I am writing in regards to our experience with Microsoft Great Plains and The Resource Group.

Simpson Timber Company is only one segment of a multi-unit manufacturing entity that was part of an implementation to a new financial system in 2004. The entire organization moved from PeopleSoft to Microsoft Great Plains simultaneously and in the midst of also working through large organizational changes. We were not only changing our financial system, but we were also decentralizing a lot of our accounting functionality which meant that we were not necessarily sure how current processes entirely worked. This transition was greatly facilitated by The Resource Group as many of the functions were being performed by new individuals for the first time. The Resource Group and our independent consultant were instrumental in helping us help ourselves in terms of looking at our processes and figuring out how Microsoft Great Plains would fill our needs. If there were any needs that couldn't be filled The Resource Group helped determine how work could still be done by going back to our processes to determine if there were routines that could be adapted to Microsoft Great Plains functionality. We were very successful in almost all respects in using the functionality of the software without major requirements for customizations.

The implementation was actually relatively painless when we compare this to prior financial system implementations in our organization. We had a very clear path of tasks to be completed and timelines in place and were able to meet those milestones with the help of The Resource Group and the work of our independent consultant. This was critical to a very short and expeditious cut over of our system. We were able to take our old system down and were up and running on Microsoft Great Plains over the weekend with relatively few hurdles to jump over.

This could not have been done without all parties having the same end in mind - a quick and efficient implementation. Thank you TRG for your continued help and support during our second year of running Microsoft Great Plains.

Sincerely,

Deborah S. Reece
Accounting/Credit Manager
Simpson Timber Company, Northwest Division
Microsoft Dynamics GP Customer