It's been a good couple of months for Fastpath

If I were Fastpath, I'd be wondering where all the free marketing was coming from and how I could get more. The last several months have seen a number of unrelated items all point to Fastpath's products for users of a Microsoft Dynamics ERP system.

For those of you not familiar, Fastpath makes security related products for all of the options in the Microsoft Dynamics line. For Dynamics GP specifically they offer:

Config AD - Single sign on and security management tied to active directory. Yes you can log in to GP using AD.

Audit Trail - Transaction auditing.

Assure - Separation of Duties evaluator for Dynamics GP. This doesn't get enough airtime but for risk junkies it's pretty cool.

Audit View - Audit/Security report scheduling and delivery.

It all started with the July issue of Journal of Accountancy which profiled ten years of Sarbanes-Oxley. I thought, hey, SOX generates plenty of Audit Trail and Assure work for Fastpath. Thought drifted away into the ether.

Then my much anticipated August J of A arrived (they are all much anticipated, don't read anything to the August part) . Lo and behold, it's all about fraud and we're back talking about security control, auditing and separation of duties.

[Sidebar: For fun, checkout this this fraud, described at CFO.com, that included the CEO colluding with the HR manager because the CFO “always demanded proper documentation”.]

Finally, MSDynamicsWorld.com is reporting that Microsoft is killing the native Audit Trail module in Dynamics GP. Frankly, MS bought this functionality and doesn't appear to have ever spent a dime improving it. I think they got tired of trying to support it.

 So in a couple of months span, Fastpath has two J of A issues, not just articles, dedicated to needs and problems that their products help solve and a major competitor exits the business. (By major competitor I really mean inertia and the idea that "It's included so let's try to use it".)

Yep, they've had a couple of good months. If they are smart, they'll leverage these marketing gems for a long time to come and hope for September J of  A hat trick.