Sales goals are important to your whole organization and how sales people manage those goals are just as important. Microsoft Dynamics® CRM can greatly improve how sales manage their goals, ultimately improving your bottom line.

There has been a slight shift from Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 to CRM 2011 that sales should pay close attention to. In CRM 4.0, sales use the quota feature to manage their sales goals. In CRM 2011, the goals feature has been added as a replacement for quotas. Quotas are still supported in 2011, but will not be available in later versions. Out with the old and in with the new! Here are a few reasons we’re excited about this transition:

Goals in Microsoft Dynamics CRM are directly tied to opportunities. So if you enter revenue for a particular lead, it will account for your all- up goals. This tracks your actual money in relation to your in-progress revenue so that goals line up in real-time with sales information and accounting data. Once a lead is closed, then CRM automatically records this as actual money (updating goals simultaneously). This backend workflow for goals makes sure financial information stays up-to-date and your sales reps always on their toes to meet their sales goals.

Goals can be set up for opportunities, but are not limited to this. For example, sales reps may be encouraged to look for influencers as well. Managers can set up goals for users or users can do this for themselves. There are parent goals and child goals- specific goals, sales team goals, department goals, company goals. You can really take goals as far as you want to go to support your unique business processes. By default, goals recalculate every 24 hours, but you can manually do this as well. You just have to change the setting to recalculate more often.

So how do you set up sales goals in Microsoft Dynamics CRM? In the sales module, select “goals” and choose the type of goal you’re looking to set up. By default, there are two choices 1. Revenue or 2. Accounts, but you can create your own goal metrics as well if this isn’t what you need to track. Then these goals automatically pull information from opportunity updates. Once goals are set up, you can also pull that into your dashboard view so you always have information at hand.

If you have any questions about setting up goals in Microsoft Dynamics CRM or the transition from quotas to goals, please contact us at Pangea Business Solutions.

By Alexandra Gonzalez with PANGEA Business Solutions- http://www.pangeabsi.com/

Our previous blog touched on a few points about why non-profits need Microsoft Dynamics® ERP. To build on this concept, we have a great example of one of our non-profit clients here in Florida. They’ve gone above and beyond the normal ERP functionality and are realizing the benefits. Let’s take a look…

As one of the largest non-profit organizations in Florida, our client was struggling with their financial management, inventory control, and complicated day-to-day operations. They had multiple disparate systems that sometimes talked to each other, but not all the time. This caused confusion and extreme lack of insight into what was happening on a day to day basis.

We worked with our client to create a workflow with Microsoft Dynamics GP and SharePoint 2010 that fixed any disconnections. Our client handles blood donations and delivery to hospitals throughout Florida. They send out mobile units daily to receive donations. These mobile units are not connected via wifi, so they have a few solutions that help them track everything during the day, such as what supplies they used throughout the day, whether there were any discarded blood bags, etc. Once they return to the office, they are able to facilitate two quick and easy phases that pulls in and collates all relevant data.

Once those phases are complete, Microsoft Dynamics GP takes over and streamlines job costing so they can see exactly how much money it’s costing them to perform business tasks. GP also tracks and maintains inventory and accurately manages all financials.

In addition to Microsoft Dynamics GP, we are working to get them set up with SharePoint 2010 so they can connect everything throughout their organization, allowing more visibility in real-time and creating data they can rely on.

By Santiago Morales with PANGEA Business Solutions, Florida Microsoft Dynamics Partner