LAZ Parking optimizes financial operations with Dynamics 365 Business Central.
about our client.
LAZ Parking is one of the fastest growing and the second largest parking company in the United States. The company owns, manages, or leases over a million parking spaces across the country.
At a Glance
The Challenge
The Solution
After a thorough review of LAZ Parking’s business needs and Dynamics NAV 2016 development, our team recommended that the company switch gears and move to Dynamics 365 Business Central – Microsoft’s newest, more advanced, and scalable ERP solution. Dynamics 365 Business Central implementation services included:
Business process review & discovery
Solution development & configuration
ISV selection & implementation
Business Central deployment
User training
User acceptance testing & Go-live support
The Outcome
LAZ Parking now has a feature-rich, on-premises Dynamics 365 Business Central system. Our ERP specialists took poorly programmed customizations and turned them into a fully functional system, while adding many more features to the mix.
the challenge:
a stalled Dynamics NAV 2016 implementation.
As the second largest parking company in the United States, LAZ Parking runs a complex business. With over a million parking spaces under its purview, the company needed a very tailored ERP system to handle revenue, expenses, and financial reporting. Eventually, the company’s legacy ERP software could not deliver the functionality needed to support business growth. So, LAZ Parking decided to migrate to Microsoft Dynamics NAV.
Before GraVoc got involved, LAZ Parking was working with another consultant to deploy a custom Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 system to replace its older ERP system. LAZ Parking worked with this consulting partner for 3 years to implement a new ERP system, but they could not get to a place where the system was usable.
In 2021, GraVoc was introduced to LAZ Parking through our partners at Andosi, a Dynamics 365 consulting company. Our Microsoft Dynamics specialists came in as the ‘rescue mission’ to bring LAZ Parking’s ERP implementation back on track. Through a detailed business process review of the company’s ERP needs and operations as well as an evaluation of the Dynamics NAV 2016 development thus far, our team discovered that the system was nowhere near ready to support LAZ Parking’s functional requirements.
Our team agreed that LAZ Parking would have to redevelop their Dynamics NAV 2016 system. But, at this stage, Dynamics NAV 2016 was slated to lose mainstream support from Microsoft. So, the company would soon be stuck with an aging ERP that would be hard to support and create compliance challenges.
the solution: switch gears to Dynamics 365 Business Central implementation.
Our team recommended that LAZ Parking switch gears from Dynamics NAV 2016 to Dynamics 365 Business Central, a more advanced and modern ERP that evolved from Dynamics NAV. Business Central offers capabilities similar to Dynamics NAV in addition to many other features, including built-in reporting and interoperability with other Microsoft solutions. With Microsoft set to end mainstream support for Dynamics NAV 2016, LAZ Parking agreed that they would be better off proactively implementing the robust Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Business Central implementation highlights:
Given the scale of their business, this project was a major undertaking for our team! We had to develop integrations and coordinate with third-party vendors, build custom processes, and train on using configuration packages for large amounts of data migration. We spent a lot of time on testing, training, and creating reports to ensure LAZ Parking’s extensive billing and tax needs were properly set up.
LAZ Parking runs a unique business model, so a standard, out-of-the-box ERP system would not work for them. They needed something very tailored to the way they did business. Therefore, building custom Business Central integrations was a critical step in the implementation process.
Here is an overview of some of the key integrations we developed for LAZ Parking’s Business Central system to streamline and automate financial transactions:
Posting rules
These automatically determine, upon posting, the inter-company and inter-organization transactions needed between parking lot locations and the headquarters.
Rebilling process
This takes entries posted to the headquarters and calculates what needs to be billed to each parking location.
Split purchase invoice process
When an invoice is pushed from DocLink to Business Central and marked as ‘split,’ the system takes the invoice and creates additional invoices to split it. It remains one invoice in DocLink but multiple invoices in Business Central.
Further, we worked closely with LAZ Parking on their flat file integration needs and collaborated with third-party vendors to connect the company’s legacy systems to Business Central – creating a powerful and interconnected financial platform for the company.
Before deployment, we conducted a mock system go-live and two rounds of user acceptance testing. This way, we were able to fix issues and identify areas for additional user training before the final launch. On the day of the Business Central deployment, our team was on site at LAZ Parking’s offices, helping with final data migration as well as troubleshooting.
the outcome: Business Central elevates LAZ Parking’s financial operations & reporting.
After years of hitting roadblocks, LAZ Parking finally has a robust Dynamics 365 Business Central system that is fully equipped to handle expenses and reporting for the company’s large-scale business operations. Thoughtfully developed integrations and automations have helped the company save time, providing a more efficient way to process and manage large volumes of transactions.
Multiple sessions of user testing and training have ensured that LAZ Parking’s team is comfortable and ready to leverage all the features of their new ERP system. And, LAZ Parking now has an ERP system that can deliver flexible financial reporting and scale upwards with the company!
explore our Business Central services.
GraVoc’s Dynamics 365 specialists can customize, implement, and support Business Central to maximize your company’s return on investment and supercharge growth! Click below to learn more about our Business Central services or contact us today to get started!