Microsoft Business Solutions -
Solomon Differentiators Targeted to small to medium-sized companies
with $10 - $250 Million in revenues. Customization. Solomon was
one of the first systems to provide customization tools that allow you to change
screens and add user defined fields outside of source code. Solomon was also built
with hundreds of objects, which allows third party developers to call specific
Solomon objects/programs as needed. This saves a lot of time in the development
process and reduces the risk of programming errors. Microsoft.
Solomon is now owned by Microsoft - In 2001, Microsoft purchased Great Plains,
which purchased Solomon in 2000. Initially, the fate of Solomon was not
clear as Microsoft also owns Navision and Axapta, and the concern was that these
systems would receive more R&D dollars than Solomon. But it appears that Microsoft
has decided to invest in Solomon and on May 27, 2003 released its newest version
5.5. Professional Services Automation (PSA). Solomon is one of
the few accounting and ERP systems that include extensive functionality for professional
service based organizations that require tools to manage projects, track time,
manage resources, manage opportunities, bill clients... With the May 27, 2003
release of Solomon 5.5, the PSA product was enhanced and now includes tight integration
with Microsoft Project. Microsoft. Microsoft Project is the leading Project Management
system, and many companies use it to set up and track the status of projects.
Solomon's PSA also includes SharePoint, which enables any team, whether they
reside in a small company, inside a corporation, or are located around the world,
to easily share information. Sharing information is an important capability especially
in professional service based organizations that need to share documents and information
amongst team members working on a project. Distribution. Not that
well known is that Solomon is strong in distribution. Many distribution systems
work with third party programs for EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) which can
lead to additional costs and reliance on third party companies every time there
is a change. Solomon includes EDI in its core system. Solomon also includes an
customizable work flow system for order processing. You can define rules for orders
that could include credit checking and authorization levels. Orders that don't
need additional controls and can be immediately released for picking. Many distributors
also want to track the costs for projects, and many distribution systems don't
provide this capability. Account Setup. With Solomon, you define
account/subaccount independently and can combone them automatically on the fly
subject to permissible account/subaccount combinations which should eliminate
accidental postings. Look and Feel. Microsoft has changed Solomon's
user interface to be similar to Microsoft Outlook. | 
