AASM Modernizes Their Financial Processes with Business Central & Crestwood’s Support

The Challenge

The Finance Director for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, is responsible for all the financial reporting and compliance as it relates to the annual audit, while overseeing the general financial processes and controls that are in place. While Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains supported these efforts, it became clear that their technology was becoming too dated to accommodate business growth with a small team. With Microsoft Dynamics GP hosted on on-site servers, the IT team had to deal with the time-consuming tasks of managing the software and handling required updates. At the same time, the financial management team lacked modern tools they needed to work smarter.

For nearly a decade, the Finance Director worked with Crestwood Associates at their previous employer, a mid-size proprietary trading firm. Based on the service Crestwood provided in that relationship, the Finance Director knew they wanted to work with the Crestwood team again for AASM’s migration from GP to Business Central. But the first step was to go through a multi-round RFP process, with several stakeholders involved. It was ultimately Crestwood’s understanding of the project scope, their migration expertise, and their familiarity with Microsoft’s suite of products that earned AASM’s business.

“At the end of the day, other decision makers independently came to the conclusion that Crestwood was the best choice, too,” the Finance Director noted.

The Solution

Over a period of four months, AASM worked with Crestwood — an early adopter of Dynamics 365 Business Central — to get eight companies set up and configured in Business Central. As the AASM team started to learn the platform, the Crestwood team moved other companies over to Business Central from GP.

With the support of Crestwood experts, the hard cutover happened over a weekend as the AASM team continued to work in GP. That next week, the team verified balances and other financial information to ensure that data was appropriately migrated.

While AASM opted for a more basic implementation to minimize disruption, they’ve used the customization menu Crestwood provided at the start of the relationship to add new modules to their Business Central solution. One example of this is Automated Clearing House to pay all bills electronically using bank account and routing numbers — no paper needed.

The Outcome

Operating with a small team, any time saver is a big win for AASM. Business Central and Crestwood have worked together to help the AASM team operate at the efficient speeds contemporary financial management requires.

On one hand, moving away from on-site servers to a web-hosted ERP solution has freed up IT teams. Updates can happen in real-time without the need for IT to intervene; with less maintenance required, those teams have more time to dedicate to other initiatives.

For the AASM team, Business Central has proven to be a game-changer in delivering modern tools that help simplify financial reporting, compliance and overall management. Layered on top of these built-in tools designed to reduce manual data entry and accelerate reporting capabilities are the custom modifications Crestwood has supported. Alongside digital banking, AASM has more plans to work with Crestwood to automate portions of the new accounts receivable process, from automated invoicing to automated customer reminders — with the ongoing goal of helping their small team work smarter.