Project management teams use an array of products to manage different projects that they manage. They also use various tools or software to take care of tasks such as time tracking, raising invoices, etc. It is wise to use a PSA or Professional Service Automation software instead to do all the activities mentioned above with ease. There is so much action in a CPA or Certified Public Accountant Firms than in any other firm. Many companies have developed PSAs or Professional Services Automation Software for CPA Firms these days. Selecting the best product will help you to manage the tasks better. With the evolution of Technology, every industry is getting process oriented and so are CPA firms getting more organized and professional in their way of working. The software provides the immense capability for CPA’s to look into there Books of Accounts, manage their allocation for clients, Create Project Plan, Perform accurate Invoicing and what not. Impact on CPA firms with PSA As CPA firms complain about process orientation and adoption of software tools, as per our existing New York-based CPA firms, Project Service Automation (PSA) has helped them streamline the process and the inter-communication between the departments have becomes seamless and more optimal. Organized Central Repository of Data PSA being the data source and a single point where the data is stored makes it more powerful. System Administrators have a full view of the data and can provide access restrictions to who should have access to the data, what is visible and what can be modified. This is impossible without the central repository of data. The power unleashes itself, with solid reporting and dashboard, that allows you to take a dive in how and what’s of the business. Seamless Mobile Experience With the era of Smart Phones, applications are becoming smart enough to be accessed from mobile phones. PSA has a seamless mobile experience and when clubbed with Power BI reporting makes it one of its kind. A lot of strategic decisions can be made based on these Power BI reports. People while driving back home on the signal can do their time entries, raise expenses, access their opportunities, type in notes and what not via Mobile phones. Allocations Vs Time Entry & Expense Entry needs Technology keeps a business structured and so is Resource Allocation a good example of what PSA offers in its bucket. While the management can take a decision as to which employee is more billable and who is busy working on a client project, who is billable can all be taken out if the CPA’s are well allocated. While CPA’s do not believe in allocation, but this is the only way to run a result and data-driven the organisation. This is a proven fact with one of our CPA based firms. Along with Allocations by default comes the Time Entries. CPA’s if they do their Time Entries regularly are more likely to save 10% – 15% of revenue loss per annum. Also, what I heard from a CPA firm was even shocking “We do expense approvals based on trust”. PSA allows you to remove that factor as already mentioned, doing time and expense entries is a matter or seconds and can be easily done via mobile phone even when you are waiting at a signal. The receipts of the expenses also can be uploaded right at that time via your camera phone to make it more user-friendly.   Project Management and Accounting makes PSA a choice of CPA firms Right from the sales cycle i.e. OpportunityàQuoteàContract and then from there to Project in PSA, CPA firms get benefitted since PSA guides them the processes at various levels as to keep the business organized. Like for e.g. our existing clients, a CPA firm, used to initiate the work even without the contract getting signed by the customer. Wherein PSA asks you to confirm the contract, post the same is signed by the customer. With the integration of SharePoint Online, CPA’s can access the signed contract directly from the Opportunity. All of the above drills down to how effectively CPA’s can Invoice it to the customer and this can be done with the practise of Time Entries and Expense Entries in the system religiously. PSA caters to all Fixed Bid and Time and Material projects which CPA firms make a choice between. Improvised Skill Selection and Schedule view Every allocation, before getting done asks for a variety of questions like, where can the Resource Manager see the schedule of all the Team. Which Resource bears what Skills. All such typical allocation questions are well addressed via PSA. Every Hour counts Yes, it true a thing as to every hour, in fact even a minute spent of CPA advisors are precious. It is Technology that can only help them get it converted into effective revenue. With PSA the effective way of working and dedicating time to a client gets better with time. A Happy CPA firm will only be when they will be able to offer enhanced services to the clients, offer stability and reduce errors. It is tough for a CPA firm to walk aligned with software as getting the right value from the same needs complete streamlining of processes. The opportunity is abundant if utilized well. CPA’s being not technically sound can rely on what is dictated by PSA to get a better outcome and indirectly improvise billing. This also helps the clients as the service offerings improve and hence the billing so too.  

Problem Definition: I have observed a fact in PSA that when the task in PSA Schedule (WBS) is deleted, the corresponding Resource Requirement doesn’t get deleted. Hence, it keeps on appearing in the Schedule Board to allocate. Resource Managers face difficulties in order to understand whether to allocate them or not. Hence, it is a job of Project Manager to ensure they are not appearing on the Schedule Board to allocate. Solution: Following are the steps with which the Resource Managers can ensure they do their job end-to-end post the task is deleted from the Schedule (WBS). Step 1: Check in the Schedule Board in the Project Tab whether the task appears to schedule. If not, then the job is done. Else, do an advanced find on the Resource Requirement with the below-mentioned criteria shown in the screen shot. See the results of the Advanced Find shown below. Open the task from Advanced Find by Double Clicking on it and check the status of the task. Change the Status of the Task to Canceled and Save the form. The task will now not appear in the Resource Requirement. You are done with the solution. This blog reflects my personal findings and based solely on my experience of using PSA for last 3+ years. For those who are looking for a platform that can track and manage the entire procedures of sales and project managements, I would highly recommend them to try Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation.

Introduction: This blog explains how to create folders in SharePoint when new record is created in D365 CE. Use Case: When new account is created in D365 CE create “Contact Documents” and “Documents” folders in SharePoint. Pre-Requisites: D365 CE SharePoint Online Microsoft Flow Steps to be followed: Sign in to the Microsoft flow. https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/ Go to My flows -> “+New”-> “+Automated-from blank” 3. Select “When a record is created” trigger and click on create. 4. Select “Organization Name” and “Entity Name”. 5. Click on “+New Step” and select “Compose” Action. 6.   a. Add “Account Name” from Dynamics Content in Input. b.  Add underscore “_” c. Click on Expression enter below formula: toUpper(replace(triggerBody()?[‘accountid’],’-‘,”)) d. Compose should look like below: 7. Now we will create “Main folder in SharePoint” for this account. 8. Click on “+New step” and select “Send an HTTP request to SharePoint” Action. 9. Enter below details: Site Address: Select the site address from the list. Method: POST Uri: _api/Web/GetFolderByServerRelativeUrl(‘account/Output of Compose‘)/Folders Headers: Content-Type application/json;odata=verbose Accept application/json;odata=verbose Body: { ‘__metadata’: { ‘type’: ‘SP.Folder’ }, ‘ServerRelativeUrl’:’account/ Output of Compose‘} 10. Now we will create sub folders inside the main folder. 11. Click on “+New step” and select “Send an HTTP request to SharePoint” Action. 12. Enter below details: Site Address: Select the site address from the list. Method: POST Uri: _api/Web/GetFolderByServerRelativeUrl(‘account/Output of Compose/Contact Documents‘)/Folders Headers: Content-Type application/json;odata=verbose Accept application/json;odata=verbose Body: { ‘__metadata’: { ‘type’: ‘SP.Folder’ }, ‘ServerRelativeUrl’:’account/ Output of Compose/Contact Documents‘} NOTE: “Contact Documents” is the sub folder which we want to create in main folder. 13.  Repeat “step no 12” to create “Documents” folders. Uri: _api/Web/GetFolderByServerRelativeUrl(‘account/Output of Compose/ Documents‘)/Folders Body: { ‘__metadata’: { ‘type’: ‘SP.Folder’ }, ‘ServerRelativeUrl’:’account/ Output of Compose/ Documents‘} NOTE: “Documents” is the sub folder which we want to create in main folder. Complete Flow: Testing Flow Create new account record in D365 CE. Check Documents in SharePoint. 

In this blog I am going to show you how to fix an error you get during CPOS/MPOS activation. At times you may get following error : Validation: Failed, Messages: <“Channel has not been published.”>   Solution: Step 1 Go to Channel categories and product attributes. Select your store and in Category hierarchy select channel navigation hierarchy Step 2 Then click on publish channel updates Step 3 Now go back to your device and  click on “Validate Devices for Activation.” You should not get the error message anymore. Hope this works!

Introduction to OCR: OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is used to automate the data entry process for vendor invoices When a purchase invoice is received from the vendor, the client stores the invoice either in a file or manually does the entries in excel sheet With the use of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, invoices can be stored on cloud in the system OCR service setup: OCR service setup needs to be done in order to process the automation which is done through Kofax, which is a process automation software provider. The client should register to avail the following functions at the given price: Trial Basic Premium Documents 75 100 100 Validity(months) 2 1 1 Price (USD) Free $60 $105 Price per extra Invoice No extra invoice after 75 $0.56 $1.12 Specifications: Yes Yes Yes ·         Online correction ·         Header/Footer capture Yes Yes Yes ·         Line item capture Yes No Yes   To avail this service the user needs to get registered under Kofax. (www.kofax.com) Registration process includes providing details such as: name, email, mobile no, Company name, address and so on. Fig 1. Kofax sign up page Once the registration is complete Kofax sends an authorization key to the user on his mentioned email. Fig 2. Registration mail from Kofax The key is later used to send the invoices to the service provider to scan the invoice and receive it back. (without the authorization key, OCR process cannot be completed) Fig 3. OCR service setup OCR process: For mail received invoice save the pdf invoice in the computer and for printed copy of invoice click a picture of the invoice which should be a clear and visible picture. Go to incoming documents in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Click My incoming documents Fig 4.  Click on new and then create from file Fig 5. Creating Invoice from File This will ask to choose a file from your computer Choose the file pdf saved earlier in the computer Check all the details of the vendor invoice Click on OCR and then send to OCR service Fig 6. Sending the document to OCR service  Click on receive from OCR service Fig 7. Receiving the document from OCR service The details on the invoice will be entered as per the heads in the document Check all the financial details as per the invoice to verify Fig 8. Checking the financial information Click create document and the document will get stored in the system Fig 9. Creating the document as purchase invoice Check for errors and warnings in the document Fig 10. Checking for errors and warnings To correct the error, click on OCR and under that correct the OCR Fig 11. Option to correct the OCR Correct the mistakes and select “Send OCR Feedback” to send the corrections to the OCR service, so that the mistakes will not repeat   You can check the document in the purchase invoice Open the created document Enter the vendor invoice number for reference which will be star marked Now post the document with an option to print the document as well Fig 12. Final posting of the purchase invoice Check for the document in the posted purchase invoice by searching for the vendor invoice number.

You may need to add a sales representative/associate while performing a transaction on POS. For this, you need to add the particular worker to sales group and set it up as below. In this blog, I will show you the process: Step 1 Go to Sales and marketing>Commissions>Sales groups Step 2 Click on General>Sales rep Step 3 In filter type the name of the Rep and select Step 4 Next run staff job from the distribution schedule and check in download sessions if the job is run. If it remains in the available state for more than few minutes then you may need to run a batch job manually from batch jobs by changing its date and time. Check again in download sessions. It should be in an applied state. Hope this works!

Problem Definition: As soon I upgraded my PSA version from V2 to V3, I saw that the role field got deprecated. Not only that, it was removed from Schedule (WBS in V2). We now had the functionality to directly assign resource to the task against having assign role. The projects that got migrated from V2 to V3 were all tagged with the resource named “Auto-Developer” and were with the roles, but, was not advisable to go the deprecated way. We now as an organization, heavily dependent on our day-to-day activities had to change the way we work and had to understand and reframe the working methodology for the following things: How to take care of the tasks that we need to make it Non-Billable Where to assign roles and learn to assign Resources instead. Solution: The above problem was not an easy cake to eat. The impact went all the way to Schedule Board and we need to redesign the way we allocate on tasks, since, I started seeing duplicate tasks on schedule board, one with Role and one without Role. I had to change the view query to reflect the tasks without role and match the remaining hours to the previously assigned hours on the task. Now this became a major challenge. We had to export all the bookings from the system and delete the previous allocations on the task with role to the task without role. This would then match the remaining hours to allocate on the task. The next things I did to make the tasks be treated as Non-Billable was to add the Column in the Schedule named Category, Wherein I added a Category named “Non-Billable”. This category was made Non-Chargeable. This is the Transaction Category which can be added from SettingsàTransaction Categories. I added a Calculated Field on the Project form then to calculate the Billable Hours which excluded this Non-billable Category task to see the correct Billable estimate of the project. BI Team in your organization will now need to change the reports adjusting to the above criteria to reflect the correct data. This blog reflects my personal findings and based solely on my experience of using PSA for last 3 years. For those who are looking for a platform that can track and manage the entire procedures of sales and project managements, I would highly recommend them to try Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation.

Problem Definition: As soon I upgraded my PSA version from V2 to V3, I saw that the role field got deprecated. Not only that, it was removed from Schedule (WBS in V2). We now had the functionality to directly assign resource to the task against having assign role. The projects that got migrated from V2 to V3 were all tagged with the resource named “Auto-Developer” and were with the roles, but, was not advisable to go the deprecated way. We now as an organization, heavily dependent on our day-to-day activities had to change the way we work and had to understand and reframe the working methodology for the following things: How to take care of the tasks that we need to make it Non-Billable Where to assign roles and learn to assign Resources instead. Solution: The above problem was not an easy cake to eat. The impact went all the way to Schedule Board and we need to redesign the way we allocate on tasks, since, I started seeing duplicate tasks on schedule board, one with Role and one without Role. I had to change the view query to reflect the tasks without role and match the remaining hours to the previously assigned hours on the task. Now this became a major challenge. We had to export all the bookings from the system and delete the previous allocations on the task with role to the task without role. This would then match the remaining hours to allocate on the task. The next things I did to make the tasks be treated as Non-Billable was to add the Column in the Schedule named Category, Wherein I added a Category named “Non-Billable”. This category was made Non-Chargeable. This is the Transaction Category which can be added from SettingsàTransaction Categories. I added a Calculated Field on the Project form then to calculate the Billable Hours which excluded this Non-billable Category task to see the correct Billable estimate of the project. BI Team in your organization will now need to change the reports adjusting to the above criteria to reflect the correct data. This blog reflects my personal findings and based solely on my experience of using PSA for last 3 years. For those who are looking for a platform that can track and manage the entire procedures of sales and project managements, I would highly recommend them to try Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation.  

Introduction: This blog explains How to set up Gmail Authentication for D365 Portals. Steps: 1.) Register D365 Portal with Google API Go to Google API Console: https://console.developers.google.com/apis/dashboard?project=symmetric-axle-236007 2.) Create New Project or select the Project. 3.) Click on “+Enable APIS and Services” 4.) Select “Social” under category. 5.) Select “Google+API” 6.) Click on Enable. 7.) Configure consent screen. – Enter Application Name. – Enter Authorized domains: “microsoftcrmportals.com” – Enter Application Homepage link: “URL of D365 Portal” 8.) Click on credentials 🡪 Create Credentials and select OAuth Client ID. 9.) Enter the below details. – Select the Application type as “Web Application” – Enter Name. – Authorized JavaScript origins: “Enter Portal URL” – Authorized redirect URIs: “PortalURL/signin-google” – Click on Create. – Popup window will come copy the “client ID” and “client secret” values from that. Step 2: Creating Site Settings in CRM. 1. Go to Portals 🡪 Site Settings. 2. Create new records as per below. Name: Authentication/OpenAuth/Google/ClientId Value: Copy and Paste the Client ID value. Name: Authentication/OpenAuth/Google/ClientSecret Value: Copy and Paste the Client Secret value. Now you can see “Google” as sign in Option.      

Introduction: This blog explain the steps to update the child records when parent record is updated in D365 CE using Microsoft Flow. Steps: Below are steps to be performed. 1.) Create new field on parent entity “Update Child record” of two option type in CRM.We will use this field in Microsoft Flow. 2.)Create Workflow Whenever ”CURB ID “, “Driver License Number” and “Email” is updated on the parent reord trigger workflow. (select the fields which you want to update on child) Update the “Update Child record” field value to “Yes”.   3.) Create MS Flow. – Select “When Record is Updated” trigger. – Enter Condition: Check “Update Child Record” field is equal to “True” 4.) Select “List Records” Action of “Dynamics 365”. – This will retrieve all the related records of that particular account.   5.) Update Child Records. – Use “Apply to each” loop. – And “Update a record” Action of “Dynamics 365” – Enter the values in fields which we want to update. 6.) Update Parent Record – Set the field value to “NO” which we created for triggering the flow. Note: After Comleting the MS Flow and Workflow hide the field from the form which we are using to trigger the MS Flow.