Enhancing Data Accuracy and Savings at 5-Hour Energy

With a rapid-growing company, Living Essentials – the team that has helped millions of people stay awake with their product, 5-hour ENERGY, had a need to customize Microsoft Dynamics GP in order to capture critical data to manage promotions. After receiving a recommendation on SmartConnect and Extender from their GP reseller, Living Essentials implemented a solution that fit their needs.

Living Essentials worked directly with Columbus for their GP customization needs. A long-time partner of eOne Solutions, Columbus was approached by Living Essentials to help move information from their Access Database into GP and then create a “Customer Spend” application right in GP to help track promotions. They not only had a need to track the promotions taken per customer and of what type, but also to keep track of how much more could be taken. Columbus knew that the best solution available for Living Essentials was a combination of SmartConnect and Extender.

The Solution

While utilizing Analytical Accounting within Microsoft Dynamics GP was a consideration, Columbus decided that Living Essentials needed something more customizable in order to meet their exact business need. In order to do that, the team at Columbus first created an Extender window on the cash apply window, along with supporting windows to capture other critical data. This allowed Living Essentials to pick the program the vendor was using to move forward. This became the “backbone” for their project. For their next step, Columbus used SmartConnect imports to manage and maintain the available selections to streamline the process for end users.

For the SmartConnect imports, Columbus utilized the customer’s custom .NET site as the data source and the new Extender windows in GP as their destination to import new programs on a scheduled basis each night.

“The biggest benefits Living Essentials has received are accuracy in tracking the rebate program and time savings, by avoiding double entries” commented David Valade, Dynamics GP Practice Manager at Columbus. “Not only were they able to maintain perfect accuracy with their programs and save themselves time, they were also able to easily report off the Extender data from the Extender views we created.”

Continuing on, Valade commented “We started with a few projects in mind and utilized SmartConnect to update inventory across Living Essentials’ various companies around the globe, imported sales data from Excel to GP to create commissions checks for distributors on the fly, captured further custom, critical data with Extender, and much more. Using SmartConnect and Extender for these projects was a slam dunk for Living Essentials and for our team at Columbus.”

The biggest benefits Living Essentials has received are accuracy in tracking the rebate program and time savings, by avoiding double entries. Not only were they able to maintain perfect accuracy with their programs and save themselves time, but they were also able to easily report off the Extender data from the Extender views we created.

David Valade, Dynamics GP Practice Manager at Columbus