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Dynamics GP or Great Plains with Crystal Report

Besides the great and versatile built-in Microsoft Dynamics GP or Great Plains Report Writer, Crystal Report also offers another great tool to create financial reports that base on Dynamics GP data. The data can come from GP modules like Accounts Receivables, Accounts Payables, General Ledger, Inventory, Sales, Purchasing, Manufacturing, Project Accounting and many other modules.

Just like building Crystal reports for any other accounting software, a right data connection is the first thing that needs to be done correctly. The most convenient connection is to use the Sql Server Odbc connection to connect to GP database. Once the Odbc entry is correctly created, you can select it in a Crystal report to connect to GP modules for their data.

Either regular or formula data fields are readily placed on the reports. You can create a data source either based on a single GP table or linked multiple tables in GP. For the linked table data source, you could link the table in a Sql Server stored procedure, a view, or simple link them in a Crystal report. Once that is ready, just select the fields or create formula fields and place them on the reports. All the formatting like font and color for labels and data fields are just like the regular reports.

Because of the ability of accessing various modules in GP, a Crystal report can show data simultaneously come from Sales, Purchasing and Inventory for example. Also, because of the ability of using formula fields, the resulting Crystal reports can show GP data in many different ways.

All Great Plains or Dynamics GP windows and reports are ready to customize, you can use modifiers to change the appearances or values. If more advanced modification or customization is needed then VBA, Dexterity, Visual Studio Sdk are there to help. Great Plains has been in the accounting software marketing for many years, and it is one of the first software to convert to Windows environment from DOS. It is also one of the first accounting software to include the .Net in its tools, so the software has always been trying to be on top what are new with computers and operating systems.