Top Pet Peeves Of Great Plains Accounting Users
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Great Plains is a brand of business software that was purchased by Microsoft in 2001. Since then Microsoft has rebranded the software to Microsoft Dynamics and has discontinued support for the system. However, Great Plains was a popular program in its day and many people still use it. While this system is spoken of highly by many of its users, all software has its flaws. Here are some of the most common pet peeves of people who are using Great Plains for accounting today.
A Lack of Support
Because Microsoft stopped offering support for Great Plains Accounting in 2008, it can be difficult to find solutions for your problems. If you have been using the software for a while, you may be able to figure new problems out for yourself. However, if you are coming into a new job without any prior knowledge of the program you can easily find yourself lost. This is especially true if no one else in your office is familiar with the program. Trial and error may be your only option, which can become downright panic-inducing if it is taking place during the end of the fiscal year. Upgrading can be pricy, but if you find yourself in this position it may be your best solution.
Default User Dates
Every time a person logs into a company on Great Plains, the user date defaults to the current day. This is understandable, but it can also lead to some snarls. The most common is when a user gets the message “the user date falls within a fiscal year that hasn’t been set up.” This is most likely to occur when trying to print out a report for a different year. The problem can be corrected by changing the user date on the toolbar to the year of the desired report. However, this has to be done every time you log in.
Lack of Intuitive Solutions
With experience Great Plains can be easy to use, but when starting out users often find that the solutions they seek do not easily spring to mind. This can relate to formatting issues or when trying to correct information that the system has automatically added. Options may be grayed out without explanation or boxes unchecked for no apparent reason. These issues tend to be more prominent on older versions of the program, but many users find that it difficult to find a solution to their problems through trial and error. The best way for a Great Plains user to find answer to a problem of this nature is to talk to someone who has used the program before or to find a forum online to talk with other users.
Problems with Language Settings
Great Plains has some sensitivities to the default language settings that can result in frustrating or seemingly unexplained errors. A common message you may see is “all call stacks are in use. Cannot stat script,” when opening the Transaction Entry window in the General Ledger. You may also have difficulty with login or starting the program. The problem can be resolved by changing your computer’s language setting to United States English and disabling the “perform translation for character data” option in the ODBC configuration. If this does not work, you may need to uninstall and reinstall the program.
Great Plains Accounting is a popular and highly regarded form of software. While some users may experience problems, many do not. It can be frustrating to start using the program without much support, but with time most of the common pet peeves associated with this program will become less and less of a problem.
Sarah Jackson is a freelance writer and editor who remembers when Great Plains was a little more great by comparison, but does greatly appreciate many oher fine offerings from Microsoft.
