We’re proud to announce Parity Factory’s latest Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software integration with Dynamics 365 Business Central, Microsoft’s newest cloud-based Business Management System.
What is Dynamics 365 Business Central?
Business Central is an ERP solution for small- to medium-sized businesses. It automates and streamlines business processes, offering real-time management for accounting, sales, operations, and customer services. Originally created as Microsoft Dynamics NAV, an on-premises ERP solution, Microsoft consolidated NAV under the Microsoft Dynamics 365 banner to create a more powerful, higher performing solution that allows any business to easily integrate with the existing suite of Microsoft Office 365 applications.
Who is using Dynamics 365 Business Central and why?
Many of our long-tenured existing customers are adopting this ERP as either: (1) part of a larger digital transformation push to a cloud-native environment; (2) wanting to migrate from a simpler, less comprehensive on-premises ERPs to a scalable, secure system with much increased functionality; and/or (3) it’s tight coupling with the comprehensive Microsoft O365 productivity suite. We are also being approached by net-new customers who already operate their businesses on the Dynamics 365 Business Central platform and want this integration out-of-the-box.
What is the ParityFactory – Business Central Integration?
The ParityFactory – Business Central integration currently consists of eight foundational data-in and data-out processes, including master file imports and workflow integrations.
Master File imports include the following processes, and can be configured to automatically run as frequently as your business requires:
- Customer In: This process retrieves all Customer Accounts from Business Central and creates a corresponding Customer account in ParityFactory, for use in the Shipment workflow.
- Vendor In: Like the Customer In process, Vendor In collects all Vendor Accounts from Business Central and creates a corresponding Vendor account in Parity Factory, for use in the Receipt workflow.
- Item In: This process is responsible for syncing all Item header information (such as Item ID and Name) from Business Central to ParityFactory, to correctly link every transaction that occurs in ParityFactory with the correct Item in Business Central, in order to accurately and easily maintain inventory data between the two systems.
Workflow Integration processes include the import and export of data between ParityFactory and Business Central to manage inventory levels and record transactions in parallel across the two systems.
- Receiving: This consists of the Purchase Order In process, which reads all open Purchase Orders from Business Central, and creates a corresponding Receipt in ParityFactory; and the Receipt Out Process which is triggered upon the archival of a Receipt from ParityFactory, and updates the origin Purchase Order in Business Central with the actual totals of all Items received.
- Shipment: Shipping begins with the Sales Order In process, which imports all open Sales Orders from Business Central and creates Shipments in Parity, then exports all Shipment totals back to Business Central automatically when each Shipment is shipped.
- Inventory Out: This process encompasses all Production events, including the consumption and production of inventory through the manufacturing process, as well as any manual adjustments made along the way. Each transaction is exported to Business Central as a Journal Line item which references the ParityFactory transaction that created it.
Next steps
Moving into 2022 we envision many more customers either migrating to, or adopting out-of-the-box, Dynamics 365 Business Central as their native ERP system of choice. We are therefore investing heavily in adding net-new functionality to the ParityFactory integration that leverages additional transactions including Manufacturing, Fixed Assets, Assembly Management, Warehouse Management, and Planning (Production, Demand Forecasting, etc).
How do I learn more about the new ParityFactory – Business Central integration?
Please reach out to our dedicated sales and marketing team by requesting a demo, and we’ll take you through exactly how a combined solution of ParityFactory + MS Business Central can benefit your operation.
