Small Business Manager is an affordable, easy to use financial and business management solution designed specifically to help small businesses work smarter and faster, easily access information to make informed decisions, and effectively integrate with business applications you use most.  Ideal for companies ready to move beyond a basic accounting solution, Small Business Manager helps you get up and running quickly, scales as your business grows and offers reliable multi-user access and award-winning training and support from Microsoft Great Plains.

Designed specifically for small, growing businesses, Small Business Manager is an affordable, easy to use financial and business management solution that helps you work smarter and faster, easily access the information you need to make informed decisions, and effectively integrate with business applications you use most, including Microsoft Office and bCentral Web services. 

Small Business Manager includes financial, banking, sales, purchasing, and payroll capabilities as well as quick and easy reporting.  Ideal for companies ready to move beyond a basic accounting solution, Small Business Manager helps you get up and running quickly, scales as your business grows, and offers reliable multi-user access and award-winning training and support from Microsoft Great Plains.

  Problem / Solution

We are ready to move beyond a basic accounting package to a business management solution and we need to get up and running quickly.

Small Business Manager helps you get up and running quickly and easily.  You can import your master record data directly from either QuickBooks or an Excel file in minutes.  You can also use wizards and checklists to guide you through the company setup process and intuitive navigation will have you up and running in no time.  Because Small Business Manager is only available through highly trained local partners, they can help you with the setup process and you always have the option of getting additional support and training from your local partner or from the Microsoft Great Plains award-winning support team. 

We have outgrown our current system and we need a new system that we can continue to work with as our business grows. 

Small Business Manager offers a number of powerful, advanced features designed for small, growing businesses including secure and reliable access for up to five concurrent users, accounting controls and real audit tracking, and several database options, including Microsoft SQL server, to help you manage your transaction processing load.  If you do require additional functionality in the future, you can easily transition to Great Plains Dynamics without the hassle of data migration or training employees on a new application, because both applications are built on the same Microsoft Great Plains technology platform.

Our company is growing and we now need a reliable system that will give other employees access to business information without giving up control of our business data. 

With Small Business Manager, you can provide secure, reliable access to up to five concurrent employees.  You can designate the areas that you employees can access and determine whether or not they need to enter or simply view data.  Once posted, transactions cannot be deleted, and you can always trace transactions back to the source with the audit trail. 

We need a system from a company that our employees can turn to for questions and support.

When you invest in Small Business Manager, you get the support of your local, professionally trained Microsoft Great Plains business partner as well as the services of the award-winning support and training team at Microsoft Great Plains.  Your local partner is trained in accounting and business practices, and can do more than just offer technical support and product training – they get to know your business and can advise you as to the best way to get the most from your investment.  The Great Plains award-winning support and training team also offers training and support when you want it, the way you want it – via CD, online or live.

Easily access information to make informed decisions

We want to monitor how we perform against our goals.  We need to be able to easily set a financial budget measure our progress against that budget.

Small Business Manager makes it easy to create and use budgets with Excel-based budgeting tools.  You can import and export data from Excel and easily collaborate with others to create viable business budget.  You can then generate reports to compare your budget against actual performance.

As a small business, managing cash flow is important to our daily business management.  We need tools to monitor and manage our cash flow.

Small Business Manager helps you manage cash flow with overall cash flow reporting. You can also closely monitor amounts due from customers and amounts owed to suppliers with SmartList receivables and payables management features.  You can easily export this information to Excel for more detailed analysis and drill down back to the source document for additional information about specific transactions.  You can email statements and invoices to customers to remind them to pay, and if necessary, automatically send out past due notices with Microsoft Word mail merge.  You can also monitor amounts due to vendors so that you pay as scheduled.   and tracking overall vendor purchases can help you with future vendor negotiations.

We want to closely track our profitability so that we can manage sales and monitor expenses.

Small Business Manager provides a variety of reports to help you understand your sales and expenses at a high level, allowing you to easily drill down for more information as needed.  You can easily track sales and expenses overall or by department.  You can also identify your top customers and top vendors to make decisions about resources and identify where to target sales or opportunities for supplier negotiation.

We need to get a better handle on our financial performance.

Organize, track, and analyze your financial data with Small Business Manager.  You can quickly search for information, monitor key business metrics at a glance, and drill down for more details, even back to the source documents.  For easy access to key information, you can customize queries and create personalized views of key financial reports.   Small Business Manager offers flexible reporting to help you make informed decisions about your business.  

Integrate your business processes

Our company uses Microsoft Office frequently we need to be sure this integrates with our new business management software.

Small Business Manager integrates closely with Microsoft Office, especially with Microsoft Excel and Word.  Reports can be easily exported to Excel and Word for additional customization and analysis.  Budgeting is completed with a unique Excel-based collaborative budgeting tool to easily update your budget figures and compare to actual amounts.  You can also create queries and merge that information with Microsoft Word to send out letters, for example, to your customer base. 

We plan to start selling some of our products on the Internet and need a simple e-commerce solution that works with our accounting system.

bCentral Web services are an affordable way to get up and running on the Web and these services integrate directly with Small Business Manager.  bCentral Web services include tools to create and edit your Web site; create an online catalog to sell products from your own Web site or other sites, such as e-Bay; and manage customer communications.  Orders entered by customers automatically update Small Business Manager, saving you time and ensuring accuracy of your data.

We would like to bring our payroll in house so that we have more control and can manage our costs.

Small Business Manager makes it fast, convenient, and reliable for you to efficiently process your payroll and stay in compliance with government requirements.  Data entered automatically updates the financial system to eliminate redundant data entry and reduce errors.  Your payroll process can be customized for your business and includes payment by check or direct deposit.  Microsoft Great Plains also provides you with regular federal and state tax table updates as part of your overall support plan and allows you to process government forms and reports to stay in compliance.