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RSM, a Microsoft Cloud Solutions Partner and leader in providing services to Government Contractors, has partnered with a provider of space products and launch services to the global space industry to implement a new ERP system– Microsoft’s D365 Finance & Supply Chain Management (F&SCM). Beginning in December 2021, RSM led this global provider through a rapid implementation to quickly deploy the new ERP system and business processes, hosted in the Government Cloud Community (GCC). This implementation ensured compliance with CMMC, ITAR, DFARS, and other regulations and was a major success for both companies. This blog post outlines the key requirements and solutions that were addressed by RSM.
Background
Increasing U.S. government investments have led to a space race, causing many companies to go public to secure funding. After going public, these companies invest in scalable ERP solutions powered by Microsoft and RSM to ensure compliance with both SEC and USG regulations. To abide by the requirements and restrictions of this industry– including Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC), Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), US Government Contracting Compliance (UGCC), and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR)—This space aerospace company’s implementation team partnered with RSM to transition their financial application to D365 F&SCM.
RSM is the partner of choice due to its unique capabilities in serving government contractors. RSM is one of the only Microsoft partners to deploy and implement D365 F&SCM in the Government Community Cloud (GCC) and offers an accelerator for government contractors for D365 F&SCM that customers use to abide by government standards and minimize compliance risks.
RSM also offers an RVM (Rapid Verification Model) that provides preset configurations, task recordings, charts of accounts, and multiple other setups that can reduce time and cost. This model allowed the launch vehicle company’s implementation to hit the ground running without spending much time configuring the application. RSM also is a Microsoft hosting partner and offers GCC (Government Cloud Community) hosting of Dynamics applications. The partnership discussed going live in the government contracting cloud.
Requirements & Implementation
To enable rapid implementation, D365 had to integrate with the aerospace company’s legacy system for production orders and purchase orders while maintaining ITAR compliance and operating in a GCCH environment. During this process, the project team implemented more than 30 integration touchpoints between multiple applications. Essentially, two procurement applications needed consolidation while simultaneously maintaining compliance, timeline, and budget. Additionally, RSM Kyriba partnered with the D365 implementation team to automate the space company’s vendor payment and banking process between D365 and Silicon Valley Bank.
The space company’s D365 implementation with RSM’s partnership made it possible to consolidate and streamline many processes while also maintaining numerous compliance requirements and restrictions. For example, the implementation gave them the opportunity to tailor their segregation of duties and workflow processes in D365 according to SOX compliance and restrictions.
This American space company can now take advantage of the entire Microsoft stack and gain further visibility into its production and procurement processes. Leveraging the actual cost method in D365 F&SCM will provide them with increased visibility into the cost of a rocket, allowing them to determine if and where costs need to be adjusted to streamline their rocket manufacturing processes. With D365 F&SCM, the aerospace firm has improved visibility and tracking efficiency with its inventory accounting. The detailed inventory posting profiles in D365 allow the company to see where the value of their inventory and work-in-process (WIP) lies at any given point in time just by viewing the respective account balances in D365 F&SCM.
Migrating to D365 F&SCM will enable the partnership firm to use the vast number of reporting tools to generate all financial statements with the click of a button, including SEC formatted reports, to streamline their reporting processes. Using the financial reporter and Power BI tools in D365, they now have improved efficiencies in preparing financial statements. The RSM implementation team was able to help build many of the basic financial statements that their company required. These include various balance sheet and income statement formats to aid in reporting, including consolidated versions of these financial statements to prepare them for a future state with additional legal entities. The aerospace company also required SEC-formatted financial reports. To do this, RSM’s implementation team worked with their finance team to build the SEC formatted financial statements using the D365 financial reporter tool to maintain and prepare SEC filings all within the D365 financial reporter. The aerospace firm’s finance team can also use the financial reporter tool in D365 F&SC to build additional reports and adjust formatting as needed in the future.
The implementation included the following modules:
- Accounts payable
- Accounts receivable
- General ledger
- Cash and bank management
- Fixed assets
- Procurement and sourcing
- Product information management
- Inventory management
- Project management and accounting
RSM and the aerospace company worked together to overcome the COVID-19 restrictions during the D365 F&SC implementation causing limited travel and face-to-face project team interaction. Towards the end of the implementation, on-site visits ramped up which, in turn, improved efficiency and communication. Even with the COVID-19 restrictions in full effect throughout the implementation, the project was able to go live on time (less than 6 months between the start of the project and go-live) and under budget.
