AX 7 (Rainier) is fast approaching....What to expect

AX 2015, will be the outcome of the highly ambitious Project Rainier executed with a lot of commitment by the Microsoft Product Development Team that is going to be a reality any time now (Expected to be released by December-2015.)

• Web Based AX: Yes this will be a reality with Rainier. AX can be accessed on your web browser (not too sure if this is OS independent!). Those of you who have been familiar with Oracle Financials, will already know how handy Web (& JRE) based access to ERP is. The AX client may continue to co-exist. How exciting this will be if this is also OS independent and AX can be accessed even on a Linux machine. (More customers especially in retail, Mfg and services industry will be looking forward to this functionality).

• More efficient Accounting: The Traditional school believes in traceability of journal entries to the Trial Balance and they least bother of how it happens. But, the Modern school emphasizes on the transformation, connivance & complicity of accounting, rather than just the output.
  Having witnessed the differentiation followed by the Microsoft between 2009 to 2012 in terms of accounting and the more modern concerns such as Transfer Price, Cost pooling etc., we can expect many modern accounting technologies in revenue recognition, cost control, Investments to be integrated.
  The Europe is already implementing IFRS and slowly the countries around the globe are standardizing their accounting policies with either the IFRS or US GAAPs. So, we can expect a paradigm shift in the accounting function to accommodate these standards.
  Rainier-Ax may also address the industry concerns of the SOX controls, Corporate Governance and the like policies across the globe.
   
• Inter-operability between the Group Companies: The organization is one but broken down into multiple legal entities / companies for the comfort of functioning, due to legal requirements or due to the geographical constraints.
  This however is a hindrance for the business in terms of profitability, efficient functioning, resource sharing, taxation or reporting etc.
  Rainier-AX can try to bridge down this gap in many ways. Replacing the physical boundaries between the companies and imposing a virtual boundary with strong security controls could better the current situation.
   
• Cloud based and Office 365 integrated: 100% integration with the Office 365 and Microsoft Azure platform is a possibility through Rainier-Ax. ERP would be more of a service rather than a product to compete with NetSuite and the likes.
   
• Better integration to add-ons developed by ISVs: If Ax needs to compete with the likes of SAP, Microsoft needs to better integrate the add-ons developed by the ISVs with the standard AX framework to ease the delivery schedule.
  Currently, The ISV add-ons need a complete revamp whenever an update is released and this results in a lot of effort. Microsoft may come with a more sophisticated Life Cycle Services Integration Manager to remove this agony.
• Faster and simpler to implement: This would be fair to expect considering the current difficulties in Ax

Microsoft always aims at simplicity of a product and sure it will definitely plan to make Rainier-AX simpler and faster to implement than its predecessors by providing better tools to move similar data between companies and environments and modules. 
Just like the drastic changes from Ax 2009 to Ax 2012, we can expect a completely refreshed UI and functionality. The faster we adapt to these the more effective we can implement.

Consolidation in AX 2012 - Tips & Tricks

Consolidation of financial accounts of a parent company and its subsidiaries is the need of the hour when a company operates in a globalized scenario

Ax 2012 allows us to consolidate transactions from multiple legal entities (both on AX and out of AX). In the consolidation company, it will be of great utility if we can identify a transaction by the company of origin. 

 It will be of great utility if we can identify a transaction by the company of origin in the consolidated accounts in AX 2012.

Below is a trick which helps us achieve this task in a simple yet powerful manner.

• Create a financial dimension "LegalEntity" and select use values from "Legal Entity" master. (You need not add it to Ledger or link it to a company)
• Go to the consolidation Company > Periodic > Consolidate and choose Consolidate (Online)
• Go to "Financial Dimensions" tab in the Consolidate Online Dialog Box
• Select the LegalEntity Dimension and choose "Company Accounts" in specification as below:

• After all the other parameters are filled in, Click "Ok".

That's it your transactions in the Consolidation Company will also list out the "company of origin" as below:

 

Consolidation in AX 2012, has many such simple but powerful tricks and this series of articles will explore into each such possibility through AX

Strengthening the Supply Chain Management in Ax 2012 r3

Supply chain management is a broad term in regular use ever since AX 2012 is released replacing the erstwhile term "Trade & Logistics" used in versions AX 2009, 4.0 and so on to represent Purchase, Sales and inventory moment activity.
Many of us already understand distribution of a company's product through efficient dealership network and timely logistics supplying these dealerships from the point of manufacture is the key to sales.
Meeting the given demand is a key to a company's success irrespective of how popular or quality of the product is being offered, which makes this network a very key in enhancing a company's sales.
Same is also the factor with the raw material procurement, maintaining the Economic order quantity, re-order levels and minimum order quantity is the key along with many other important business requirements.
Assume an FMCG companies such as Proctor & Gamble or Unilever is planning to implement Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 to meet their complete business requirements. Can standard Ax meet the business needs of such a big network with thousands of dealerships across the globe?

YES.

The Answer is a Yes with the introduction of the enhanced AX 2012 R3. Let us study various modules (With detailed features for new modules) that enables these key requirements.
Warehouse Management: This module integrates better and improved Warehouse management capabilities into Microsoft Dynamics AX. This provides for real-time handling of inventories at warehouse permitting user of scanners, creating orders for pick and pack, setting up container groups, wave processing. All the requirements of a modern warehouse are provided for in this new module introduced in R3 release

Transportation Management: This module provides for freight movement planning across business. AX provides for centralized and distributed (warehouse / site) level movement. The new features include Advanced load planning, rate and route calculations.

Trade allowance management: There is always a demand for implementing advanced price management functionality in AX. Microsoft has come out with Trade allowance management to solve the pricing riddle.This module can be used to create, maintain, and quickly determine status of trade allowances apart from managing prices and discounts that are offered at various times as part of promotional incentives.
apart from the above new modules a host of existing modules such as Product Information Management, Inventory Management, Procurement and sourcing, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Sales and Marketing.
Not to limit here the Project management module provides for Product research & development related activities.
Continuous Improvements are fast reinforcing the existing functionality to build a better product for the customers in the form of Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Dynamics AX growing, but a long way to go

In a recent publication from Gartner "Magic Quadrant for ERP" , an attempt to compare the widely accepted ERP solutions globally against the ERP's "Completeness of Vision" and "Ability to Execute" .

The only ERPs qualified as leaders are "SAP Business" and "MS Dynamics AX" (High on both Vision & ability to execute) . Players like Oracle financials, JD Edwards, Infor are high on ability to execute but very low on vision.

A relatively new entrant Epicor 9 assumes greater role with its strong Manufacturing capabilities supported by its relatively powerful supply chain (High on vision, but low in ability to execute).

Dynamics AX is still very far against its competitor SAP Business all in one, in terms of Production and supply chain. But, is building upon to reduce the gap in projects & service management. This gap can be much narrowed with improving performance and functionalities in core areas and aiming at large scale sector