For Dynamics AX Users, Bottomline’s Document Management Solution May Be the Add-On They Never Knew Was There

Microsoft Dynamics AX customers know generating and delivering transactional documents such as invoices, payments and purchase orders helps them compete more effectively in a global marketplace.  But in a crowded document management market, customers look for something that stands out.

"Our differentiator is ease of use," says Chris Luoma, director of product marketing at payment and invoice automation specialists Bottomline Technologies. "In the AX world, we have two classes of [document management] competitors. The first are those that do things inside AX itself, which usually requires a lot of custom programming, and a lot of coding. And then there are others that offer solutions that are somewhat similar to what we do."

Bottomline's solution aims to make users more productive, cuts costs associated with managing complex global financial and supply chain processes, and respond to the changing demands of the regulatory environment, according to Luoma.

Ease of use means, in part, allowing users to design the look and feel of the reports themselves.  Bottomline offers a graphical user interface, a drag and drop feature and a feature that lets users draw boxes-features that will make users who are familiar with Microsoft Word or Microsoft Visio comfortable.

"And we plug into AX so once the reports are designed in our tool and published the users are staying inside AX and are able to access different reports so we're not requiring them to learn a new tool," Luoma said. "From an end user standpoint it's AX. It looks and feels like AX because it is. We're designing it inside the AX modules. We allow the end users to live and breathe in AX."

Users can generate Bottomline reports without ever leaving AX. They can access the ...