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Welcome everyone to another episode of Dynamics Corner where the podcast, where we dive deep into all things Microsoft Dynamics.
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Whether you're a seasoned expert or just starting your journey into the world of Dynamics 365, this is your place to gain insights, learn new tricks and who can automate your documents.
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I'm your co-host, Chris.
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And this is Brad.
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This episode was recorded on September 30th 2024.
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Chris, chris, chris, we're coming into the fourth quarter of 2024.
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Where did the year?
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go it flew, man, it flew too fast.
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It flew and I have a philosophy, like I do, on many things, why it flew, which we talked about, and the wonderful features and functionality of AP automation, expense management, document output and sustainability within Business Central.
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A lot of Business Central users have a need for one of those extensions or products, whatever you may want to call it, and with us today we had the opportunity to speak with Mark Rhodes from Continuous Software to learn all about those great applications.
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Hey look who it is.
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Look, mr rhodes.
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How are you doing, sir, howdy, guys, nice to see you this afternoon, this evening, or whatever it is.
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I don't even know what it is anymore.
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It's tough to keep track I don't know what date is.
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Don't ask me what date it's the last time day of september for crying out loud I don't even know where september went.
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Poof, I know it's, it was a blink of an eye, but I don't know if I said it on the podcast before.
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But I'll tell you my story of why I think time goes faster as we get older, or feels like it goes faster as we get older.
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I knew this would be an enlightening conversation, and it's already diving in.
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I love it.
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It is.
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It is Chris.
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Did I talk about this before I did?
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No, no, no, I don't think you did.
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I don't think you did so.
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I think it's a good point to talk about why you think time flies past you.
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That's a good one.
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I think as you get older, the perception of how fast time goes changes and the reason why I feel this way time is constant.
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Well, I guess we were taught that Relative to us, yeah, yes.
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So when you were younger, do you recall those that celebrated Christmas?
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And if you don't celebrate Christmas, just pretend that Christmas came once a year.
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And when you were five years old or you can pick any holiday or birthday for that fact it comes once a year.
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And when you're five, you're like, oh, christmas, do you remember?
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It used to take forever to come.
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Like, oh, it's so far you know away and it took forever to come, and then it would eventually come, it would be there.
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Yes, well, when you're five and christmas being once a year, having to wait a year is 20 of your life in essence.
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At that point, right, so you don't have as many christmases or many years to remember, as much time to remember, because you've only been alive for five years.
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And as you get older, you have the span of time between that.
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One year, relative to your entire life, is smaller.
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So that's where now I start to go, oh, and I say to Chris or say to others well, I remember, I did that the other day and we did this, and I'm like Brad, that was six months ago.
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Oh hey, that was last year.
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So now September went by quickly, but feels like it went by quickly because we all are older.
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And that 30 day span is a smaller percentage of our lives.
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What are your thoughts on that?
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I do think that influences it.
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For me it's how busy you are.
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Okay.
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You just get more busy as you get on later in life, I think up until having kids, life is pretty lax, right.
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You're just kind of you got time on your hands and you get to do things, and then the kids hit and then it's just a race.
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At that point, and I think, when there's so much to do every day, that occupies your time and you're always thinking about the next thing that needs to be done and then before you know it, the day's over and you're on to the next day.
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It's never ending, is it?
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And then say you're saying it passes you by, because you are also too busy.
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But with that, though you mentioned having children, do that, but the children will get old and the children will move out, hopefully, and be on their own, and you would have that time back Now, wouldn't you just fill that time?
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Don't people fill their time with something?
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One of the largest questions in my life right now is exactly on that point.
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But we're empty nesters now and you think all of a sudden we'd have all this other time on our hands and we don't.
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And I don't understand it see and are we?
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Have we replaced it with something?
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Why don't I feel like I have more time now?
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I don't know.
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I honestly don't so you didn't know we were going to have a philosophical session today, did?
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you, and I'm glad we are.
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I'm hoping to that.
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You're just going to open up new worlds for me here and and make me feel just all kumbaya.
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It would be lovely, that's that's the intent of this and every discussion that we have, but we do have other things that we wanted to talk about.
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Okay, but before we talk about those items and maybe what chris will think of another philosophical discussion, uh, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?
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well, sure, I like long walks on the beach and uh pink sunsets and uh and uh pink in the morning so let's take warning you must, you must live in florida somewhere.
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Used to.
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Actually that's a whole interesting story as well, but my name is Mark Rhodes and I am with Continia.
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I actually just got a new job title.
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I'm now the Director of Sales and Marketing for North America.
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Congratulations to that, chris.
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I have the soundboard, but I haven't used it in so long, so now we'll just do the real clapping now.
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It's very authentic and I appreciate it.
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Yes, Congratulations on your new title.
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Yes, thank you very much.
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So, as a lot of the listeners and viewers know, I've been involved in the community for speaking of how fast time goes, right.
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I don't know how you measure it exactly.
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Call it coming up on 20 years perhaps.
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Decades, yes, two decades.
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Previous episodes.
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Chris educated me and said that it's decades.
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Decades.
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It's a nice way to reference it.
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Yes, yes, so you're two decades in.
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Yeah, and so are we going to talk about Continua, or would you like me to say more about me?
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Who do you want to chat?
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with no, I didn't know that you were in Florida.
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I know that you're over in the Colorado area.
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I am in Colorado.
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Now this behind me indicates myโthat's hard to do backwardsโmy collegiate allegiance.
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One of my collegiate allegiances University of Florida went there twice.
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University of Florida went there twice.
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But also have allegiances at let's see Penn State, Colorado State, University of Arizona, Colorado, Mesa.
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Wait a second.
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So you visited Florida State or you attended the university as a student.
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You attended the University of Florida as a student, yes, and got two degrees there.
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Excellent.
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So which part of Florida are you in?
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I know Florida State has many.
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Florida as a student, yes, and got two degrees there, excellent.
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Wow, that's so weird.
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Which part of Florida are you in?
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I know Florida State has many.
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Oh, this is very important.
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So Florida State is in Tallahassee.
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Those are the Seminoles.
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Yes.
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We don't really care about them.
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University of Florida in Gainesville, the Gators that's the university that's important, and then there's that other university down south, that we don't even speak of the University of Miami that's the one we don't speak of okay, so you speak of the Gators?
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yes, okay, see, now I'm being enlightened here.
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I'm learning.
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Chris, do you understand the geography?
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Tallahassee south yeah, tallahassee, gainesville, and then the other ones down here.
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Yeah, yes, grew up in Florida, raised the kids there when they were young, and then at one point we said We've got to leave Florida and we went to Colorado and here we are.
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You look like you went backwards.
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Typically people Go live in the cold and then, as you get, I'm like I'm going to go somewhere warm, okay.
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Are you ready for this?
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We'll still touch on some philosophical stuff here.
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The biggest question of my life is are you ready for this?
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Do you prefer a climate that's opposite of where you grew up, or are you predestined to a certain climate?
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I think you're predestined to a certain climate because I think as you age now I'm thinking about this, as I'm talking as you age, I think physically the effects of weather on your body change.
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I grew up in the cold.
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I spent, geez, 25, 30 years skiing, so I used to love the cold.
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Right To 25 years skiing 20 years, see, I can't even remember Decades and now I hate the cold.
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Right To a 25-year scheme 20 years, see, I can't even remember Decades.
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And now I hate the cold.
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And I will quote my daughter.
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She said it best.
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She said nobody should live where the air hurts your face, but you miss it, though you say you miss it.
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I don't miss the cold.
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I do not miss the cold.
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See, I think the ideal thing to be is to be a snowbird.
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Cold, see, I think the ideal thing to be and and is to be a snowbird, I think, someone who lives in a warmer climate, during the cooler months, and someone who lives in the the not so northern and I mean not so cool climate, northern during the non-summer months, because down in the south it's a you can cook an egg on your hand if you walk outside.
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So being up north during the spring, summer and fall, late spring, early fall, is beautiful, absolutely beautiful.
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Also, florida is flat as flat, yes, so, yeah, the mountains are beautiful, the trees are beautiful, the leaves, the foliage.
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I know, mark, you have a lot of that over in colorado, so I appreciate understanding why you live there up until probably like next week.
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Yeah, it's, yeah, that's, that's that's a tough one, every day of the year that's a tough one, because Every day of the year that's a tough one, because I grew up the first 10 years.
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I can answer that.
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Yeah, I grew up the first 10 years in an island.
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Right, Like I love it.
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I mean, the weather is perfect all year round.
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And then you move to.
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I moved to Washington State and I spent most of my life here.
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As I get older, we looked at other places, but I love the mountains around me.
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It keeps me humble and makes me feel like, look, I'm nothing but a speck in this world, surrounded by the mountains, and so it keeps me grounded.
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But I do miss the ocean.
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Right, I do miss that, and there's times with me where I want to go back and go home, I guess per se, but I love the mountains.
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It's like I fell in love with it.
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You need to be a snowbird that way.
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I appreciate what you're saying because all of the hiking that I've done, I love being in the mountains.
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I love hiking Like mountains.
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I'm not talking walking in the trails.
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I talked to some people I said, oh, do you want to go for a hike?
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And they showed up thinking that we were, you know, just going for a little walk in the woods and a path, and I'm like, no, we hike mountains, but it is.
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It does keep you grounded, the fresh air, the exertion.
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But I think we need to go, we need to migrate.
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I think we need to change.
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I don't know, I don't know why you're there in the cold either, but stay up there.
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Just the less people that move, the better.
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It's an impossible question to answer, I think.
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But all I know is we would come out here every year for a week to go skiing and I just felt so invigorated when we would get out here and to see the mountains and the snow and the cold and everything, and so I finally said, yeah, let's do that full time.
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That sounds like a good idea.
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Here we are.
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And how long has it been?
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Moved out here in 2008.
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We actually traveled the country for a year in an RV during that transition and as part of finding a new place to live.
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Yeah, so it's good.
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So it's good.
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Okay, so we'll jump into the philosophy lesson being over for a short period of time, we may go back to it.
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Sure, unless there's philosophy in Continia.
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Always.
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There's philosophy in everything, I'm pretty sure.
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So just to put it and level it, and then we'll pretend that I don't know you and I'll say what is Continia?
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What is Continia?
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What is Continia?
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It's the single best add-on solution for Business Central and Nav that exists in the entire planet.
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That is a great summary, With it being the best add-on or extension for Business Central on the planet.
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What does it do for me?
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At the top level it is business process automation solutions across a variety of components, departments, processes and so forth for company.
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Most people know is for one of two solutions document capture, which is literally process automation for inbound documents.
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Most people start there with invoices.
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You hear ever of the term AP automation invoice automation, that's it.
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And so rather than taking those invoices in hand, keying those into Business Central, sending them around via email to the reviewers to review and approve, notating their comments and so forth, we grab that invoice from an email, read everything off of it, save it inside Business Central.
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We can do full and partial matching against POs and receipts automatically, approve it, even automatically post the invoice.
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So finance really doesn't have to do anything at that point.
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It can be focused on much more engaging and certainly value-added activities.
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Keep them a little bit more interested rather than the monotony of the hand-keying and chasing down people for information that you can automate to a point because, as you had mentioned, you have less, you spend less time doing the data entry and you have more time to do the analysis.
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So with the AP automation on Continia you can take, you create a purchase order.
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Right, we're talking accounts payable.
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With AP, you can create a purchase order.
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That purchase order would be sent to a vendor and that vendor would send an invoice to you for those items on the purchase order would be sent to a vendor and that vendor would send an invoice to you for those items on the purchase order.
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Right, exactly, and with the AP automation via email, can you scan it too.
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Yes, it does all that for you.
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So, via email, as a PDF attachment or a document that's mailed in, you will basically for lack of better terms import the document, and the software or the extension will read the document, find a PO, adjust the quantities and then post it for you.
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Yep, that all sounds wonderful.
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Yes.
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But now I'll have some questions for you, of course.
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What is it possible to do this for invoices that you do not have a PO for?
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For example, let's just say I had service done, an emergency service, and someone came and fixed my generator and they gave me an invoice, yep.
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Would I be able to create an invoice from that?
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Absolutely.
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We have master rule sets and then vendor specific rule sets, so you can really dial in exactly how do you want to treat each of these invoices.
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Am I matching or not?
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How am I coding it?
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And we have a variety of coding options beyond GLs right, you can charge it to items, charge items, resources, et cetera, Pull all that information out and basically really vary what you do within each invoice.
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Of course, the goal is to make all of this automated and basically really vary what you do within each invoice.
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Of course, the goal is to make all of this automated.
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So, one of the beautiful things I like best about our solution it's not a typical system where you got to get it set up and there's a zero or a hundred percent on it.
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Right, If you're implementing BC, there's a whole laundry list of things that have to be set up before you can take it live With our solutions.
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The way we've designed it is if you want to start out really slow, great.
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You want to start out medium great.
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You want to start out super automated great, that's up to you.
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If you start out slow, kind of watch how the system works, Let it just do a little bit for you and get used to it.
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Then you can turn on more automation, you can let it do more for you and continue to change that over time.
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So it's very adaptable, very configurable.
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You get new business lines in, you acquire another company all these things very easy to roll those changes in.
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It's very slick.
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No, I like it, as I had mentioned, and I'm glad that you mentioned the point that it doesn't need to be zero or 100 percent.
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You know you go from zero to 100 percent because anything that you can do to save time for data entry, for any of your talent that's employed at an organization, gives them the opportunity to do other things Exactly, you know, as I had mentioned, to analyze.
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So, even if it scans or reads the document that it brings in and it's 90% there if they just have to review and adjust versus having to type everything in, it's still a huge win for them.
00:18:35.247 --> 00:18:42.374
I keep saying over and over again it's using all of these extensions, add-ons, as tools.
00:18:42.374 --> 00:18:46.810
They're tools to do a job, not there to do a job for you.
00:18:46.810 --> 00:18:48.102
That's how I like to look at it.
00:18:48.102 --> 00:18:52.255
So it it helps, yeah, so chris, you like that?
00:18:52.635 --> 00:18:54.019
are you saying you have to put effort?
00:18:56.804 --> 00:19:07.207
you know like people sometimes don't realize that work is work, and I often say would you just like me to do it?
00:19:07.207 --> 00:19:08.625
Is that what you're looking for?
00:19:08.625 --> 00:19:09.861
Do you want me to do this?
00:19:09.861 --> 00:19:17.467
Because this is what you're supposed to be doing, this is what your tasks are.
00:19:17.467 --> 00:19:22.724
Yeah, yeah, chris, yes, yes, that's what it should be.
00:19:22.724 --> 00:19:24.645
Some things do require work.
00:19:24.645 --> 00:19:28.926
That's why they call it work and they don't call it sitting there doing nothing.
00:19:28.926 --> 00:19:30.771
So it's good.
00:19:30.771 --> 00:19:35.491
Okay, so to jump back to the API, chris, I can keep going on this API.
00:19:35.700 --> 00:19:37.026
I get excited about this.
00:19:37.026 --> 00:19:39.426
This is awesome stuff, stuff.
00:19:39.426 --> 00:19:45.211
So now we talked about you have rules, you have templates for the vendors.
00:19:45.211 --> 00:19:46.844
What else can this do?