News and Events : PVBS Newsletter February 2007

Welcome to Our Inaugural Issue

Pleasant Valley Business Solutions Partner Articles
PVBS Customers Save Money with Diamond Mind Payment Processing Services
Black Ink offers Dynamics NAV as Hosted Application Service for Emerging Government Contractors
Is Government Accounts Receivable Financing (Factoring) Right for Your Business?

Microsoft Dynamics News
Government Contractor Solutions Circle Shows Microsoft’s Commitment to Bringing Financial Solutions to Market
Industry Analyst Report Speaks to the Huge Economic Impact of Microsoft Windows Vista
Upcoming Release of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5 Realizes Breakthrough Technology Innovations

News from PVBS
PVBS Announces Formation of New Microsoft Dynamics NAV for Government Contractors User Group
Dynamics NAV for Government Contractors Lunch and Learn to be Held on March 27 in Washington DC

Bernard's Blog
Microsoft Business Intelligence at the Desktop is for Everybody

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Welcome to Our Inaugural Issue

Welcome to the inaugural issue of the High-Growth Government Contractor newsletter. Our customers, typically fast-growing companies that offer services and/or products to the Federal Government, have been asking us for regular communications on the developments with our ERP, project accounting and financial management solutions. Many have asked us to offer insight into the companies we have partnered with that provide products, services, and other business solutions to government contractors. And everyone wants us to keep them informed on what Microsoft is providing for government contractors on the enterprise systems and financial management side.

In this issue, we’ll give you an update on what Microsoft has been creating for government contractors and discuss some of great things that will be included in the upcoming release of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5. We’ll introduce you to some of our key partners and let you know about their services. And we’ll update you on PVBS news and introduce you to our new blog.

We’ll be delivering this newsletter quarterly. Scheduled publication dates for 2007 are February 15, May 15, August 15, and November 15. We encourage you to forward it to your colleagues and provide feedback on how to make it more impactful for you. We are very appreciative of your time and have provided subscription information at the bottom of this newsletter.

Best regards,
Bernard Mustafa
CEO, Pleasant Valley Business Solutions

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Pleasant Valley Business Solutions Partner Articles

PVBS Customers Save Money with Diamond Mind Payment Processing Services

Our customers that accept Federal Government purchase cards can benefit from substantially lower fees and increased marketability through the value-added services of our payment processing services partner, Diamond Mind, Inc.

Diamond Mind is not your traditional merchant service provider. Most of their competitors specialize in helping retail and consumer businesses with devices to accept credit cards. However, when these business practices are brought to bear upon the specialized needs of government contractors for accepting federal government purchase cards, the implication is very often unnecessarily high fees and eventually lost business opportunities.

For government contractors, Diamond Mind offers innovative Level III payment processing solutions and specialized customer service.

Wade Tetsuka, EVP from Diamond Mind, said, “Level III continues to be a largely unmet need in purchase card programs administered by the various federal government agencies. By providing Level III data to the agencies, government contractors not only reduce their cost – often by 1% of the invoice amount or higher – of accepting government purchase cards; it also tightens the relationship of the contractor to the agency it serves by providing coveted data-rich information. This ultimately enhances fraud and spending controls for the Federal Government.”

According to the GSA’s David Shea, at the August 2006 SmartPay Conference, “Only 15.9% of GSA SmartPay transactions and 16.3% of transaction spend have Level III line item data … and the lack of [Level III] data remains a significant customer agency concern.”

Diamond Mind is a leading merchant service provider and an independent sales organization (ISO) of HSBC Bank USA, specializing in Level III payment processing solutions to government contractors. Diamond Mind is among the first ISO’s in the U.S. to make Level III for Government Contracting a central focus of its business. Diamond Mind and its payment processing partner, Global Payments, Inc. collectively handle more than 2.3 billion transactions per year of Visa, MasterCard, AMEX and Discover credit cards. For more information, visit www.diamondmindinc.com or contact Wade Tetsuka at (888) 566-0945, ext. 705.

Black Ink offers Dynamics NAV as Hosted Application Service for Emerging Government Contractors

Black Ink (LLC) Hosted Application and Consulting Services are specifically designed to meet the financial management and project accounting software needs of government contractors. In recent years the amount of affordable IT technology and focused business productivity software that has been introduced into the small business arena is simply amazing. Tools of productivity that are so process focused they give the companies who utilize them a distinct advantage over their competition. The term affordable is relative to the size of the business and the business activity. To help bridge the gap, using the SaaS (Software as a Service) approach, Black Ink brings enterprise class financial management and ERP applications to fast growing government contractors.

Previously, emerging firms would quickly purchase IT equipment to meet a static application requirement. This approach often left the business owner stuck with under sized, over taxed data systems trying to keep up with the never ending stream of application and operating system patches. Emerging firms will often have difficulty in funding the necessary components of a robust IT enterprise let alone the software components necessary to keep the competitive advantage. Hardware migration and patch management than becomes the full time focus of IT staff creating a reactionary approach to application stability and IT management. Those business owners appropriately felt the body of their business was being wagged by the proverbial IT tail.

With the recent emergence of available and affordable bandwidth located at functional data centers; web-based delivery supported by a service-oriented architecture provides emerging business owners a scalable approach to their specific hosted IT enterprise needs. Coupled with Software as a Service (SaaS), also known as on-demand or hosted applications, business owners have options to application delivery and maintenance affecting Return on Investment (ROI). Recent research on 631 companies conducted by the Aberdeen Group highlights implementation time and ROI for differing enterprise application areas. Two areas are Customer Relationship Management (CRM) with data showing implementation in less than two months and ROI in less than six months and Financial Management with implementation in less than three months and ROI in less than six months.

While certain questions must arise in a SaaS model related to data security, system availability and application integration, research has shown that companies teamed with SaaS providers have actually been far more effective at meeting these challenges. Recent attention to security has elevated the need to professionally secure data systems which the SaaS model addresses. Two factor authentication, biometrics, and encryption are all mechanisms employed to address data security concerns. The latest generation of hosting centers provides guarded physical access to state of the art environmentally conditioned data centers. Automatic transfer switches maintain power through the use of wet-cell battery rooms and onsite diesel power generation. Although all of these features play to a company’s advantage, the single most important advantage of the SaaS model is the client’s ability to leverage the service providers experienced enterprise solutions professionals.

In short, emerging firms should consider SaaS in their software solutions evaluation. Technology has matured to the point making SaaS delivery an affordable option to enterprise scalability freeing up time and resources to focus on core business objectives.

Black Ink (LLC) offers Hosted Application Services specifically designed for the financial management and project accounting needs of government contractors. Black Ink now offers Dynamics NAV as a hosted application suite developed by Pleasant Valley Business Solutions. Dynamics NAV financial management and project accounting software was created specifically for high-growth government contractors, now these same features are available to small business government contractors through our hosted offerings. Black Ink's comprehensive application hosting solutions combined with our project accounting consulting service creates the ideal foundation for your government contractor financial management and project accounting requirements. For more information on advanced hosted application services, visit us on the web at www.blackinapps.com or contact us through your sales representative at Pleasant Valley Business Solutions.

Is Government Accounts Receivable Financing (Factoring) Right for Your Business?

Government accounts receivable financing – also know as factoring – allows your company to speed up cash flow and gain immediate access to cash by selling your business-to-business accounts receivables to a factoring agent, such as our partner Commerce Funding Corporation, a Wells Fargo Company. Factoring is ideal for government contractors that need quick access to capital to achieve a variety of business objectives, including winning large contracts and achieving hyper business growth.

The CFC staff is skilled and knowledgeable in factoring government receivables and understands the culture of government and how to work within government bureaucracy. They recognize the unique ways of handling government invoices and the unique challenges that typically arise when factoring government receivables. In addition, they will work with you to process invoices as quickly as possible.

Typical Client Profile

Financing programs are designed to assist government contractors requiring capital for:

New contracts
Existing contracts
Vendor obligations
Support of existing bank debt
Creditor obligations
Expansion – government, international and commercial markets

Benefits for Fast Growing Government Contractors

Access to your cash quickly
Frees up cash tied up in accounts receivables and eliminates the strain of 30-, 60-, or 90-day pay delays.
A continuous source of cash as your business grows
No debt creation as factoring is a sale of invoices, not a loan
Convenient and flexible because you can start, stop, or continue factoring as needed. You hold the reigns.
Credit analysis on new and existing customers

The CFC Advantage

Experience: Proficiency in government contracting, financing and due diligence
Reputation: Long-standing relationships with industry-leading professional services firms
Personalized Service: Specialized and responsive attention that allows for most transactions to be completed quickly

Since 1987, Commerce Funding Corporation, a Wells Fargo Company, has earned the respect of customers and industry partners alike due to our flexibility, knowledge and dedication to providing value-added financing. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., we offer comprehensive factoring services to businesses of all sizes across the United States. In recognition of this high level of competence, we have become a leading funding source for companies nationwide that provide goods and services to federal, state and municipal government agencies. Our clients have unique operating characteristics – ranging from small and disadvantaged privately-owned entities to venture-capital-backed pre-public companies to mature-operating publicly-traded companies.

For more information, please contact Michael Marsden, Vice President, Wells Fargo Business Credit, Vienna, VA at 703 893 2150, extension 248.

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Microsoft Dynamics News

Government Contractor Solutions Circle Shows Microsoft’s Commitment to Bringing Financial Solutions to Market

Microsoft created the Government Contractor Solutions Circle, an assembly of six Microsoft partners with specific solutions for government contractors, to offer its customers a significant solution offering to meet their unique needs. The Solutions Circle members were expert in bringing Dynamics NAV, SharePoint, Microsoft Project, Microsoft CRM and many other infrastructure products to market. The Circle is going strong after it was introduced to the market by Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive Officer at Microsoft, at a briefing attended by 500 high-tech executives in Washington DC in December 2005.

The combined offerings from the six companies represent a streamlined, reliable, and secure solution including contact management, contract signing and proposal generation, to project management – as well as finance management and project accounting.

IntelliSafe Technologies, (Chesapeake, Virginia) a subsidiary of Compass Technology®, offers a unique digital signature application which provides the ability to create, sign and securely store legally binding, authoritative documents in a completely paperless environment.
Dynlink, (Arlington, Virginia) offer Customer Relationship Management solutions based on Microsoft CRM, which helps midmarket government contractors build better customer relationships. Built using Microsoft .Net technologies, Microsoft CRM is easy to deploy, customize, and use, accessible from Microsoft Outlook and the Web, integrates with other business applications and scales as your business grows.
I3 Solutions (Sterling, Virginia) Proposal Management System is a Web-based collaboration portal designed to manage every aspect of the proposal process.
Project Solutions Group (Marlborough, Massachusetts) is a full-service project management consultancy and Microsoft Certified Partner specializing in project and portfolio management strategy, consulting, training and systems implementation.
Sysarc (Bethesda, MD) works with small and mid-size government contractors to design, build, and maintain network infrastructure needs by providing highly skilled technical support services for mission critical systems.
Pleasant Valley Business Solutions (Reston, VA) offers the Microsoft alternative for government contractor ERP, project accounting and financial management.

Bernard Mustafa, PVBS Chief Executive Officer, said, “Government contractors that have looked to Microsoft for a comprehensive, enterprise-wide solution set for their business processes have to look no further. Solutions are available for everything from initial opportunity development and proposal creation to digital contract signing, project and financial management. This alliance confirms that Microsoft applications are ideal for government contractors.”

In his speech to the Washington DC high-tech community launching this program, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said, “Here in this market for government contractors, we actually have a set of six partners who have come together to bring what's really just an awesome solution for running a government contracting business together. Each one of these partners can resell and service technologies that come from the other five partners and each one of whom would be glad to deliver to you a full solution that includes our technology stacks and everything else that you need to finish out the solution around our dynamics product line for government contracting.”

Ballmer continued, “It's really kind of an innovation thing. Six companies, all selling essentially the same solution, all selling each other's products. We think that when you put their technologies together with our core platform, you have what is easily the most sophisticated solution for government contractors in this area.”

Industry Analyst Report Speaks to the Huge Economic Impact of Microsoft Windows Vista

Microsoft commissioned a study by the industry analyst group IDC to assess the economic impact of the Microsoft Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 launches, which occurred in January. According to the report, Windows Vista's impact on the market will reach far beyond Microsoft, driving revenues and growth for many of the 1 million IT companies worldwide that sell hardware, write software, provide IT services, or serve as IT distribution channels.

The IDC research in this White Paper indicates that:

Within its first year of shipment, IDC expects Windows Vista to be installed on more than 90 million computers worldwide. More than 35 million computers in the U.S. are expected to be running Windows Vista.
In the U.S., Windows Vista-related employment will reach 18% of IT employment in its first year of shipment. (more)

Upcoming Release of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5 Realizes Breakthrough Technology Innovations

PVBS has been working with Dynamics NAV for many years. PVBS Vice President of Software Development, Adil Nowsherwan, is one of the world’s leading Dynamics NAV developers. We have always been impressed by the flexibility, power, and integration capabilities of the application. We are even more impressed by what we have learned about Dynamics NAV 5.

The release of version 5 represents the first steps into a new technological era for our customers. Together they contain many technology breakthroughs and innovative application features and complete the delivery of Microsoft Dynamics Wave 1 release innovations. While the changes and new enhancements in the new release are extensive, Microsoft has kept things as simple as possible so customers have a clear path and smooth transition to all that’s new and different in the offering.

Microsoft intends to continue to drive the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 business while helping partners and customers prepare for the release of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5 – a comprehensive and significant product release scheduled for March 2007.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5 delivers:

• New and enhanced application functionality to support increased business
Productivity
Even greater integration with other Microsoft products and technologies, and
• C/SIDE and technology improvements.

And, the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5 release delivers on Microsoft Dynamics Wave I breakthrough innovations:

• Microsoft SharePoint Portal and Workflow
• Microsoft SQL Server Contextual Business Intelligence and
• Online Processes, Collaboration and Community.

For more information on the product direction, click here to schedule an appointment with a PVBS account manager.

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News from PVBS

PVBS Announces Formation of New Microsoft Dynamics NAV for Government Contractors User Group

PVBS announced that it has formed a new Microsoft Dynamics NAV for Government Contractors User Group. A number of informal user meetings were held in 2005 and 2006 to gain customer interest in such a program. The overwhelmingly positive response led to the company creating the User Group, with the support of the Mid-Atlantic Microsoft regional office.

Jeffrey Eggers, Controller at Engineering, Management & Integration, Inc., (EM&I), said, “Being able to meet with and discuss the Microsoft Dynamics NAV solution from PVBS with other government contractor users is something that is very important to us. The solution is integral to our business operations, so we are looking for as much knowledge as we can find to ensure that we’re maximizing our software investment.” (More)

Dynamics NAV for Government Contractors Lunch and Learn to be Held on March 27 in Washington DC

PVBS sponsors regular Lunch-and-Learn seminars for Finance Directors, Accounting Professionals, Finance Professionals, CFO's, Business Owners, and Controller throughout the year. At the seminar, we'll address the following as we demonstrate the rich functionality in Dynamics NAV for Government Contractors:

Executive Dashboard/Business Analytics: Use the executive dashboard to take the pulse of business: including tracking new bookings, backlog, and contract completion percentages.
Project Accounting: A tool designed to handle the most unique reporting and invoicing requirements while meeting DCAA auditing requirements
Microsoft Office Integration: Learn time savings tools and tips to print and e-mail government invoices or the integration with Microsoft Excel to perform custom analytics.

March 27, 2007, 11:30 - 1:30 pm

Location:
Microsoft Mid Atlantic District DC Location
5335 Wisconsin Ave. NW
Suite 600
Washington, DC 20015
Phone: (202) 895-2000
Click to register: https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=114823

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Bernard's Blog

Microsoft Business Intelligence at the Desktop is for Everybody

The problem many of our government contractor customers face is that they are overwhelmed with data and have no easy way to organize it. We see it all the time. Even at small, fast growing government contractors, the accumulation of data is immense. This data comes from the financial management, ERP, CRM, and project management databases as well as many other places. It is often so unorganized that project managers would have no easy way to get the information they need to make good decisions about their projects in time to have a positive impact.

Many government contractors have decision makers in disparate locations and in some cases, in war zones. Historically, it can take weeks for the accounting department to get financial reports to these people, and then in hard copy. Almost every time we meet with a new customer, this is their biggest problem. The ability to make information available to key stakeholders in real or near real time is very attractive to chief operating officers, chief financial officers and business owners.

What we see coming from Microsoft, and in large part available via recent launches are true, accessible business intelligence tools that make sense of this data. Microsoft has done a great job driving its business intelligence functionality and access deep into the organization. We believe that Microsoft online reporting services will be a universal reporting solution. This is a huge because program and project managers can now get reports and information they need without having to wait for on-demand reports from an overly stretched accounting department. This functionality, at the desktop no less, will give these companies tremendous advantages in the marketplace.