Unify Your Project-Centric Business with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations
The “Resource/non-stocked deployment scenario” in Dynamics 365 Project Operations provides end-to-end industry-leading features.
The “Resource/non-stocked deployment scenario” in Dynamics 365 Project Operations provides end-to-end industry-leading features.
Table of Content
In my earlier post, I wrote about new Dynamics 365 Project Operations solution from Microsoft and the three different deployment modes available for customers. In today’s post, I will dive into the details of the “Fully integrated deployment mode, officially known as “Resource/non-stocked deployment scenario”. This deployment mode provides end-to-end industry-leading features to manage project quote-to-cash and revenue recognition life-cycle. The deployment is suitable for project-based organizations, who do not have stocked inventory or materials/production requirements.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations provides comprehensive Lead, Opportunity and Quote management features suitable for project-based firms. It leverages the industry-leading Dynamics 365 Sales solution in the Customer Engagement platform and lights up the experience right within the Project Operations app.
You can track all required lead information. Once you qualify the lead, an opportunity record is automatically created.
In the Resource/Non-stocked-based Deployment of Project Operations, you can only add project-based lines right now, but support for service-based items/products is coming soon.
(Note: If you have the Lite Deployment of Project Operations without a Finance integration, you can still add product-based lines, just like you did in the old D365 PSA app).
You can assign a price list/rate card for the opportunity and you can now build the line items on the opportunity. Here, you can specify details such as billing method, amount, customer’s budget and so on.
Once the opportunity details are fine-tuned with the customer, you can build a proposal/quote directly from the opportunity record. All the line item details are carried over automatically.
The quote lines represent the discrete components of the work that you will present to the customers.
The quote line details is where you identify and estimate the details of each quote line/work component such as, schedule, financials, contracting model and so on. This information on the quote line details helps you perform a profitability analysis on the quote.
If the project is funded by more than one customer, you can add the customers/funding sources on the quote line and designate the amount/percent split of the bill. You can also specify the “Not-to-exceed” limit for each customer. This is similar to the funding sources, funding limits, and funding rules functionality that we all know in the classic Project Accounting module of D365 Finance.
If the quote line is a Time & Material line, you can specify additional details such as “Chargeable Roles”, “Chargeable Categories”.
You can also set the project to create the ground-up estimates from the project tasks/plan. You can then import those into the quote lines. After you have built the quote details, you can review the profitability analysis information.
You can also see how your quote compares to the customer’s expectations.
Once you have won the opportunity, you can associate the Project ID to the quote/opportunity line and mark the quote as Won. As soon as a Quote is closed, a project contract is automatically created and saved as a draft.
Project managers can create detailed project WBS/plans using the Project for the Web (P4W) capabilities built right into Dynamics 365 Project Operations.
Your resources can use the intuitive time entry UI to keep track of their daily time. You can also keep track of employee expenses with the robust expense management module within Project Operations, with features such as expense policies, workflows, and credit card integration. The expense management experience comes from the Dynamics 365 Finance app and offers advanced expense management capabilities. They can also use the time and expense mobile apps.
Managers can review timesheets and expenses in the Approvals work bench and process them in timely manner.
Project finance/billing teams can stay on top of their tasks with intuitive interfaces for transaction corrections to make sure any adjustments to transactions are processed prior to billing.
The dedicated work bench for the time and material, fixed price milestone, and advance and retainers billing backlogs provide all your billing backlog information in one place. You can review details such as invoice status, “not to exceed” limits, and statuses of each transaction to make sure customer invoices are accurate.
Creating invoices for project contracts is simple. They can be created manually for each contract, or an automated batch job can be setup to run on automatic recurrence.
As soon as you review the drafted invoice, a project invoice proposal is created, which is then ready to be posted. With the industry-leading sales tax engine of D365 Finance solution, you don’t have to worry about complexities of sales tax calculations.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations also provides functionality for advances and retainers billed to customers. This is a new feature that was released in version 4.5.0.134.
Additionally, you can setup an automatic retainer schedule to bill customers automatically based on a pre-defined schedule and invoice frequency. You can reconcile actuals against billed retainers and advances.
With the “Fully integrated Resource/non-stocked scenario/deployment” mode, you have complete revenue recognition, sales tax, and project accounting and financial management. This part of the solution is built on the powerful project management and accounting solution we all are familiar with in Dynamics 365 Finance. The module has been tailored and modified to work with the Project Operations solution.
Read about the top highlights for Dynamics 365 Project Operations. You can also learn more about all the features for Dynamics 365 Project Operations, here.