Dynamics 365 Finance is Microsoft’s financial and operational management software that helps businesses of all sizes work smarter with connected operations, deliver exceptional customer experiences, enhance business performance, and get real-time insights on any device, anywhere, at anytime. Bond Consulting Services (BCS) especially recommends Dynamics 365 Finance if your organization is experiencing a merger or acquisition as there are many built-in tools to fast track the process and enhance business success.

Dynamics 365 Finance Features for Mergers & Acquisitions:

1. Global Templates: Dynamics 365 Finance consists of global templates which you can use to create consistency and speed up the rollout of your technology solutions to disparate companies around the world. These templates can be customized, localized and standardized to consider legal and government regulations, currency and taxes, exchange rates, data configuration and much more. Dynamics 365 Finance’s global templates include many unique capabilities to connect various companies or operational processes across your organization:

• • • Shared Chart of Accounts: The global templates support a shared Chart of Accounts in which users simply create a single chart with any accounts and link the chart into the Dynamics 365 Finance ledger in each company. Sharing a Chart of Accounts within Dynamics 365 Finance is very beneficial for organizations that are going through a merger or acquisition as it creates a legal entity override so you can manage the exceptions and disable accounts where they are not needed. With a shared Chart of Accounts, you will have one common global template and each company will have the same template with their own small variances.
  • • Cross-Company Data Sharing: The global templates enable cross-company data sharing so companies can share payment terms, delivery terms or other master data like customers and vendors across legal entities by defining policies to determine exactly which data will be shared and to which entities. An update to these data sets makes the same changes effective to all the companies where the data is being shared.

• • • Shared Services: Along with cross-company data sharing, the global templates in Dynamics 365 Finance promote shared services. Organizations that have disparate companies around the globe typically employ shared services to reduce costs and standardize business processes. Dynamics 365 Finance shared services supports quick data entry and visibility of transactions across your organization.
  • • Organization Hierarchy: The global templates help to establish an organization hierarchy to provide flexibility to your business model. The organization hierarchy feature can be used to model your business visually, or to link your Chart of Accounts to ensure that the correct combination of financial dimensions is being used in transactions.

2. Change Management: Dynamics 365 Finance consists of four powerful tools to support organizational change caused by a merger or acquisition.

• • • Azure DevOps: Azure DevOps helps you plan, track and discuss work across your teams by automatically updating project developments and details regarding issues and risks.
  • • Task Recorder: The Task Recorder in Dynamics 365 Finance is a utility that enables users to record business processes for guided tours, documentation, regression tests, or automatic playbacks. The Task Recorder will help ensure that users know how to complete the business processes in the new system as part of the merger or acquisition.
  • • Feature Management: Feature Management in Dynamics 365 Finance provides an easy-to-use workspace where you can view a list of the new features in each release. Feature Management enables users to turn off and on new features, view the supporting documentation for the features, or develop a strategy for when to launch the new features. This capability is very important as it encourages incremental changes to your business so your team and customers are not overwhelmed during a merger or acquisition.
  • • Data Effectivity: Data Effectivity in Dynamics 365 Finance enables users to track changes to records which is useful for organizational planning and historical auditing. Users can also actively make updates to data sources and set a future effective date to when those changes will take place, allowing your organization to plan ahead.

3. Governance: Project Governance ensures visibility, responsiveness and strategic direction for your organization which helps drive project decisions. Dynamics 365 Finance includes two main tools to help you maintain your Project Governance:

• • • Lifecycle Services: Lifecycle Services in Dynamics 365 Finance is a hub for customers to manage the application lifecycle for a project. The module provides specific project methodologies and a business process modeler, and it can be integrated with Azure DevOps.

• • • Azure DevOps: Azure DevOps in Dynamics 365 Finance includes process templates, test plans to support testing and reporting, and pipelines for automated deployment. Users can create custom dashboards and reports in Azure DevOps to track the status of projects and provide a rundown of tasks.

4. FastTrack for Dynamics 365: Dynamics 365 Finance comes with a free service called FastTrack for Dynamics 365 that is available to eligible customers. FastTrack is designed to accelerate digital transformation and it will validate your solution architecture, provide recommended practices, help you avoid common pitfalls, mitigate risk and increase user adoption. This service is especially helpful for organizations undergoing a merger or acquisition as it will ensure optimized use of Dynamics 365 Finance across your organization.

For more information on Dynamics 365 Finance, please visit our BCS website or schedule a free consultation today!