[Dave Webb]

We are very unhappy with our vendor.  They are constantly asking for money to do anything and we pay them a 5 figure support contract annually already. Is this the experience everyone has with this product?  If not, how do you rate your vendor?  

I’m also curious if any of you do your own year end updates?  This is our first year on this software and it has been miserable.

Thanks…

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Dave Webb
MCCC
Prestonsburg KY
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[David Callery]

Dave,

Things shouldn’t be that hard to get good support when need and the software is supposed to reduce the frustration level, not provide more headaches.
Give me a call if you wish to discuss your situation and options.  Maybe we can help or provide alternative path.

Dave
Office  504 885-8686

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David Callery
Consultant
Coe & Company, LLC
Jefferson LA
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[Michael Gummel]

Dave,

You still have many options for support, if you are unhappy take a look around.   Many of the “larger” VARs seem to be paying less attention to their GP customers as they are working more with the cloud based options available.   Be sure to do your “homework” if you do look around.

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Michael Gummel
Prod Engineer
Paradigm Technology Consulting
Allentown NJ
mgummel@ptcllc.com
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[Kim Peterson]

Dave,
I’m not a partner but I know most GP partners.  If you’d like to talk – express what you are looking for – give me a call.

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Kim Peterson
701-261-7307
Kim@DynamicsConnections.com
#KimPetersonGP
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[Kathryn Earhart]

Check with your vendor to see what your support contract covers.  Our 5 figure annual amount covers the Microsoft licensing fee, but does not cover additional support.  We pay by the hour for additional work by our GP partner, and for larger projects they provide a quote with estimated costs prior to beginning any work.  Our Partner handles all of our updates (Update itself part of annual fee and charge per hour for their time to install) and SQL work as we do not have onsite IT support.

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Kathryn Earhart
YTC America, Inc
Camarillo CA
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[Beat Bucher]

Hi ,
I agree with , that is vastly depends on how your partner maintenance contract was setup.. There isn’t a lack of GP supporting partners out there or independent consultant that can help you out of your troubles.
Most larger MS VAR (Microsoft Value Added Re-seller, though the VA seems get lost a bit in the past years) are providing basic support only and what you pay every year is your annual maintenance plan for GP (many times in the 5-digits, depending on how large your implementation is).
On top of the annual maintenance, partners offer either unlimited support by charging a one-time annual fee (usually in the 5 digits too), or they offer on-call support for an agreed hourly rate??, or you can sometime work out an agreement to get a lower rate by purchasing ahead of time a bank of hours (typically 10 or 20 hours), which can be renewed once used up. Most partners have policies were the pre-paid bank time will expire at the end of the year, but you might be lucky and find one where unused hours can be rolled over to the next year.
Your other option could be in the annual maintenance contract you pay to Microsoft, as they offer different levels, while A being the simplest (no support) plan, and B & C offering some type of support. The B plan typically includes 4 or 5 calls per year directly with Microsoft, and each support case will be open as long as required to solve the case. The C plan is for unlimited support if I recall correctly. Of course, they do come with a different price rate, but sometimes the direct support by Microsoft turns out to be more cost-effective..  it all depends on your level of knowledge in GP and how well you understand it, and how much you need to rely on external support.
Contact me thru PM if you want to know more about the most common practices for customer support.

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Beat Bucher
Business Analyst, Dynamics GP SME
Montreal QC/Canada
@GP_Beat http://www.gp-geek.com
Montreal QC GPUG Chapter Leader
MBS MVP (2015-2018)

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[Dave Webb]

Thanks to everyone who has responded so far.  You have given me lots of information to look into.  I have requested our contract details from our current vendor and upon review will be able to have a better conversation with some of you.  We are a brand new implementation and have found several things which were not done properly during the implantation phase that are now causing us big problems to fix. (1099s is one).  Thanks again…

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Dave Webb
MCCC
Prestonsburg KY
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[Nancy Edwards]

You’ve gotten some good suggestions and information here.  I would throw out that, depending on your IT department’s skills, it is possible to do almost all of this in house.  We are a very small company but our awesome IT department handles our year end updates, upgrades, SQL work, etc.  We also thought the fees to make changes were too high, and in our area there is very limited options for vendors, so we decided to own our own system.  The time and effort to get our IT personnel up to speed has paid for itself many times over in the last few years.  Plus we are more familiar with the system as a whole and how it all works together.  We have never regretted the choice to bring it in house.

Good luck with whatever you decide!

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Nancy Edwards
Director of Operations
H&W Computer Systems, Inc
Boise ID
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