Business Intelligence – Make Informed Business Decisions

Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP enhances business intelligence (BI) capabilities and helps people at all levels of the organization transform data into actionable insight. Companies using Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP have a wide range of reporting and analysis tools available, some of which are included in the core Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP solution while others are offered as additional products that extend Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP. The tools your organization selects will depend on your specific business goals. Whichever solution you choose, you can move forward with confidence, with your people equipped to effectively monitor, analyze, and plan—the three activities essential to making the fast, informed decisions that fuel success today and strengthen your business for the future.

Keep current on changing business conditions
Accurately monitoring current business activity, and comparing it to historical activity and plans, gives people the contextual information they need to keep performance on track. Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP delivers many integrated monitoring tools so that people are always aware of the most relevant, accurate, and timely information.

• Browse inquiries and trace transactions. Inquiry windows in Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP make it easy to browse records and get details by selecting fields. Similarly, audit trails in Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP allow people to quickly trace a transaction throughout the system.

• Get notified immediately about business activity. Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP allows people to set up Business Alerts to automatically notify individuals or groups about business changes. The Business Alerts feature monitors the Microsoft® SQL Server database for certain conditions for your specific business.

• Track and report on business financial performance. With Microsoft® FRx—which is included with Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP—people can create, manage, and distribute business financial statements. Microsoft® FRx helps people understand how the business is doing financially without having to wait until the books are closed. FRx WebPort enables financial statements to be accessed from anywhere you have an Internet connection.

• Monitor business activity with solid reports personalized for your unique needs. Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP 10.0 ships with more than 75 out-of-the-box reports. Further customize an existing report or create your own easily and quickly.

• Receive RoleTailored information. RoleTailored centers within the Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP Business Portal provide people with tasks and business intelligence information relevant to their jobs.

• Monitor key performance indicators. Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP delivers standard business metrics that allow managers to easily determine the real-time financial health of the organization. Available through Business Portal, these key performance indicators can warn people when specified values reach a certain point above or below a target value.

• Put information into easy-to-read scorecards. Microsoft® Office Business Scorecard Manager smoothly integrates with Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP to put information into scorecards. These tools help articulate strategy, convert strategy into measurable goals, and monitor progress.

Gain insight into your business
It's not enough to gather accurate and timely data—people need powerful and easy-to-use analysis tools to help them understand context and trends. Microsoft Dynamics™ GP business intelligence functions provide people with the insight they need to take quick action and take advantage of opportunities.

• Organize and display data. SmartList in Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP allows people to organize and display data from the accounting system in a way that makes sense to them, and then search those records according to specific criteria. People can save their searches as SmartList favorites or export data to Microsoft® Office Excel or Microsoft® Office Word.

• Unleash the power of Microsoft® Office Excel to analyze your business with a tool you know and trust. Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP 10.0 has more than 200 Microsoft® Office Excel reports out-of-the-box that are customizable and refreshable—meaning they give you access to real-time data. And, when adding Microsoft® Office SharePoint Server 2007, reports can be accessed from anywhere you have an Internet connection.

• Look and analyze data in innovative ways. Analysis Cubes in Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP gives people out-of-the-box, preconfigured online analytical processing (OLAP) cubes through SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services. Analysis Cubes offer virtually unlimited ways to look at data with powerful interactive analysis. Analysis Cubes can serve as the basis for Reporting Services reports, Office Excel PivotTables, balanced scorecards, or interactive dashboards built with the Office Excel Add-in for Analysis Services.

Budget, forecast, and plan effectively
The ongoing work of comparing budgets, forecasts, and plans to actual performance is essential to business success—as is the ability to update budgets and plans on the basis of new data and analyses. Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP offers flexible, secure planning tools to help businesses stay competitive and confidently plan for the future.

• Create, forecast, and adjust budgets. With Microsoft® Forecaster—a budgeting and planning application that works with Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP—people can build budgets that incorporate first-hand knowledge of market conditions and specific business objectives. The result is more commi™ent to the budget from those responsible for delivering against it. And, when the business environment changes, people can use Microsoft® Forecaster to adjust forecasts and budgets so that managers can respond effectively.

• Plan more effectively. Create accurate, high-level plans instantly by automatically spreading increases and decreases across each of your planning periods, using up-to-date data pulled directly from the General Ledger in Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP. Integration across Microsoft® FRx and Microsoft® Forecaster enables you to drill down smoothly from summaries to transactions.

• Empower decision-makers by giving them access to information across the organization. Integration between industry-leading tools and Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP, such as Microsoft® Office Excel, Microsoft® SQL Reporting Services, and Microsoft® FRx Professional, gives your people the information they need to forecast and make business decisions. People can also drill down to the information they need and analyze data in multiple ways.