Clients First USA
Clients First knows their software, but they are also astute business people, and they really understand manufacturing and distribution in particular.
Jimmy Witcher, COO, Merrick
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Posts Tagged ‘alabama’

Efficiency Never Goes Out of Style

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

Today’s business world is filled with buzz words that change from year to year as business improvement techniques come and go. I recently read an article on résumés that emphasized such terms as “team player”, “results oriented”, etc., have gone the way of the dinosaurs. Process improvement models such as TQM (Total Quality Management) have given way to Six Sigma, and JIT (Just in Time) to Lean Manufacturing. But the processes themselves have never gone out of style, and never will, although the next management fad may hang a different moniker on them and package them in a slightly different way. Efficiency and process improvement will never become obsolete, no matter what you call them.

When you purchased your current software system, you went through an installation process with the help of your Clients First implementation team where you defined your requirements, configured your software, set up your processes, and trained your employees. For the first few months on the system, your Clients First software support team helped you work on your issues, write or modify reports, and get to the point where you are probably pretty self sufficient, depending on the size of the company and the role of internal IT staff.

If you have a ‘mature’ implementation, you probably only call Clients First when you have a problem or software related issue. But did you know that we’re much more than “Software Repair People”, we’re Consultants and can help you with your business process requirements beyond your software related needs. If fact, as your business partner, we have a more in-depth perspective of your company than you probably realize. Not only can we do an Account Checkup to see if you’re using your software to its full potential, but we can help you when you’re planning on adding product lines, changing the way you do business, acquiring subsidiaries, downsizing and needing to streamline processes, just about anything that has to do with business processes. There is no need to go to an outside consultancy firm, when you’ve already got one that knows your business, but is still far enough removed from day-to-day operations to provide the objective eye you often need when trying to make improvements.

Is it taking too long to get an order out the door? Do you need a job description for an IT employee? Do you need assistance doing long term planning? Are you adding a department and need to develop process flows? Has the way your company does business changed? Are you using workarounds because you believe your software doesn’t support a function? Has your system been implemented for more than 2 years without a review to ensure that you’re using it in the most efficient way? We’re your business partner and many of our Project Leaders and Implementers are also Business Process Consultants. Call us in the planning stages and we will probably be able to save you a lot of pain later on. Don’t know what your pain is? Call us, and we’ll help you define your pain areas and develop a plan to remediate them. Don’t think your primary support rep has the knowledge? Call and find out. If the primary doesn’t, he/she will bring in someone from our staff that can help you out.

So whether you call if efficiency, good organization, total quality or whatever word they use next week, let Clients First help ensure that it describes you.

Please contact Clients First for more information.  Thanks to Karen Wevick from our Alabama office.

Microsoft Dynamics AX & NAV (Navision) Sales and Product Configurator

Friday, July 24th, 2009

Sales and Product Configurator

Does your ‘make-to-order’ or ‘engineer-to-order’ product come with a variety of options that change each time a product is ordered? Do you need to establish rules to know when you can select which o-ring to use based on product usage and rating? Do you need to create configurable subassemblies as well as top assemblies? Do you populate a project sales order comprised of various products that have specific rules guiding their usage together? Do you want to use a specific numbering series for different items? Do you need the most flexible solution available to run your business, whether it is furniture, pumps, golf carts, or anything else you can manufacture? Look no further.

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The e-Con Sales and Product Configurator for Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Navision) and AX (Axapta) is a Web-based configurator that allows manufacturing, distribution, and service companies to configure products, services, quotations, and prices with ease and flexibility. It is fully integrated with NAV and AX, providing a seamless solution for your configurator needs. Our clients have presented a number of challenges for this solution and e-Con has met every one, handling highly complex products as well as relatively simple ones. Check out the link below for a product brochure and call us or EMAIL us for more information.

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Brochure is HERE

Dynamics NAV (Navision) – Export to Microsoft Word & Excel with the click of a button

Friday, July 24th, 2009

You have a form open and you want to copy it over to Excel. Just click a button. Sure, you’ve always been able to copy and paste to Excel from NAV, but now, with the click of a button, the entire form is sent to Excel, including a worksheet for each header tab, plus a worksheet for the data. No selecting the data, no opening Excel, no adding information so you can remember what this data relates to. BAM! It’s done.

The lines of the purchase order are shown in the sample, but note the other tabs that provide header information.

The lines of the purchase order are shown in the sample, but note the other tabs that provide header information.

You want to send a letter to a customer, either hard copy or email. Just open the Customer Card and click on the “Send to Word” button. BAM! It populates the letterhead with your logo, customer address, etc., then all you have to do is type in your message. If you’re the primary salesperson for this customer, your name is also printed at the bottom of the document. Print it, sign it, and mail it; or if you’re using Outlook, just do a send email and send it as an attachment to your customer.

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Automatic ‘Send to Excel’ and ‘Send to Word’ capability was introduced in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 and uses Style Sheets to format the output from almost any NAV form, excluding matrixes, to a Word document or Excel Workbook. Just click a button, and the information will be displayed on a document or spreadsheet that is opened automatically. The output is pre-formatted using the Style Sheets with row header, tab description, field names, etc. inserted for you. It’s a great tool and its uses are only as limited as your imagination.

Don’t like the format of the Word or Excel documents? Clients First will be happy to customize the Style Sheets that create the outputted document for you. Need more Style Sheet options? We’re here to help you out. Are you already on NAV 5.0 or above and clicking on the buttons isn’t doing anything? Call your Support Rep, there is some installation needed to activate this feature.

Already using this functionality and want more control without contacting your Clients First Support Rep? New functionality has been introduced with Version 2.0 of the Style Sheet Tool for Microsoft Dynamics NAV which provides the end user with tools, including a Style Sheet card/form, which allows you to choose some field and formatting options for documents. Also included are improvements for date formatting, Mail Merge document properties, Style Sheet Tool Objects, and more. This upgrade is only available on NAV 2009 and NAV 5.0 SP1.

Please contact Clients First for more information.  Thanks to Karen Wevick from our Alabama office.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Navision) Free educational and training webinar series.

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

Join us for a free educational webinar series

coffee-with-chrisMicrosoft Dynamics Nav is an extremely robust tool. Take full advantage of the functionality Nav offers with the help of our expert. Chris Young, a Clients First Partner. Chris will enhance your knowledge and help you to leverage the power of Navision by providing instructional demonstrations and answering your questions.

These educational events are FREE and available to anyone that has an interest in enhancing their knowledge and skills with Navision.

We invite you to get a cup of coffee and attend these FREE one-hour instructional webinars. To obtain an up-to-date schedule of upcoming sessions please email Donna Figliola at dfigliola@clientsfirst-us.com or call her at (732) 970-1450 X9962.

Checkout one of our recorded webinars at the URL link below and learn about the power of Dynamics NAV Relationship Management (CRM).

Recorded Coffee With Chris Webinar

For more information contact:

Donna Figliola

732-970-1450 x9962

How to use Pivot Tables in Excel

Friday, July 17th, 2009

Here is an ‘oldie but a goodie’ from our original site that we’ve had people ask for often.  This is more relevant for Microsoft Office 2003.  These can be used nicely with all our ERP packages including:

  • Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Navision)
  • Microsoft Dynamics AX (Axapta)
  • Microsoft Dynamics GP (Great Plains)
  • Microsoft Dynamics SL (Solomon)
  • Sage MAS90, MAS200, MAS500 (MAS 90, MAS 200, MAS 500)
  • SAP Business One

PivotTable Reports 101

Let’s suppose you’ve compiled a large list of data – for example, sales figures for every product your company makes. But now you’re ready to distill some meaningful information from the data. For example, you might want to answer the following questions:

· What is the total sales for each product by region?

· Which products are selling best over time?

· Who is your highest-performing salesperson?

For these and other questions, you can create a PivotTable® report – an interactive table that automatically extracts, organizes, and summarizes your data. You can then use the report to analyze the data – for example, make comparisons, detect patterns and relationships, and analyze trends.

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Read on to discover what you can do with a PivotTable report.

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