Migrate from Microsoft Dynamics AX to

Dynamics 365 for Finance & Supply Chain Management

As businesses are swiftly shifting to cloud based software, it may be time for your organization to migrate from Microsoft Dynamics AX to Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance & Supply Chain Management. If your company is currently operating Microsoft Dynamics AX and want to learn about your options then you have come to the right spot. This page is dedicated to provide Dynamics AX end users information on why, when, and how to migrate to Dynamics 365 for Finance & Supply Chain Management

Cloud ERP is Trending in Businesses Today

Leaders are 78%
more likely than
followers to keep
their ERP
updated.*

By 2020, 50% of the G2000 will see most of their business depend on their ability to create digitally-enhanced products, services and experiences.***

Organizations on the latest ERP release saw 13% improvement in profitability.**

From 2009 to today, there is a 36% increase of organizations who consider cloud solution for their next ERP deployment.**

Source: *Aberdeen,  ** Nucleus Research, *** IDC 2017 Predictions

Microsoft’s Extended Mainstream Support will be ending for all versions of Dynamics AX.  Therefore if your organization is like most others, you will want to run your business on a fully supported ERP system. Hover over the tiles below to see when extended mainstream support ends for your current version of Dynamics AX:

Dynamics AX 2009 Service Pack 1

Extended Support End Date:

4/12/2022

Dynamics AX 2012

Extended Support End Date:

4/12/2022

Dynamics AX 2012 R2

Extended Support End Date:

4/12/2022

Dynamics AX 2012 R3

Extended Support End Date:

1/10/2023

Achieve best business results with Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance & Supply Chain Management

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management helps to achieve significant improvements in operational efficiency by providing enhanced business capabilities and employee productivity. The most notable are: 

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Optimize Workforce Productivity

Workspace

Workspace:

Able to create, manage and publish your own personalized views: Empower employees with role-based workspaces that provide intelligent automation, task prioritization, and integration with Office 365 applications to maximize efficiency.

Mobile-ready

Mobile-ready:

Solution accessible through mobile for some basic process operations, for example: time and expense data entry, vendor invoice approval, mobile Point of Sale.

Streamline process

Streamline Process:

Reduce process time quickly and join leading financial, retail and manufacturing practices with advanced cloud capabilities.

Templates

Templates:

Access to large set of templates for different process and requirements, for example localization and compliance.

Reporting

Reporting:

Integrated Power BI dashboards in workspaces. Near real-time access to analytics to drive intelligent operations.

Insight

Insight:

Improved timely, accurate, reliable and verifiable financial information used in (decision making) processes.

Training

Training:

Lower training costs up to 40% and user adoption and user productivity by 15% through Office 365 like user interface.

Integration of Office 365

Integration:

With Office 365 integration, finance staff can expect a gain in productivity: eliminate double entry, facilitate data entry (Excel based inputs), automatics reports.

PowerApps

PowerApps:

Enable users with a no-code approach to easily configure mobile or web apps for data entry, regulatory reports, e-invoices, payment formats, etc.

Optimize work force productivity

Financial Management

Mobile/Web apps

Mobile/Web Apps:

Shorten data entry time with PowerApps development by users in business teams. Mobile workspaces allow users to execute finance and administrative processes from any device.

Task Guides

Task Guides:

Reduce training time and quickly converge to best practices with integrated process documentation and embedded task guides. Ensures accurate master data and reduced hypercard during the ramp-up period. Developer recordings of task guides ensure fast response for support. Automated Regression Testing based on task guides ensures early detection of issues after any change.

Insights

Insights:

Increased insights with washboarding tools (Financial Period close, etc.) and reduced integrations with single data layer. Drill Down/Drill-Through provides quick access to the right information.

Data Quality

Data Quality:

Improve data quality by using single source of truth layer (D365, O365) and improving data entry experience with mobile and PowerApps.

Advanced Analytics and Visuals

Advanced Analytics & Visuals:

Shorten time to cost and revenue insights with streamlined washboarding tools (Power BI) .

Accelerate analytics democratization by combining analysis method-of-choice (Excel, Power BI) with single source of truth data layer.

Finance Process Optimization

Streamline Process – Finance Process Optimization:

Reduce Debtor Days (DSO) with accounts receivable predictions for proactive collection management. Hence provide recommendations on which customers to target in bill collection efforts, to be initiated immediately.

Increase cash discounts with faster invoice approval times with “real-time” mobile approvals and trigger-based workflows.

Early budget check (during internal purchase requisition) to control spending and improve cash flow forecast.

Compliance

Compliance:

Shorten time to compliance with continuous updates of regulatory certifications. Reduce exposure to potentially significant fines and reputation issues.

Purchase and Supply Chain

Data Entry Saving

Data Entry Saving:

Reduce inventory data entry effort with dynamic update of inventory levels based on purchase invoices.

Reduce time spent managing returned items with compensation agreement management available for PO returns.

Mobile Apps

Mobile Apps:

Reduce vendor invoice approval effort with access to mobile approvals.

Search

Search:

Faster search and purchase of non-stocked items with ‘PunchOut’ eProcurement– option to redirect to an external site, the external catalogue and return the shipping basket.

Control

Control:

Improve control of unit margin and procurement limits with unit purchase prices thresholds and trigger warnings.

Buying Power

Buying Power:

Improve negotiation conditions with more timely payments as a result of faster invoice approvals and standardizing vendor selection with bid comparison criteria.

Increase buying power with consolidated, timely view of all child legal entities purchases.

Procurement Management

Procurement Management:

Prevent late asks for additional budget with configurable embedded budget control — warnings, blocks

Process Optimization

Process Optimization:

Reduce inventory levels by having a dynamically updated baseline

Perform fine optimization inventory levels with automated anticipation/postponing purchases.

Vendor Collaboration

Vendor Collaboration:

Easily allow vendors to work directly in the Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations through Web portal without having EDI.

Minimize Risk

Minimize Risk:

Monitor and control purchasing processes with automated workflow.

Easy to configure/implement approvals for internal controls, preventing unnecessary or fraudulent purchases.

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Warehouse Management & Distribution

Barcode

Barcode:

Out-of-the-box support for the next generation of barcode scanners.

Mobile Devices

Mobile Devices:

Use scanners and mobile devices to optimize precision in the picking and put-away processes. Configure the flow for system-directed push strategies and user-directed pull strategies.

Work Planning

Work Planning:

Monitor through single view the processing and the amount of work in a warehouse, push work to dedicated warehouse workers and trace completed work.

Demand Forecast

Demand Forecast:

Operations can leverage big data, external and internal indicators, and machine learning algorithms to better forecast demand, and automatically identify and mitigate supply risks. Master planning to plan for future material requirements.

Inventory management

Inventory Management:

Set up cycle counting thresholds, schedule plans, apply ad-hoc cycle counting, and configure real-time replenishment

Real-time

Real-time:

Pre-calculates and stores various intermediate results enabling fast real-time querying and provides new mobile workspace that anyone in the field can use quickly to check on-hand inventory, or query a given item bar code of License plate ID.

Catch Weight

Catch Weight:

Improved capabilities for inbound weighing per pallet level and capture the outbound sales process during picking or packing per catch weight quantity (box).

Warehousing optimization

Warehousing Optimization:

Create warehouse work such as picking, put-away by using work templates and location directives policies. Identify pick and put locations for various handling units depending on pre-defined rules and policies.

Containerisation

Containerisation:

Set up container groups to sequence packing processes and create templates that support packing strategies.

Quality Control

Quality Control:

Include quality control in any inbound or outbound processes that you set up for warehouse items.

Transportation Management

Transportation Management:

Monitoring all inbound and outbound transportations: Identify orders to be fulfilled and show the quickest routing solution for inbound and outbound orders. Organize the transport of materials to be delivered as soon as possible and identify the least expensive rates for transportation.

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Manufacturing

Mobile

Mobile:

My timesheets (optimized for mobile) allows employees to create and submit project timesheets to record their hours for a specific project on a mobile device.

Time and Attendance

Time & Attendance:

Time registration workers can enter different types of time registrations, for example: clock in, clock out, register indirect activities, and absence registration.

Integration to Warehousing

Integration to Warehousing:

Track warehouse work for all material movements inside shop floor

Sales Integration

Sales Integration:

Data shared across CRM and ERP: Integrated support for source documents for sales orders, returns, transfer order, production orders, etc.

Integration to Warehousing

Integration to warehousing:

Create granular material movements in the shop floor.

Reporting and Analytics

Reporting and Analytics:

Use and extend standard BI content packs for cost accounting and manufacturing.

Product Configurator

Product Configurator:

Product configurator to meet customer demand for unique products while reducing or eliminating obsolete inventory items.

Resource allocation

Resource Allocation:

Consolidated resource view with dashboard and more granular resource allocation features

Visual Planning

Visual Planning:

Gantt based project planning integrated in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Supply Chain Management

MRP in-memory

MRP in-memory:

More frequent and complex material resource planning by leveraging Azure computational capacities.

Migration Path: Upgrade vs. Re-implementation

Logan Consulting can help your organization assess what migration path is the best for you.  In some cases there is a direct upgrade path to Dynamics 365 making it more of a technical effort.  In other cases it may make sense to use the migration as an opportunity to re-implement the solution either because it wasn’t originally implemented optimally or because your business has evolved over time and no longer fits the existing configuration.  We have outlined reasons to consider for both approaches below:

Traditional Upgrade

  • Typically preferred for companies that transition to Dynamics 365 as a purely technical expertise without a desire to explore new functionality.
  • Typically preferred when the volume of Dynamics AX customizations that will need to be preserved in Dynamics 365 is considerable.
  • Typically preferred when most add-on ISV products will continue to be in use.
  • Typically preferred for companies when expecting to utilize Microsoft data upgrade tools.
  • All transactional history is brought in to Dynamics 365
  • Potentially smoother transition for users as no configurations would change
  • No ability to change configurations as everything needs to stay the same for master data so transactions convert properly.
  • All code needs to be reviewed and potentially rewritten to conform to current extension format

Re-implementation

  • Typically preferred by companies when the Dynamics 365 project is utilized as an opportunity to advance the system, discover new features, and achieve a true ROI.
  • Even when the number of Dynamics AX customizations is not significant, yet most mods can be replaced by standard Dynamics 365 features.
  • Typically preferred when significant number of Dynamics AX ISV solutions are not available in Dynamics 365, not curated by Microsoft, or can be replaced by out-of-the-box functionality.
  • Typically preferred when planning to load the initial data for Dynamics 365 without the use of data upgrade tools.
  • Ability to change current configuration for company growth.
  • Revaluate current processes and make improvements where necessary
  • No transactional history migrated.
  • Longer process than traditional upgrading.

Interested in learning more?

users interacting

Initial Discovery

Let’s have a talk!  We want to get to know you and your business and you will undoubtedly want to know more about us.  If at the end of the discussion we mutually agree it’s a good fit then we will work together to establish a migration plan to Dynamics 365 for Finance and Supply Chain Management.

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Determine the Right Migration Path

Based on what we have learned about your organization and system, we will mutually agree on a migration path that works best for your business.

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Conduct Scoping and Planning

Logan Consulting will gather knowledge of the business to understand the scope of the project and the business requirements to be met.   We will organize the project into an achievable plan and gain concurrence on the overall project scope and approach through an approved Project Charter.

Client Testimonials

Jeremy Noble

VP, Information Services, ATMC

We knew that a project with the size and scope of a conversion from Microsoft Dynamics AX to Dynamics 365 for Finance and Supply Chain Management would be very challenging… Read More ›

Chris Siwiec

Director, Information Technology, FONA International Inc.

Logan Consulting has provided us with functional and technical support for our Dynamics AX 2012 environment since 2014. We value their partnership with us because their team responds quickly and… Read More ›

Keith Onchuck

Chief Information Officer, Ozinga

Logan Consulting’s team is responsive and easy to work with, offering a vast knowledge base that helps us to understand and efficiently resolve our business/software issues while leveraging our Microsoft… Read More ›

Before we ever enter into an agreement, we’ll start with a conversation about your pain points and see if we think we can help you.

Schedule A Free Consultation ›