A clean transition: HCL’s successful move from Dynamics GP to Business Central
Key takeaways
Hospital Cooperative Laundry (HCL) provides large-scale laundry services to their hospital partners within the Colorado and Wyoming area. They operate with multiple affiliate and sub-affiliate relationships that require clear equity tracking for members, including monitoring fixed assets, addressing reporting challenges and maintaining financial data visibility.
The challenge: Moving to a modern, cloud-based ERP solution
For many years, HCL conducted business with an on-premises Microsoft Dynamics GP enterprise resource planning (ERP) foundation. While Dynamics GP served them well, with Microsoft announcing end-of-life timelines for Dynamics GP and shifting its focus to cloud-based platforms, HCL decided to proactively transition their key business operations to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (BC).
“While Microsoft has recently adjusted the end-of-life date slightly, we are still seeing many companies like HCL be proactive in moving from GP to Business Central for the added SaaS (software as a service) connectivity functionality,” says RSM Associate Connor Burke.
The solution: A strategic transition to Microsoft Business Central and Solver
RSM was already providing HCL with Dynamics GP support, and the companies continued working together for the Dynamics 365 BC implementation. In addition to the ERP transition, the project also included the deployment of Solver, a corporate performance management tool that integrates directly with BC for elevated financial planning and analysis.
Key elements of the implementation included:
- Financial presentations: The RSM team delivered presentations detailing Dynamics 365 BC’s financial reporting processes to familiarize HCL users with the new platform and its capabilities.
- Integration with Solver: RSM’s Dynamics 365 BC team and the Solver team worked together to deliver the more robust budget forecasting and flexible reporting HCL requires.
- Learning curve management: RSM supported HCL finance leaders through the transition by guiding them on new terminology, navigation and processes associated with the new ERP system.
In addition, the Dynamics 365 BC solution provides more depth and capabilities for HCL’s complex fixed asset management. RSM’s familiarity with the ERP platform, and with HCL’s business and industry, enabled the development of strategies that provide clearer visibility into asset values across sites.
“At HCL, their dryers are on an entirely different scale—often 20 times larger than a standard unit,” says RSM Senior Associate Marykate Stack. “Because these assets take months to build, they aren’t placed into service immediately upon purchase. We guided HCL to leverage a dedicated dimension in Dynamics 365 Business Central, allowing them to track fixed asset value within a work-in-process account and maintain clear visibility throughout the entire build cycle.”
Throughout the transition, RSM advisors were wonderful and easy to understand, Sometimes, things get tough when somebody's talking over your head, or they’re at a different level. The RSM team is different. They are just really accessible and approachable—all of them.
Karen Glancey, Controller, HCL
Outcomes: Greater flexibility, efficiency and reporting potential
While the transition from Dynamics GP to Dynamics 365 BC required an adjustment period, HCL has realized several meaningful benefits from the move. Key outcomes include:
- Streamlined Excel-enabled workflows: Finance leaders can export, analyze and upload data directly between Excel and Dynamics 365 BC, including journal entries and payroll entries. Uploading via Excel direct file import or natively publishing within the Excel sheet via the Dynamics 365 Excel add-in improves operational efficiency.
- Enhanced bank reconciliation: Bank statements are automatically matched with internal ledgers for accurate cash balances, creating more effective cash flow processes and reporting.
- More effective cash management: The accounts receivable lockbox process is now automated, reducing manual processing by an estimated 80%−90%. These efficiency gains are driven by an add-on RSM developed for the cash receipts journal that enables HCL to drag and drop files generated from external systems into Dynamics 365 BC, where they are seamlessly read, processed and imported.
- Robust fixed asset control: Asset visibility across affiliates and locations is improved to strengthen internal tracking. In addition, monthly depreciation calculations are now automated in Dynamics 365 BC.
- Improved access to financial data: Search capabilities were enhanced, allowing users to quickly locate transactions by words or numbers and drill into entries across the general ledger and subledgers.
- Advanced analytical tools: The creation of pivot tables and dynamic reports has increased across general ledger and subledger data, as well as with customer and vendor information. Users can now attach vendor purchase invoices in PDF format in just two clicks.
HCL Director of Finance Kevin Hocum was particularly impressed by the bank reconciliation capabilities in Dynamics 365 BC. “I love the bank reconciliation module in Business Central,” he said. “It is absolutely the best one I’ve ever used in 44 years. I mean, bar none. I love it.”
Looking ahead: Expanding reporting capabilities
Moving forward, HCL plans to continue expanding Solver-based reporting by leveraging Dynamics 365 BC’s Excel integration capabilities. As the team becomes more familiar with the system, finance leaders expect to take advantage of additional functionality and reporting flexibility over time.
Lessons for finance leaders considering a transition from Dynamics GP to Dynamics 365 BC:
HCL’s experience offers practical considerations for organizations planning to move from Dynamics GP to Dynamics 365 BC:
- Plan proactively and strategically when facing platform end-of-life timelines.
- Prepare for an adjustment period when moving from an on-premises system to a cloud-based system.
- Leverage built-in Excel integration to improve efficiency and support user adoption.
- Work closely with experienced advisors to align dimensions, flexibility, asset tracking and reporting needs.
The takeaway
By combining proactive planning with collaborative execution, HCL and RSM demonstrated how a long-standing legacy system can successfully transition to a modern cloud-based platform while strengthening reporting, visibility and operational efficiency.