Happenings November 1, 2024

    In this issue:

• National Day Spotlight
• Customer Spotlight
• ACM 2024 R2 Spotlight
• Productivity Tips
• ISV Spotlight: CADTALK
• Events, Blogs, Movies
• Webinars, Community
• Points to Ponder

The purpose of a newsletter is an opportunity for the ASWi team to provide you and the rest of our clients with information on all the new ASWi an Acumatica related things (or “happenings”) that you may not otherwise be aware of.

Please feel free to share this newsletter with any/ all of your team. Pease let me know if anyone on your team who would like to be added to the mailing list for the next issue and removed.

You can always have a look at back issues of Happenings on ASWi’s web- site at: https://aswiblog.wpengine.com/category/customer-newsletters/

“Cows run away from the storm while the bison charges toward it – and gets through it quicker.” Wilma Mankiller, Cherokee Nation Chief

The official National Mammal of the United States, the North American Bison are the largest land mammals in North America. They have played a cultural, economic and environmental role in the history of our country. They are also a healthy food source and vital to many Native Americans’ religious ceremonies.

While giant herds once covered the plains, hunters nearly decimated them by the 1800s. Now, bison populate all 50 states living in national parks, refuges and on tribal and private lands. Celebrate National Bison day by having a delicious bison steak or burger, visiting a museum featuring the history of the bison, drive through a National Park to see them in person or, like me, what the NDSU Bison at 2:30 pm CDT today beat the Northern Iowa Panthers.

About the photo: 12,000 North Dakota State University Bison, including North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum in their natural habitat: playing for the Football
Championship Subdvision (FCS) national championship.

Also pictured: North Dakota First Lady Kathryn Burgum, me, and Pam.

Q: What does the buffalo tell his son in the morning?
A: Bye, Son.

Q: Why don’t you see bison hiding in trees?
A: Because they’re really good at it.

Q: What do you call a bison at the North Pole?
A: Lost.
A bison sat next to me at the Alamo Drafthouse.
Me: “Aren’t you a bison?”
Bison: “Yes.”
Me: What are you doing at this theater?”
Bison: “Well, I really liked the book, so I wanted to see the movie.”

Over the next few weeks, we’ll have a look at some of the great functionality that is available in the 2024 R2 release of Acumatica Cloud ERP, starting off with a spotlight on the Construction Edition.

Construction Edition
• Improved Project Billing Workflow.

• Companies often face challenges streamlining information when expenses come from multiple sources like Materials, Labor, or Services Provided.

• New Processes and Functions.

• Direct creation of Pro Forma Invoices.
• Progress Billing Line manually added to Pro Forma Invoices.
• Linked Cost Transactions expanded.
• Substantiated Billing Report by Pro Forma Invoice Number.
• Detail Line Attachments.

Please let our Customer Success Manager Keith Wood know (keithw@ASWiUS.com, 717-581-1226) if you would like to learn more about the new Construction Edition capabilities within the 2024 R2 release of Acumatica Cloud ERP.

If you use Microsoft Outlook and there are a set of calendars that you frequently view together, such as your work colleagues or your family, using calendar groups makes it easy for you to see the combined schedules at a glance.

Creating a Calendar Group in Outlook is a straightforward process.
Here’s how you can do it:

1. Launch Microsoft Outlook and navigate to the Calendar by clicking on the icon.

2. In the navigation pane on the left, right-click on “My Calendars” and select “New Calendar Group.

3. Name the Calendar Group and press [Enter].

4. Right-Click on the new Calendar Group and click on “Add Calendar” to add calendars into your group.

5. Select the source that you want to add the calendars from and select the calendars.

6. Repeat for additional groups.

Above is a short list comparing some of the features within Acumatica Cloud ERP and Microsoft Dynamics GP. As you probably already know:

• Dynamics GP still uses the same proprietary programming language (Dexterity) that it used over 30 years ago.
• Dynamics GP still uses the same antiquated client-server architecture and requires Microsoft SharePoint to move it to the cloud.
• Integration between Dynamics GP and Dynamics CRM requires the use of separate databases.
• With an announced End of Life for Dynamics GP of September 30, 2029, GP users can expect zero innovation for their annual maintenance dollar in the interim.
• GP has no direct migration path to Business Central, Microsoft’s only true-cloud mid-market ERP product. Moving to Business Central will be a brand new implementation on a different ERP.

If you are currently using Microsoft Dynamics GP, please feel free
to contact our Customer Success Manager Keith Wood to
(keithw@ASWiUS.com, 717-581-1226) discuss Dynamics GP’s end
-of-life timeline and the options you have available to migrate to
Acumatica Cloud ERP.

CADTALK offers cutting-edge integrations to Acumatica Cloud ERP, including from CAD applications, PLM applications and Nesting/CAM applications. If your organization is a manufacturing company, chances are your team does lots of engineering work: creating new and updating existing items, bills ofmaterial (BOMs) and routings.

Many manufacturers like you are, unfortunately, doing this work today manually or with a multi-step workflow that requires a spreadsheet, macros, and an import or copy and paste routine. Or, worse yet, they unsuccessfully tried an integration that didn’t deliver.

This can cost $100,000+ annually in data entry, BOM errors, rework expenses, and demoralizing your staff who would rather spend time designing and manufacturing than entering data.

When a $1.00 Bill of Material mistake can cost up to 100X more if it gets to the customer and when engineering services are billed at $130 per hour, it does not take long to see that the current process won’t work anymore.

This is where the completely off-the-shelf CADTALK ERP connector’s intelligent, bi-directional integration between your CAD, PDM, or PLM and Acumatica can help. CADTALK ERP reads data from any CAD, PDM, or PLM application transforming the engineering bill of materials (eBOM) into manufacturing bills of material (MBOM), saving you $1,000s in productivity and quality gains.

Please let our Customer Success Manager Keith Wood know
(keithw@ASWiUS.com, 717-581-1226) if you would like to learn
more about CADTALK ERP and/or CADTALK’s nesting/CAM
connectors for Acumatica Cloud ERP.

By Bri Williams

Don’t Ask For Yes

Chris Voss, a world class negotiator, believes that you should stop asking “yes” questions. People like hearing “yes”, they don’t like saying it. His point is we shouldn’t push for “yes” because it makes people defensive.

Instead we should aim for “no”:
• Rather than “Can we do this tomorrow?”, ask “Would you be against doing this tomorrow?”

• Rather than “Is this a good time to talk?”, ask “Is now a bad time to talk?”

“No” gives them agency. They remain in charge and are less defensive as a result.

Overpacking

Have you ever wondered why you overpack for a holiday? The reason has significant implications for your business. Participants in a 2008 study were asked to choose from a selection of chocolate bars.

In one experiment, they were asked to choose one chocolate bar each week for 3 weeks. In another, participants were asked to choose 3 chocolate bars upfront that they could then consume over the coming weeks.

Now, your choices shouldn’t matter whether you choose them all now or as you go, but that’s not what the researchers found. Those who chose ahead of time selected a wider variety of chocolates than those choosing close to the time of consumption. Known as diversification bias, when we make a decision for the
future, we are likely to overestimate our need for variety. That’s why we overpack for the trip we’re about to take and why customers pay for things they don’t end up using.

It’s about contingency. Planning for just in case. I’ll join this gym just in case I want to take a Zumba class. I’ll buy this phone just in case I need more battery life. I’ll choose these chocolates just in case I feel like eating something new. Perversely, variety might attract more business in the short-term but result in customers who don’t experience the value they expected.

Because they forget they were paying for contingency. After all, it’s only towards the end of our trip that we resent the overstuffed suitcase. At the beginning it seemed like a good idea.

How will you remind them what you are really providing?

Nearly every weekday, a motivational quote is posted on X/Twitter by @ASWiDelivered and on LinkedIn by @ASWi.

• “When you see a good move, look for a better one.” Emanuel Lasker
• “Don’t compare yourself to others, everyone has their own role to play. Garry Kasporav
• “Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece.” Ralph Charell
• “The winner is the one who makes the next-to-last mistake.” Savielly Tartakower
• “Strategy requires thought, tactics require observation” Max Euwe