“Oh yeah, we are happy at this moment”, Ouko Reitsema says, sitting behind his desk at DycoTrade Head-Office. “It took us a while, but the result is better and more advanced than we anticipated for a long time. We have very high expectations on the new DycoTrade Metals Solution, as currently is available”.
Some 15 years DycoTrade and her predecessors were active in the Commodity Trade and Risk business. The design, development, implementation of a broad, user-friendly application and the Go Live’s of many customers has taken place. The application, “DycoTrade” is based on Dynamics AX, a powerful ERP administrative application by Microsoft. “The choice for this platform has been a good one, as Microsoft is still heavily investing in the core application, keeping it up to date with ever changing wishes from the field”. As DycoTrade is, in fact, ‘just a layer’ within Dynamics AX, DycoTrade always benefits from these enhancements. Still, the added value by this DycoTrade layer is major and unique proposition for Commodity Traders.
In the past years, DycoTrade was mostly used by Traders specializing in “Soft-Commodities” and/or Specialties. Coffee, Grain, Starch, Sugar, Meat and Fish, Cotton, Flour, Dairy, Tea, Fertilizer, (Organic) fruits and nuts were commodities that are traded and administrated with DycoTrade. This autumn a huge market will arise for the DycoTrade Company, as their Metals Application will fulfill the specific needs for Metal Trading companies.
“We incorporated a lot of Metals functionality in the DycoTrade application, making it configurable via Configuration Keys. Having one application, that is able to work on both Soft and Hard commodities is unique in the market”, Ouko says and he continues: “Now that our first customers are live with this application, our aim is to further expand functions, and enhance the user experience even further”.
Assays would be a first example. Registering Assay values for elements in a product, and use this data in several processes in the administrative flow in DycoTrade. Pricing of a contract (both purchase and sales) for any ore is heavily depending on the elementary content . Providing additional and complex pricing rules, in relation to the Assay analysis is of major importance in the business.
Another important feature is the use of two quantity fields in the Metals application. A distinction is made to handle an invoice quantity, for all financially related data and processes, yet in warehousing, Logistic files and transports another quantity field (warehouse quantity) is used. This provides important flexibility and insight in handling orders of any type.
“Most complex to handle was probably the Cost Price Adjustments related to Metals trading”, Ouko remembers. “Based on various triggers (LME-pricing, new Assay-data) a Cost Price adjustment can be made on a specific batch. All changes remain visible throughout the system, adding more information to (for instance) an Onhand screen”. The automatic and consistent management of this requirement led DycoTrade to have specialists on board, as this seriously intervened with Dynamics AX standards and procedures. Linked to this functionality is another masterpiece: Back in Time Functionality, allowing the user to run changes in (for instance) Cost Prices in the past. Maximum flexibility combined with a full insight.
As (Metal-) Traders are working around the globe, DycoTrade took the opportunity to enrich this latest release with major enhancements in the VAT registration. DycoTrade was able to provide a stable solution for many VAT – Scenarios in trading. This is now part of the Standard DycoTrade solution, yet even more enhancements and even deeper functionality are anticipated.
Enhancements on Future and Foreign Exchange contracts, Credit Limits and Provisional invoicing have been added. In general, this provides the user with more functionality and ease of use.
Mr Reitsema is looking back on a successful Go Live with this new application on Customer Site. “Although a lot of things changed, and changed profoundly, we were able to maintain a stable application, ready for new (metal-) markets. A great opportunity, for both Customers and Prospects as well as DycoTrade”.
DycoTrade HGH BV
+31 20 671 0437
Ouko Reitsema, Managing Director
Orei@DycoTrade.com
+31 6 2614 2683
