[Dalila Nguyen]

We are in process of purchasing MEM and would like to hear any feedbacks regarding MEM, I would greatly appreciate your comments/help, thanks!

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Dalila Nguyen
Accounting System Administrator
Southwest Key Program, Inc.
Austin TX
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[Kimberly Lomax]

We have used it for several years now.  Our main motivation was to handle GL intercompany due to/due from entries automatically.  We found the product to act quirky at times (doesn’t balance particular entries) and the support from Binary Stream to be not so helpful at times (not all the time).  The issues are very sporadic.  It definitely limits the flexibility in other modules, such as applying cash to A/R invoices – the invoices and cash have to be posted to the same entity ID in order for you to be able to match.  We struggled with this and ended up applying a policy that all A/R and cash will always be posted to a single entity, but you may not have that same issue.  While we’ve been using the product for years now, we are currently in search of a new solution for our intercompany balancing function so we can discontinue the use of MEM.  The product just gets hard to work with in the other modules outside of the GL.

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Kimberly Lomax
Manager, Financial Systems
Rayonier
Jacksonville FL
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[Charles Allen]

We have clients using this, three that come to mind.

One is using Receivables while the other two are not.

The main purpose of buying it was to have everything in one database.

It has been working for them.

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Charles Allen
Senior Managing Consultant
BKD Technologies
Houston, TX
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[Sean Reynolds]

Hi Dalila –

We’ve been using Binary Stream’s MEM product for several years now and the primary reason, as Charles noted, was to have all the accounting for our 65+ Airport FBO’s all in one database.   We have intercompany enabled through MEM and had no problems with it in the years we’ve been using it.  In fact, we just finished an integration through SmartConnect where our AP documents integrated from a secondary system are now being coded with intercompany GL distributions correctly.  Because we are a SOX compliant company all the testing had to pass through our accounting group before implementation to production. 

In my opinion, MEM is very much similar to Project Accounting or Analytical Accounting in the respect the module touches just about every module you’ll work with in GP.   You’ll have alternate windows, etc. but the biggest part of using a module like this is the setup – you’ll want to make sure you work with your partner on setting up the module correctly so you take advantage of the functionality pertinent to your business needs.  There’s a lot to MEM to take advantage of, but if it’s not setup correctly it can lead to headaches.

As the Dynamics GP system admin for my company, I have had many dealings with their support team and have been very pleased with their level of support.  I work primarily with Gilbert Lee, who almost always takes our support cases, and he’s been very responsive and helpful.  

I hope you found this helpful and if you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to ask me! 

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Sean Reynolds
IT Accounting Manager & MS Dynamics GP System Administrator
Atlantic Aviation
Plano TX
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[Paul Layton]

Dallia,

 Binary Stream MEM is an incredibly flexible and reliable product that we have implemented for many of our clients. The product provides great efficiency reducing daily processing costs, the costs of upgrading and the costs of hardware and administration by greatly reducing the number of database that must be maintained.  Adding the new Intercompany Bridge allows you to extend the MEM features over multiple databases so that even companies that operate in multiple currencies may enjoy the benefits of MEM.  I recommend MEM to  any organization that has multiple legal entitles with heavy intercompany activity, centralized treasury or the need to share customer, inventory and or vendor master records.

I have worked with Binary Stream personally since 2008 and have found the organization reliable and responsive to any support request submitted.  The product does have a lot of flexibility so please make sure your VAR has references from previous implementations.  MEM will affect practically every windows and process in GP, which is great in allowing you to fit your business process into the product, however you do not want to be anyone’s first implementation of this product.  The first one of these implementations that our firm performed was completed with Binary Stream leading the way and our consultants learning the product.  Now we have many of these implementations under our belt.  

One other thing, make sure to plan and document your plan before implementing.  Do you have a user access grid (critical as users not granted access will not see transactions from entities not on their list) are vendors and customers going to be shared?  Are there certain vendors that are restricted, who is responsible for the printing of 1099’s, can one entity make payments on behalf of others, collect money for others and so much more.  These configurations are not something that someone should sit down and make assumptions about in an hour or two, but should be discussed, documented and agreed upon by the VAR and the client.

Over all I can tell  you a decision for MEM is a great choice if implemented professionally.

Go Luck,

Paul   

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Paul Layton
Pre-Sales Solutions Consultant
Tribridge
Covington KY
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[Kristen Hosman]

We are also looking into MEM.  Not sure if our situation is uncommon or not.  We will have four companies setup.  Two of the companies will hold the inventory and the other two companies will be selling the inventory.  Customers will be shared between the two companies selling.  How does invoicing work when it comes time to that part?  Certain inventory will be sold for one company and other inventory will be sold within the other company.  We are curious to know how logos and company names are handled on the invoicing and also how you would tag inventory to a certain company?

Hope that all makes sense.  Thank you!

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Kristen Hosman
Accounting Manager
PlatinumCode
Lakeville MN
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[Colleen Chambers]

We use MEM, and though I am not a big fan – it is a necessary evil for our company. One thing I would say, make sure that you let all your 3rd party vendors know that you have MEM installed any time you look at a new product. You may also want to let any existing product vendors know that you are moving to MEM, as this often has an effect on the functionality. Further, if you have any issues you are troubleshooting with your system, be sure to disable MEM and test to see if the issue still comes up. We have found with most of our system issues, MEM was the culprit. Microsoft will not provide support if they find that the issue is related to MEM, so it is always better to rule that out before contacting MS for support, when your issue is out of the scope of what your GP partner can help with. The plus is that Binary Stream provides excellent support. They are very responsive and quite knowledgeable. 

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Colleen Chambers
Florida Medical Clinic, PA
Zephyrhills FL
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[Rob Klaproth]

MEM is a double edged sword for sure.  It gives you that essential functionality so you don’t have to create 10 different companies and have to constantly login to each different one.  

On the other hand it is trying to do something GP wasn’t designed to do which creates problems with 3rd party vendors.  

It would be nice if Microsoft would build the functionality into GP much the same as Solomon has always had and Intacct and many other ERP systems.  

Maybe we should create a connect suggestion for it and get everyone here to vote on it. 🙂 

Sent from my iPhone

——Original Message——

We use MEM, and though I am not a big fan – it is a necessary evil for our company. One thing I would say, make sure that you let all your 3rd party vendors know that you have MEM installed any time you look at a new product. You may also want to let any existing product vendors know that you are moving to MEM, as this often has an effect on the functionality. Further, if you have any issues you are troubleshooting with your system, be sure to disable MEM and test to see if the issue still comes up. We have found with most of our system issues, MEM was the culprit. Microsoft will not provide support if they find that the issue is related to MEM, so it is always better to rule that out before contacting MS for support, when your issue is out of the scope of what your GP partner can help with. The plus is that Binary Stream provides excellent support. They are very responsive and quite knowledgeable. 

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Colleen Chambers
Florida Medical Clinic, PA
Zephyrhills FL
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[Neil MacDonald]

MEM does already work with most of the major ISVs. There is a list of the major ones on our website.

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Neil MacDonald
Binary Stream
Moncton NB
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[Bill Marshall]

Dalila — Have you looked at other Intercompany products, ones that can handle both multiple entities in a single database and also separate databases? It often helps to work with your partner to arrange a demonstration of all the ones available because each has their own strong points and different functionality, some of which you might need, some you won’t. MEM does things our AIT product cannot do, and vice versa, and the same goes for Nolan’s. Work with your partner to identify the pluses and minuses of each as relates to your business needs. 

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Bill Marshall
President
mc²
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[Sherlene Sorenson]

I agree with others that MEM can handle many complex situations, and also that you want someone experienced leading your project so you are sure to have a successful implementation. We have several clients using MEM successfully as well, also including the payroll module. We have found Binary Stream’s support to be very helpful. If you don’t have strong IT or GP “Super User” internally, be sure to keep your GP Partner in the loop about changes to your system so they can be your liaison when you are attempting to figure out which product has conflicts. Having a separate test server environment is also crucial so you can install product updates there and thoroughly test them out prior to affecting your live environment.

To answer the question about logos and signatures and such on checks, you may want to also look into using Mekorma for Payables and/or Payroll checks in conjunction with BSSI MEM.

Hope this helps!

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Sherlene Sorenson
Sr Implementation Consultant
InterDyn BMI
West Fargo ND
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