Dynamic Solution: WilloWare GP PowerPack

This is the first installment of our new Dynamic Solution feature. The goal of this feature is to highlight third party solutions that can make a difference in your business. I’ve highlighted WilloWare’s free Spellcheck before but today we are looking at their GP PowerPack collection.
The GP PowerPack is a massive collection of enhancements for Microsoft Dynamics GP. There is a core set of features that include highlights like pop-up sticky note alerts for master records, AP templates for complex AP transactions and bin to bin transfers. In addition there is a set of very reasonably priced tweaks. Again, this is a massive collection of little improvement, all it takes for a couple of these items to be critical for your business to make the PowerPack worthwhile. Visit the site for the full list, they do a great job of highlighting the major features but I want pick out a couple of minor features that can have a huge impact.

• Next Number Generator – This comes up a lot and it’s easy to write custom code to do this but upgrading a 3rd party product is often easier than maintaining custom code over time.
• Lock Notes Field – Again a common request is to be able to lock down notes fields.
• Posting Controls - Set an allowed maximum dollar amount that a user is allowed to approve/post.   Posting Controls are set on a per-user, per-document basis, and are available for virtually every window in Dynamics GP with a Post button.
• Vendor Approvals - Vendor Approvals can be used to make sure that new Vendors are automatically placed on Hold.  Administrators can specify which users are authorized to remove the Vendor Hold.This is a huge control point to prevent vendor fraud and will make auditor’s smile. It’s also a great way to control 1099 setup. Without 1099 information, an AP supervisor can refuse to release the vendor hold until the information is provided. This will become a critical feature since most vendors will now get a 1099 starting in 2012 and the fines for missing information are going up.

The beauty of a suite like this is that a couple of features justify the price and a ton of other enhancements come along too. The list of features is just too long to show here. Hit the WilloWare GP Power Pack website for all of the specifics.

Willowware Audit Trails

Willowware has released it's Audit Trails software for Dynamics GP starting at an incredibly low $599. I haven't demoed the software but it looks good, including a web based reporting interface with the source code. Additionally it use a client license so you can audit as many servers as you like with one client license. Like other auditing software it works at the SQL level and so it's not dependent on GP but could be used with Dynamics NAV, SL, AX, CRM and conceivably other products.
There is a trial download and once I get past all my year end stuff (and there's a lot of it) I'll demo it and add a review to our new Module Review section. In the mean time, check it out and you'll be able to add your review as well.
Clarification, Willowware is partnering with ApexSQL to offer their Audit Trails software to the GP community for $599.