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Multi-National Consolidation 3.0: Tensoft Product Evangelist Talks About the Newest Release of MNC

As part of Tensoft’s implementation and support team, Dan Berube helps customers complete successful implementations of both Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly called “Great Plains”) and Tensoft MNC. Dan has become one of Tensoft’s resident experts on multinational consolidation processes and Tensoft MNC, and has presented to Microsoft, Microsoft partners, and multinational companies. Please continue to read below for an exclusive insight into how MNC 3.0 is currently helping customers improve efficiency and productivity, in a recent Q & A session with Tensoft Marketing Associate, Alejandro Barajas and Dan Berube.

BARAJAS: What does MNC 3.0 do?
BERUBE: Tensoft’s Multi-National Consolidation (MNC) module consolidates financial data from across Dynamics GP companies that operate in different functional currencies. This allows organizations to perform local accounting functions in their local currencies and have that information consolidated and maintained from a central location. MNC provides faster processing of disparate financial data along with increased efficiency throughout the consolidation process.

BARAJAS: What new features have been introduced in the newest release of MNC?
BERUBE: With the introduction of MNC 3.0 it is easier to assign historical rates to any Dynamics GP account on an entity by entity basis. With one view our customers can now ensure that the proper consolidation methods are being applied across their organization. Consolidation tracking has also been enhanced so that our customers will always know what entities have been consolidated and when.

BARAJAS: How can MNC 3.0 help companies maximize efficiency and productivity when consolidating financial data?
BERUBE: With the implementation of MNC 3.0, there’s no longer a need to track consolidated financial data on excel worksheets or wait for final numbers from subsidiaries. MNC 3.0 allows for multiple consolidations ensuring that any incremental postings are captured in a timely manner ensuring up-to-date financials are always available during the close process. With MNC the consolidation process is fully auditable and follows all Dynamics GP business logic keeping compliant with any internal processes that are in place.

Consolidated reporting is also made easier through the power of FRx. MNC consolidates data in way that allows FRx to easily report consolidated numbers by entity, business unit, account, or any other number of criteria you have defined in your account structure. Financial reporting can also be done in both the consolidation currency and local currency from the same database.

BARAJAS: How is this new version of Tensoft MNC helping existing MNC customers?
BERUBE: We have several Tensoft MNC customers who have already migrated to the new version. For example, I’ve recently worked with two different companies that use entirely different consolidation methods.

The first is a privately held company that utilized the temporal method for consolidations and therefore had a fairly complex process for consolidating. They utilized MNC 3.0 to capture all the net changes that required historical rates easily, and eliminated the redundant task of having to re-enter net changes into worksheets in order to apply the correct rates to those changes. MNC 3.0 reads that data directly from GP, so all they now need to do is apply the rate and consolidate.

Of the two companies, they also have more complex consolidations for their month end process. They have three subsidiaries that they consolidate right now, all using different rates, historical rates for the majority of their balance sheet accounts. They utilized MNC 3.0 by moving all the rates they were maintaining on Excel spreadsheets and then entering into FRx, and moved that all into MNC. Now, they consolidate through a web interface as opposed to using Excel worksheets.

The other company is a larger, public company that had been consolidating strictly on Excel worksheets. Now that they’re running MNC 3.0, they’ve cut their consolidation process down from a week or more to less than a day. One of the big benefits to them was the ability to consolidate without having to wait for their foreign subsidiaries to give them final numbers. They were now able to consolidate immediately at month end and then continue consolidating as their subsidiary made month end adjustments until the period was closed.

For further information, please contact Caprice Murray, Tensoft Director of Business Development, at 888-450-4030 x406 or at caprice@tensoft.com