Streamline your Supply Chain with Transportation Management in D365 F&O
Introduction
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations is one of the most feature-rich and optimized ERP tools. Used for managing funds, accounts, processes and more. D365 has ushered in several benefits for different industries. This is one of the main reasons so many modern businesses choose to rely on it every day.
But does it make some sense for transportation management? Keep reading to find out.
Transportation Management in D365 F&O
When Microsoft developed AX into D365, transportation management functionality took center stage in its own module. This allowed businesses to automate all the key finance and operation-related operations like accounting, cost management, freight management, master planning, and more.
The resulting Transportation Management module offered users a chance to enjoy improved capabilities and features. This included things like:
- The updated version permitted manual freight reconciliation.
- The ability to generate USMCA certification of origin documents.
- Management of transport management engines in D365 F&O.
This is just the tip of the iceberg; the latest version of transportation management in D365 F&O is packed with modern-day capabilities.
Who Should Use it?
D365 is for any organization that wants to streamline its supply chain, reduce costs and offer a better customer experience – something that’s become critical in the last few years. D365 can completely replace legacy systems with best-of-breed transportation management technology. It can automate vendor allocation, routing, and transportation allocation for all outbound and inbound orders with full support for AI-enabled devices.
This is one tool that can handle multiple logistics TMS aspects in different scenarios by granting better control over shipping, modifying the shipping rate according to distance & shipment weight, and so on.
Let’s have a look at some of the most common scenarios that can be handled efficiently with Transportation Management in D365 F&O.
Scenario #1
Due to changes in consumer habits your SKU count has increased. And you need to find a way to get more control of your growing fleet. Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a perfect choice for seamless delivery/pickup and full control over shipping cost by volume/ or distance.
With D365, you can decide on the delivery charges based on distance or shipment volume. And share the delivery receipt with the customers directly without getting involved in reconciliation.
Scenario #2
Your business chooses not to charge a separate delivery fee; you instead combine it as part of the total cost of the order.
D365 makes it easy to adjust your pricing seamlessly and easily, as needed. This means you can account for any changes due to shipping volume or availability.
On top of that, D365 lets you do things like automatically adjusting the order cost and providing insights into shipping cost breakage.
Scenario #3
Suppose you’re using logistic services of several different companies for your business processes. Transportation management in D365 gives you full control and the ability to manage all your service providers more effectively in one location.
There you can do things like set different transportation rates and delivery preferences, as needed.
D365 Transportation Management Benefits
Figure 1:Benefits of D365 Transportation Management
Working with a partner to implement Transportation Management in D365 brings a lot to the table for the end-users.
Whether it’s having full control of your entire fleet, automatic transportation rate calculations, support for things like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and more, Transportation Management in Microsoft Dynamics 365 can change the way you do business.
Planning, Logistics and D365 Transportation Management
With access to real-time shipping information, the transportation management module in D365 makes inbound and outbound planning easier than ever. End-users can make plans according to the processed orders or their related shipments.
Inbound transportation in D365
The inbound transportation management in D365 is very business friendly. It ensures that you have a transportation solution ready for vendor orders and doorstep delivery.
With D365 it’s easy to plan a route, generate the receipt, and track the order from the vendor’s warehouse to yours.
Outbound transportation in D365
One of the key benefits of D365’s transportation management is having end-to-end control of the way you manage your shipments. Transportation Management in D365 makes it easy to create an outbound lead, assign rates, create processes, plan the load appointments. And everything else that goes into outbound transportation management.
Load Building as Needed
Volume-based load building in D365 is much more advanced than older, legacy solutions. It lets businesses set limits on things like highest permitted height & weight values.
If your load exceeds the pre-defined load template, you can override it and define new values.
The best part about customizing load templates is that you can make them highly informative by adding details like load template ID, equipment, dimensions, floor stack load, maximum allowed weight, etc.
Support For a Wide Range of Transportation Engines
Different transportation engines are used to define the logic needed to develop and administer transportation rates.
It takes a lot to ensure full control of your transportation management, which usually means you need access to more than one transportation management engine. To this end, Microsoft supports multiple different engines in its D365 software including:
- Rate Engine that can calculate rates.
- Generic Engine that supports other engines.
- Mileage Engine that can keep an eye on distance traveled.
There are also things like Transit Time Engine, Zone Engine, and Freight Bill Type Engine. With all these engines, organizations have more functionalities to add to transportation management and achieve perfection.
Better Integrations
Successful transportation management is only possible when the system in place has full access to the required data.
Transportation management in D365 offers several powerful integration capabilities.
D365 pairs seamlessly with CDS or Common Data Services and makes assorted entities available. In addition, the Azure Data Lake is staged carefully in Entity Store, which ensures only updated data, with incremental syncs, is available.
When it comes to shipments, D365 helps businesses automatically report product damage for refunds – all of which can be automated to save invested time and effort.
A Powerful Tool for Managing Global Operations
D365 is designed to streamline global operations. Presently, it has localized versions for 37 countries in 42 languages. This lets enterprises with a global presence select a localized version for each region with a centralized view of data and operations.
D365 does an excellent job of keeping departments and branches around the world up to date and able to collaborate more efficiently.
Scalability And D365 In the Cloud
There are several benefits that come from D365 being a cloud-based ERP, including the fact it benefits from a scheduled number of annual and semi-annual updates, both minor and major.
There are several features that can be easily added or removed. With a familiar, browser-based interface, access from anywhere is possible – critical for a remote workforce, and licensing can be set for as few, or as many users as needed. D365 truly delivers when it comes to productivity and scalability opportunities.
One downside often tied to having so many features is the confusion that can exist when it comes to making sure you pick what works best for your business. Often, the best solution is working with a certified Microsoft partner that can optimize your configuration, help you decide on ideal features, and document update requirements.
Final Thoughts
D365 delivers features like cloud deployment, amazing integration, and inbound & outbound management, load balancing, financial supply chain assistance, and various other noteworthy capabilities. With D365, you eliminate the need to switch between apps or having to invest in different transportation management tools for different regions.
Hopefully, this article gives you a better view into how the Transportation Management in D365 can help your business grow and succeed. Taking advantage of the right features doesn’t have to be difficult though. The best option for most businesses is working with a trusted partner to make sure your implementation goes as smoothly as possible.
The right D365 F&O experts can assist you through-and-through with the modernization and automation of your transportation-related operations. Contact us today for more details.
About XcelPros
XcelPros is a Chicago-based company and delivers transformation through technology. We offer business and technology solutions with deep industry experience in Chemical, Pharma, Life Sciences (including Medical Devices, Bio-Medical & Biotech), Insurance, Discrete Manufacturing, Process Manufacturing, Distribution and Food & Beverage.
XcelPros is a Microsoft Gold Partner, Direct Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) and a Systems Integrator (SI) offering software licensing, implementation and consulting services for Microsoft Dynamics 365, CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Business Intelligence & Analytics (Power BI), SharePoint, Office 365 and Azure (Cloud, IOT, Microsoft Flow amongst many others).
Our mission is to provide integrated technology solutions that amplify impact and empower our customer’s businesses. We believe technology is the key enabler of exponential growth for us and our customers.
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