues. It’s built into the platform and you can personalize your dashboards to see what’s important to your business.
Related: Microsoft Power BI & Gravity Software: Better Together
Document management
Get true document management with Microsoft SharePoint. It is also built in so you can securely store your customer contracts and proposals.
Outlook integration
Onto desktop. Do you need to create a collection task to remind yourself to follow up on a customer payment next week? You can easily create the task in Gravity on the customer side and see it in Outlook. You can even close the task in Outlook, and it will be completed in Gravity.
Teams collaboration
A must have collaboration application and a unified communication with Microsoft Teams. You can easily see your customers and vendors as channels in Teams. Need a phone number? It’s just a few clicks away. It’s a workplace to have online meetings (video and/or voice), file storage and a place to chat. “As I’ve seen at companies that have made the investment – it will make a significant impact on your organization’s productivity,” states Gene Marks, contributor at Right Networks.
Customer engagement
How about the salespeople? Microsoft has fully integrated CRM (Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement) on the same Power Platform as Gravity. Users can go from an Opportunity to an Order to an Invoice without re-entering a single piece of data. That also goes for customer support and marketing.
Office 365
Finally, let’s talk about maintaining all this infrastructure. It’s easy, everything is provisioned in the same Office 365 portal. Add a user once, give them a license and they are set. Same login and password everywhere.
These are just a few of the many Microsoft tools that work together as one business system, with easy and secure access to customer information through a familiar user interface.
As for me, the first four things I open to start the workday are Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Gravity Software and Hubspot. I can have a complete view of my financials, sales, activities and marketing. Everything is seamless, and I can make better informed decisions for my company with the real-time insights. If your business needs more than your entry level accounting software can provide, learn how Gravity can streamline your business financials and schedule your online demo today.
Gravity Software
Better. Smarter. Accounting.
