Create Your Own WMS Applications in Business Central
Many companies will turn to a Warehouse Management System (WMS) to manage a warehouse. Standard WMS features include receiving inventory, put-aways, picks, and shipping. Depending on the WMS platform, you can get many additional features like support for mobile devices, inventory counts, license plating, lot & serial number tracking, and more.
Like a WMS, productivity applications are great at providing tools to help define processes, streamline workflows, and improve efficiency. For companies that lack warehouse optimization, a WMS is a step in the right direction.
Companies that have come a long way in optimizing their warehouse management processes can often find themselves locked into their WMS application. They have customized it to suit their business and operations, and upgrading it can become a complicated process.
As we all know, technology does not stand still. Often technology will become a competitive advantage for those that choose to embrace it. Those that once were leaders in their space can begin to fall behind hanging onto antiquated systems.
For those looking for a WMS platform that enables them to take advantage of the latest technology while allowing them to keep their proven process, Bond Consulting Services (BCS) recommends Insight Works' Warehouse Insight for Dynamics 365 Business Central. Warehouse Insight provides warehouse and production employees full access to Dynamics 365 Business Central via barcode scanners and hand-held computers.
We’re going to focus on only one specific feature of Warehouse Insight: the built-in application builder. For a list of all features, check out www.WMSforDynamics.com. The application builder enables non-technical people to build their own WMS applications and tweak existing applications to match their proven processes.
The application builder within Warehouse Insight leverages Microsoft MakeCode. Microsoft MakeCode is a programming framework that is engaging, approachable, and inviting. The application builder uses a block editor where users interactively create WMS applications by dragging and arranging blocks onto the editor workspace. Applications can be complete, complex, fully standalone modules (e.g. existing modules like shipping/receiving) or simple, one dialog processes (e.g. asking for a line comment). The possibilities are almost limitless.
The application builder provides users with the building blocks to arrange and configure to create the desired application. Block types include event, interaction, action, context, variable and logic blocks. Let’s look at a couple of simple examples.
Example 1: Ask for a Date
In this example, you’ll see the application builder is used to create an application that when the “Ask for a Date” application is open, the user is prompted to enter their birthdate, and then a message is displayed.
Example 2: Scanning a Tag
In this example, the application builder is used to create a process that returns the associated scanned tag’s shelf number.
As mentioned, the above are very simple examples. Many companies use the application to build complex applications where required.
So, while Warehouse Insight will help streamline your warehouse operations, the application doesn’t require you to adapt to the built-in features. Rather, companies are encouraged to create their own apps to match their proven processes. Often, building apps with the application builder is given to a Microsoft Partner; however, some end-users choose to handle the process themselves.
The BCS Team recommends the Warehouse Insight application by Insight Works, a reliable and longstanding partner of Bond Consulting Services. For those that want to learn more, call (562) 988-3451 or schedule a free consultation. To learn more about Warehouse Insight, visit https://www.WMSforDynamics.com/.
Good Food Holdings Leverages Bond Consulting Services to Support its Growth
Good Food Holdings is headquartered in Carson, California and it is the holding company for 5 prominent food retailing brands including Bristol Farms, New Seasons Market, Lazy Acres Natural Market, Metropolitan Market and New Leaf Community Markets. These brands offer a large variety of organic and specialty products that contribute to the overall wholesome culture and unique consumer experience. By focusing on delivering high-quality products with high-quality service, Good Food Holdings has become one of the top food holding companies in the United States.
In 2002, Bond Consulting Services (BCS) partnered with the specialty grocery store chain known as Bristol Farms. BCS team members worked closely with Bristol Farms to implement Dynamics GP to support Bristol Farm’s financial management requirements and rapid growth. The BCS team and Bristol Farms developed extensive integrations between Dynamics GP and multiple operational systems to enable an integrated network of data and streamlined financial reporting from Dynamics GP. Over the years, BCS assisted Bristol Farms with numerous enhancements including adding new modules and features, integrating additional operational systems, supporting multiple acquisitions of new retail brands, and developing extensive reporting capabilities including Power BI.
For nearly two decades, Bond Consulting Services has been a trusted and reliable partner to Bristol Farms, and has supported the grocery store chain through multiple acquisitions. Good Food Holdings acquired Bristol Farms in January of 2019, and it is now one of multiple key brands within the Good Food Holdings corporate family. The CFO of Good Food Holdings, Chuck Eallonardo, shares: “Dynamics GP has been an integral part of our growth, and BCS has been instrumental in deploying, supporting, and enhancing our Dynamics GP solution for nearly 20 years.”
To learn more about how Bond Consulting Services will improve the success of your business, please call (562) 988-3451 or schedule a free consultation!
Outsourcing in the Assembly Process
By: ANDI (Seetharaman A. Rajaram) – Senior Consultant
Please find the steps to guide you through the process of handling outsourcing as a part of the Assembly Process.
Step 1:
- Parent Item: Create an Assembly Bill of Material (BOM) for the final product/Finish Good
- For example: (Part no/Part name: 10000-RS/ Flower Assembly)
- Child Items:
- Flower Leaf (part No: 10001-L)
- 8 Nos. - 10002-S
Flower Stick Assembly 1 No
- Flower Leaf (part No: 10001-L)
a. Stick Assembly
-
-
- Child Item: Flower Stick (Part No: 100021-S)
- Add a cost for Labor charge for Assembly of Parent item (10000-RS)
-
-
-
-
- Create a Resource
- Define a labor cost and add labor cost to the assembly (outsource charge)
-
-
Step 2:
Processing Orders
1. Create Sales order for part no: 10000-RS/ Flower Assembly (This creates an Assembly order automatically when all the Assembly setup are in place)
- Location: MAIN
2. Create Purchase Order to “Vendor A” for Flower (part no/part name: 10001-L/ Flower Leaf)
- Location: MAIN
- Post Receipts (Ship to: Deliver the flower to “Vendor B”) and Post Vendor Invoice
3. Create Purchase Order to “Vendor B” for Stick Assembly (part no/part name: 10002-S / Flower Stick Assembly)
- Location: MAIN
- Post Receipts for Assembled Flower
- Post Purchase Invoice
Note: Now, BC will have stock for 10001-L/ Flower Leaf and 100021-S / Flower Stick
Step 3:
1. Post Sales Shipment (Consumption and output will be registered automatically in the automatically created Assembly order)
2. Post Sales Invoice
For more information on outsourcing as part of the Assembly Process in Business Central, please schedule a free consultation or email us at support@BondConsultingServices.com!
Get Your Free Microsoft Cloud License Review Today!
Everyone likes saving money, and that is exactly what our Microsoft Cloud Licensing Review will do for your company. As a Microsoft Gold Partner and Cloud Solution Provider, Bond Consulting Services (BCS) has vast industry expertise in Microsoft Dynamics and will work closely with your company to eliminate unnecessary licenses and cut down hefty expenses. This is exactly what the BCS Team accomplished for Treehouse, a Seattle-based non-profit that provides opportunities and support to youth in foster care to pursue their dreams and launch successfully into adulthood.
The BCS Team worked diligently to review Treehouse’s current licenses and find cost-effective, efficient solutions. Our expert team of consultants helped reduce Treehouse's monthly subscription investment by about 17%, saving the non-profit about $7,500 annually. William Wood, IT Manager for Treehouse, shares:
“The Dynamics 365 solutions that BCS designed and deployed have saved us countless hours and helped us more efficiently deliver tens of thousands of donations to thousands of youth in foster care throughout the greater Seattle area. BCS has been a great strategic and tactical partner through this transformation.”
BCS' free Microsoft Cloud License Review enabled the non-profit to successfully streamline their donation process by saving them thousands...and you too could save on your Microsoft cloud licenses!
Our Microsoft Cloud License Review will minimize on-going costs and boost productivity for your company by eliminating unnecessary licenses for FREE. If you are interested in saving money, visit our website, schedule a free consultation, or call (562) 988-3451!
Seattle Non-Profit Streamlines Donation Process with Dynamics 365
One of our most impactful Business Central implementations this year was for Treehouse, a Seattle-based non-profit that provides opportunities and support to youth in foster care to pursue their dreams and launch successfully into adulthood. The Treehouse Store offers a free shopping experience for youth to pick out clothing, sporting goods, games, school supplies and books at no cost. Through its Holiday Magic program, Treehouse also coordinates thousands of gifts to be sent to youth in foster care across the state of Washington during the holidays. Treehouse had been using a combination of spreadsheets and a non-integrated Point-of-Sale (POS) solution to record donations and distribution. Treehouse also had been using Dynamics CRM for tracking certain critical information about its clients and visits to the Store. This was not integrated with the POS or Holiday Magic tracking.
BCS worked with Treehouse Management to design, customize and deploy an integrated Inventory and cost tracking solution using Business Central, with a custom bar code scanning and POS solution to track all incoming donations from donors and outgoing items to kids. Additionally, BCS developed a bilingual webform that integrates with Dynamics CRM to manage requests for gifts at the holidays. BCS worked with Treehouse to synchronize other relevant donation and distribution data back into Dynamics CRM for more complete visibility of its impact on the community.
William Wood, Treehouse IT Manager, shared: “The Dynamics 365 solutions that BCS designed and deployed have saved us countless hours and helped us more efficiently deliver tens of thousands of donations to thousands of youth in foster care throughout the greater Seattle area. BCS has been a great strategic and tactical partner through this transformation.”
For more information on how BCS can benefit your company, visit our website, call (562) 988-3451, or email us at support@BondConsultingServices.com!
Why Choose Bond Consulting Services to Implement Your Microsoft Dynamics ERP?
Bond Consulting Services is a Microsoft Gold Partner. For the uninitiated, that’s the highest level that a Microsoft Dynamics Partner can achieve. But that status probably doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, so…
Allow me to tell you more about Bond
Bond Consulting Services is a national consulting firm that empowers organizations across the United States to thrive in a digitally transformed world. We are a Certified Microsoft Partner and one of Microsoft’s Top 200 Partners in the United States.
Our consultants have more than 100 years of combined business-software experience and industry knowledge to help your business achieve more. With more than 17 years of industry experience, we are confident in our ability to deliver on the solutions we provide and proud of our extensive expertise and unparalleled understanding of Microsoft’s suite of products and how they work together.
Our team members have backgrounds and expertise in business and management, from former CFOs, CIOs, and Controllers, to other executive positions. We specialize in Consumer Product Goods Distribution, Food and Beverage Manufacturing; Hospitality; Professional and Financial Services; and Recycling.
We pride ourselves on adding exceptional value to our customers by delivering outstanding customer experiences and providing proactive relationship management through our award-winning relationships with Microsoft, solution partners, and industry associations, such as the International Association of Microsoft Partners (IAMCP).
And there’s more
Choose Bond due to our track record of successful implementations and our ability to provide proactive technology training and provisioning. Choose Bond because of our licensing expertise and our ability to offer product discounts that are unique to our partnership with Microsoft. Choose Bond because we provide superior, comprehensive technical support to help you prevent and solve IT problems before they affect your business.
Depth and Breadth
Just take a look at what we offer. Office 365, Power BI, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, and Dynamics 365 Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Project Operations, and Marketing.
Take the Next Step
Contact us to learn more about Microsoft Dynamics ERP and CRM. Visit us at www.BondConsultingServices.com or just pick up the phone and call 562-988-3451.
New Features Bring Expanded Capabilities to Dynamics 365 Customer Insights
As your Microsoft Partner, Bond Consulting Services is very pleased to tell you about the new release of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing. Its powerful added features and capabilities bring you a greater ability to personalize buyer experiences. Gain powerful capabilities to orchestrate customer journeys, create and nurture sales-ready leads, align your sales and marketing, make smarter decisions, and grow with an adaptable shared platform.
What’s New for Dynamics 365 Marketing?
- Run webinars and meetings through a direct connection to Microsoft Teams
- Use natural language to create targeted segments
- Create, manage, and monitor content-rich social media posts
- Collect forms data with expanded entity options
- New email templates and designer
- Smoother approvals with Microsoft Power Automate
- Surveys with Microsoft Customer Voice
- In-place editing of email and forms
Vorne Industries, a successful manufacturing company, doubled its leads with integrated sales and marketing software from Dynamics 365 Marketing. Ramon Vorne, Chief Executive Officer of Vorne Industries shares, “No other product we looked at seamlessly integrates marketing and sales like Dynamics 365 Marketing. It’s an incredibly powerful app and a huge competitive advantage for us. With Dynamics 365, we’re on track to double our sales efficiency and throughput”.
As a trusted Microsoft Gold Partner and Cloud Solution Provider, Bond Consulting Services highly recommends the Dynamics 365 Marketing platform for companies looking to optimize marketing and sales strategies. Discover more about how Dynamics 365 Marketing can add effectiveness to achieving your marketing goals by calling (562) 988-3451 or scheduling a free consultation.
Unique Customizations in the Cloud Dramatically Improves Business Operations for Ohio Landscape Supplier
Another impactful implementation of Business Central this year was for Ohio Mulch, a landscape supply company that produces and sells more mulch in Ohio than any other manufacturer. In business for more than 30 years, the company now has 24 retail stores and production facilities in South Georgia, North Kentucky, Dayton, Cincinnati and Columbus that manufacture high-quality mulch.
Back in 2006, Ohio Mulch deployed Dynamics NAV and heavily customized the application to accommodate its unique operations. The customizations made upgrades challenging and expensive, so they continued to use the old version of Dynamics NAV through 2019. In January 2020, BCS began working with Ohio Mulch on a rapid migration from the old application to Dynamics 365 Business Central in the cloud. Once again, Ohio Mulch required several customizations unique to their business. BCS worked closely with the Ohio Mulch project team to implement customizations for negative inventory, matching freight accruals to sales orders, Bill of Lading, and converting base units of measure for pallets. Ohio Mulch went live with Business Central on March 1, 2020.
“BCS and DemandDynamics helped us complete our migration to Business Central in record time and it went quite smoothly”, said Susan Lucore, Ohio Mulch Controller. “We’re very pleased with the professionalism, implementation management, development efforts, and results that we achieved with BCS and Business Central.”
To learn more about Dynamics 365 Business Central, call (562) 988-3451, visit our website, or schedule a free consultation!
Stockkeeping Unit
By: ANDI (Seetharaman A. Rajaram) – Senior Consultant
In Dynamics 365 Business Central, Stockkeeping Units (SKU), are a supplement to item cards. The Stockkeeping units are used to setup a location-wise dedicated setup/configuration for an Item such as replenishment, planning, and others.
Why do we need SKU?
Well when we have an Item (say Computer display), where a company wants to keep a different stock and maintain a separate planning parameter say location wise differently, then SKU in Business Central will help you accomplish this task.
Please follow the guide below, if you need to setup Item parameters differently per location or per variant, because of various planning parameters (if any) that you want to maintain as per the company’s needs.
Steps to create SKU:
1. Search for Stockkeeping Unit and select the appropriate link.
2. Select “Create Stockkeeping Units”.
- Enter the “No” (Item No) for which Item you are planning to create SKU.
- Enter the “Location filter”, for which Item you would like to maintain a different parameter.
Select “OK” to create the SKU.
3. View the created “Stockkeeping Unit”.
4. Search for Stockkeeping Unit and select the “Stockkeeping units” link (referred above), you will be seeing the list of Stockkeeping unit you have created.
For the same item (Item No:1896-S), SKU created for Location EAST, MAIN and WEST.
5. Select the “Item No.” and set the parameters (Replenishment system, planning) you would like to set for each Item.
For more information, visit us at www.BondConsultingServices.com or just pick up the phone and call 562.988.3451!
Leader in Wholesale Home and Garden Decor Grows their Business by Implementing Business Central and Dynamics 365 Sales
The Bond Consulting Services (BCS) Team of expert consultants specializes in reselling, implementing, and supporting Microsoft Dynamics Products. BCS recently partnered with the organization known as Exhart to implement and deploy Business Central and Dynamics 365 Sales to boost their business performance.
Exhart is a wholesale home and garden décor business that focuses on bringing innovation, color, and fun into homes across the United States. Exhart is a family owned and operated company that has been in business for over thirty years. Some of their popular garden products include colorful gnomes, whimsical wind chimes, elegant glass décor, efficient solar lighting, and adorable bird feeders. Exhart’s motto is “Happy Homes. Smiling Gardens.”
As Exhart’s customer base and product line continued to expand, the company realized that they had outgrown QuickBooks and needed better business software and multi-channel capabilities to help manage and develop their business. After an extensive search for the right solution, Exhart selected Microsoft Dynamics 365 as the ecosystem to build upon, and SellerCloud to manage its multi-channel transactions.
BCS appreciated and related to Exhart’s mission of spreading joy, and we quickly got to work to support the amazing customer experience that Exhart provides. BCS quickly configured Business Central and Dynamics 365 for Sales, and developed a custom integration with SellerCloud. We worked closely with Exhart to train, test and support its cutover from QuickBooks to Dynamics 365 integrated with SellerCloud. BCS also deployed Power BI that provides powerful business dashboards that enable management to make better business decisions. BCS continues to work closely with Exhart to enhance and support its Dynamics 365 solution.
Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Exhart, Michael Weiser, shared: “Thanks to Dynamics 365 and BCS, Exhart has significantly improved operational efficiency and visibility to critical business information, which helps us continue to spread smiles to our customer’s homes and gardens long into the future.”
For more information on the benefits of Dynamics 365 and how BCS can help your company, please call (562) 988-3451 or schedule a free consultation!