gravity software
What does it take to make the ‘perfect General Ledger’? Cloud vs. Desktop, Simplistic vs. Sophisticated, Beautifully Different vs. Traditional Looking, Only the Accounting vs Everything that Involves Dollars. I guess when it boils right down to it, everyone will have their own opinions as to what will make up the perfect General Ledger in their mind. There could be an alternative to either the ‘Green Ball’ (QuickBooks1) or the ‘Blue Ball’ (Xero2) if you are looking at making a change.
One such alternative you might look at is Gravity Software, which is built on the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Platform. Now, I know a lot of my readers are immediately thinking when they hear ‘Microsoft Dynamics’ that,“that’s a really big Accounting system,” but Microsoft scaled their traditional Dynamics Accounting product several years ago when they introduced Microsoft 365.
Gravity is built on the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform providing an open platform where multiple applications can reside, use the same user interface and same platform services allowing users to pick and choose which modules and features they want for their business.
MS-dynamics-365-platform
Today, Dynamics 365 is the power platform upon which developers can offer their own front-end interfaces to provide not only accounting fundamentals, but integration with essentially every other Microsoft 365 product like Office 365, Outlook, Windows Server, Exchange Server, Skype for Business, SharePoint, Power BI and PowerApps, as well as many other products developed for MS 365 by 3rd-party developers.
Gravity and Microsoft Dynamics CRM (shown here) easily exchange data because they are both MS Dynamics 365 based applications.
MS-dynamics-crm_R-small
Take for example the need for a CRM. Sooner or later, most small businesses outgrow their Rolodex and need a CRM, but neither the 'Green' or 'Blue' balls really offer one, and 3rd-party Apps that work with them to provide CRM functions are typically 'clunky' at best. But information flows freely, in both directions, between Gravity and Dynamics CRM because they are both Microsoft Dynamics 365 based applications. Best of all, you easily control which information is exchanged and made available for your various personnel on either the accounting or CRM sides of the table.
Speaking of integrations, did I mention that Gravity can connect with hundreds, perhaps even thousands (in the future) of other business applications developed to work with the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform? To do this they use something called ‘Microsoft Flow,’ which easily moves your Gravity data from one place to another without the need for specialized programming or a developer. Just create a series of steps to grab the data you need, manipulate it, and then add it to your selected app like Outlook, Twitter or Mailchimp. Of course, the reverse is true as well, grab the data you want, like a new post to Dropbox, and post it to the appropriate Client’s record in Gravity with simple steps using ‘Flow.’
The Microsoft Power Platform based aspects of Gravity give small to medium sized companies the ability to choose the features then need for their unique business requirements. Microsoft Flow provides streamlines access between Gravity and the most common tools and applications most companies use in their daily operations.
Gravity_menu
So now with this background in place, let’s begin looking at some of the key benefits and features that Gravity has to offer.
Multi-entity capabilities
What do you think of when I say ‘multi-entity?' Well, if you are like most software users, you think of “multiple Company files.” In other words, separate database files that you must open one by one to work on each company. While some softwares will let you open perhaps a couple of companies at the same time, you are actually running two different instances of the software and the two companies are still totally separate, you can’t interact between them.
Some small businesses attempt to get around this limitation by using features like ‘class’ or ‘divisions’ or ‘locations’ to isolate different entities all within the same entity, but that can create issues when it comes to the need to actually isolate those entities for reporting purposes.
But Gravity is different, it was in fact designed from the ‘ground up’ to allow you to manage multiple entities or subsidiaries in one system (database) without logging in and out of other databases. Each company is fully accounted for within the whole, but also as a part of the whole.
In systems where entities are in separate files you must use complex methods to perform financial transactions between the different entities, but Gravity makes such transactions simple. In fact, you can simply post portions of a single transaction to different entities (Companies) with the same ease you post the transaction to a single company.
The following illustration shows how you can easily allocate rent across multiple company ‘rent accounts’ in a single transaction. You could just as easily allocate mortgage payments or any other expense across all your entities with Gravity… you won’t be doing that with either the ‘Green’ or ‘Blue’ ball general ledgers, if you know what I mean.
Gravity allows you to easily post transactions to multiple companies (entities) as well as the unique accounts associated with each company all from one entry screen. There is no need for complex journal entries involving transactions between multiple companies like with ‘other’ accounting systems that require separate ‘company files’ for each entity.
Gravity_multi-entity_rent-example
When it comes time, run reports that combine, compare, contrast and total each of your entities for all of your financial reporting.
Gravity simplifies the process of multi-entity reporting, ‘click’ your reports are multi-entity, ‘click’ your reports are single entity, you choose which entities to include with a click of the mouse.
Gravity_multi-entity_financial-reporting
And guess what? Unlike most cloud-based general ledgers that limit you to one Company per subscription, Gravity includes the first five legal entities in its base license; after that, clients can effortlessly scale to hundreds of companies.
Dimensionality
Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity says that ‘Gravity bends space and time inward.’ In other words, Einstein gave us a new ‘dimensionality’ for looking at things from the perspective of gravity. Well, Gravity software also gives users a new way of looking at things through dimensionality and I’m not talking about size, length or width of things (although, I guess you could use it for that if you wanted). Dimensions are what Gravity calls ‘tags’ that allow users to define and track essentially every transaction via user defined dimension codes for things like projects, events, and well, ‘you tell me.’ The dimensionality of Gravity is almost boundless.
Once you define your dimensions and then make use of them (for example, on all your expense transactions, you’ll easily sort through expenses to access the financial information you want), but in one or two steps further, what if you not only wanted to track certain expense types, but also the projects they were associated with. Maybe the specific events associated with those projects, or even specific activities associated with those events, and just maybe even specific ‘fund sources’ associated with those specific activities? And you wanted to do it all without having to create an overly cluttered Chart of Accounts, unique one-time-items, or layer-upon-layer of customer-names.
Gravity's dimensionality gives you almost limitless definition and reporting capabilities allowing you to define as many similar characteristics for analytical needs as you may require, then report on those dimensions in near-real-time or in any level of sophistication you wish using Gravity's reporting engine.
Gravity_dimensionality
This is where Gravity’s unique ‘dimensionality’ comes into full swing because you can define as many similar characteristics (for analytic purposes) as you need, and get real-time reporting to see what matters most to you and your business.
Advanced Find Query
“Computer... find so-n-so,” that’s almost the ease in which Gravity’s 'advanced find query' works to search and filter your data so you can identify exactly the information you need from anywhere within the database. If you need to find information regarding a customer, an invoice, a payment, etc. you can type a keyword on the top search box and let Global Search compile the results for you.
Gravity allows you to slice and dice your data with an ease, Advanced Find Query quickly identify the information that ‘matters most to you’ no matter how deeply it is integrated into the database.
Gravity_advanced-find-query
The Global Search allows the user to use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard character to search for partial text. Global Search can be configured to search up to 10 different types of information at once. The order in which the search is performed across those 10 types of information can also be specified.
Using the Advanced Find feature, you can search and filter your system’s information with essentially no limitations. With Gravity’s Advanced Find Query, you will easily and quickly find the information that ‘matters most to you’ no matter how deeply it is integrated into the database.
Dashboards
Speaking of seeing ‘what matters most to you,’ that’s where dashboards come into play. Now if you are working with a modern accounting system, especially one that is cloud based, then you almost certainly have a dashboard available to you. The question is, “Do You use that Dashboard?”
Surprisingly, many accounting system users never open the dashboard on their systems because it means absolutely nothing to them, it doesn’t contain the information they view as ‘most important.’ Even those that allow you to select from a few pre-defined widgets and move them around or change the views (bar graph to pie chart, etc.) still don’t fit the need, so they remain closed most of the time.
Go from Gravity’s ‘standard dashboard’ to any custom dashboard you want you with just a few clicks of your mouse. Your dashboard can be about ‘as you’ as you ‘can make it’.
gravity_dashboard-standard
Being built on MS Dynamics 365, Gravity makes it simple to create, customize, and truly make your dashboard… yours! You want, need and deserve a dashboard that contains the information that is ‘important to you’ so that you can do your job more efficiently, you aren’t interested in doing the job of the “guy next door,” so your dashboard shouldn’t look like his, it should in fact be just as unique as you and your own job. Slim and trim and down to business, I bet that is you...
Gravity gives you the ability to customize your dashboard so that the information that is ‘important to you’ is displayed, and the information you don’t need isn’t. "Out with the old, in with the new!"
Gravity_dashboard-your-custom
With Gravity’s Dashboard wizard, you will easily create a dashboard to meet your business processes, then pick the type of dashboard you want, select any fields (information) in Gravity that you want included in your dashboard and determine how you want that data displayed. For example, you may want to track your very best customers, their recent purchases, their outstanding invoices, and the favorite sourcing websites for those customers on your personalized dashboard. Need more details, just click on any display in the dashboard to drill-down for that specific data and more.
Role-based Security Controls
How many times have we been told this, and how many times have we been disappointed by other software? I remember when a certain ‘high-end version of a desktop software came out with role-based security,’ they told us that the granularity was such that we could control user access to everything. We soon found out that was true, so long as we gave them access ‘to nothing.' As soon as we gave them access to one thing, then you had to give them access to something else in order for them to do their work, and that something else actually ended up giving them access to something you didn’t want them to have access to in the first place. Bad design, bad security.
But Gravity actually does have security roles that work to control access to your company’s data to ensure that users cannot see information or create documents that you don’t want them have access to.
Better security controls mean better security, you can customize security roles and permissions to meet the specific requirements for each user granting the appropriate access you want.
Gravity_security-controls
In addition to the five pre-defined security roles Gravity comes with, you can customize those roles to meet your company’s specific requirements so that you can provide users with access only to the appropriate levels of information they need to do their jobs.
Folks, join me next time as I continue my exploration of Gravity, 'the software' (not time and space) and we look at some of the additional features and benefits this unique Microsoft Dynamics 365 cloud-based software offers if you find yourself outgrowing either the 'blue' ball or 'green' ball and your not quite ready to take the plunge in the challenges of a huge software challenge like Sage Intacct3 or Oracle NetSuite4.
In the mean time, explore Gravity yourself at their website!
Footnotes & Acknowledgements:
1 - QuickBooks is a registered trademark of Intuit, Inc. of San Jose, CA.
2 - Xero is a registered trademark of Xero, Limited of Wellington, NZ
3 - Sage Intact is a registered trademark of Sage Intact, Inc. of San Jose, CA.
4 - NetSuite is a registered trademark of Oracle of Redwood Shores, CA.