ISV Talks
ISV Talks
Breaking News: TrinDocs Achieves Verified ISV Status by MSDynamicsWorld (MDSW)
Ever wondered how a family-owned business could revolutionize document management? Meet Heather and Jeremy from TrinDocs, whose journey from a niche in the Microsoft Dynamics space to becoming a trailblazer in ERP system automation is nothing short of inspiring. Heather's transition from a senior accountant to a visionary leader at Trindocs exemplifies the transformative power of innovative leadership, driving companies into the digital, paperless age. Jeremy shares fascinating insights into how TrinDocs has tailored their automation solutions to suit diverse industries, from healthcare and manufacturing to lift companies and beyond, all encapsulated by their unique tagline, "Automation as unique as you are."
But that's not all—TrinDocs has recently earned the prestigious MSDynamicsWorld verified ISV badge! Jeremy walks us through the rigorous verification process that involved collaboration with Microsoft MVPs and independent evaluations of customer and partner references. Discover what makes TrinDocs the pioneering AP automation provider on AppSource for Business Central and the transparency and accessibility they maintain in their evaluation reports. Tune in and learn how TrinDocs is not just shaping document management but also setting industry benchmarks with their commitment to open communication and tailored solutions.
and record. Welcome to this episode of ISV Talks. I'm Carol Livingston, the owner of Dynamics Connections and your host of ISV Talks. Welcome everyone to this special episode with my friends from TrendDocs, heather and Jeremy. Welcome, hello.
Speaker 2:Great to be with you, Carol.
Speaker 1:Hello, great to be with you, carol.
Speaker 3:Well, let's start out by having you each introduce yourself and tell us how long you've been with TrendDocs. Heather, you want to start? Yeah, so my story actually started before I started working at TrendDocs. So I used to work for a company as an accountant, so I was the senior accountant there for probably about 10 years and while I was working there I just got tired of all the filing and the stacks of paper and chasing down my approvals so I decided to implement a document management system within the company to help with that.
Speaker 3:So in researching all the different companies out there, we actually chose TrendDocs, where I worked. So I implemented it at my last job and within two years I had taken the entire company paperless and I didn't want to stop. So I decided to change careers and I made a big career move and I left my accounting job and actually came to work at TrendDocs. So I have been at TrendDocs for nine years now. Ok, I started running implementations and I was doing the implementations and support, and now I am the director of TrendDocs and I'm just kind of overseeing and running TrendDocs right now.
Speaker 1:Great. Thank you, Jeremy. Why don't you introduce yourself and tell us how long you've been with TrendDocs?
Speaker 2:Jeremy, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us how long you've been with TrendDocs? Well, my story is nowhere near as exciting as Heather's, but I've been with TrendDocs for a little over four years now and have loved every minute of it. Trenddocs is a small, you know, family-owned business of accountants and either you're like Heather, you're an accountant or you're a coder, or then there's just a small number of people like me that are, you know, out here selling and marketing TrendDocs. But it's a great team, very thankful to be part of it, and four years in the Microsoft community has been just overwhelmingly positive, very receptive group Proud to be a part of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and well, tell us a little bit about Jeremy. How did TrendDocs get started? And you mentioned accountants, so I'm intrigued already. And what's your company history?
Speaker 2:Sure, well, we're, like I mentioned, a small family-owned business of accountants and our owners actually own a Microsoft VAR and also an ISV and so of course TrendDocs is the ISV side, the VAR side. Our sister company is TrendSoft. So all the way back to 1996, our owners left KPMG and Dean Dorton and kind of these big name accounting firms and began their own company. So 1996, they began selling division and then GP and now we're on to Business Central, so very focused in the SMB world. Fast forward from 1996 to about 2010. And that's when TrendDocs came into the picture. And so for about 15 years now TrendDocs has been serving the SMB world, primarily in the dynamics space. Of course we've been helping Business Central clients for years now. We were the first AP automation provider on AppSource for Business Central and we're going to talk about today we're the first AP automation provider that's verified by MSDW. But we're not exclusive to Dynamics, acumatica, netsuite, sage, intact, all of these other ERP systems that are focused on the SMB world. We're working with everybody. You know that's in that space.
Speaker 1:So kind of focused on SMBs, kind of lots of different ERPs, but the history of Dynamics and Microsoft Gotcha Awesome. So I think you already covered kind of what products you're compatible with. So is there any industries that you specialize in or work with?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Heather. You go first and I'll add color commentary if you want.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we integrate with a whole long list of different ERPs EBS, SoftBase, Acumatica a lot of the ones that Jeremy mentioned as well. So we definitely have a lot of focus in the Lyft industry. So we have a lot of Lyft companies out there definitely specialize in that. We know their business, we know their day-to-day and how their payables works and also their purchase orders and their inventory, so we're really familiar with that. We have a lot of other different industries that we work with. We have healthcare, retail, Gosh there's so many. We have shipping, trucking. So we have a lot of industries and we have a lot of people here on the team who specialize in those different areas.
Speaker 2:Those industries, gotcha. I'm sorry, carol, I just got to get in. Manufacturing is a big one for us too. Yeah, and that didn't make the list so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I can't forget that my gosh yeah, that's a big one. Yeah, so maybe I should have asked this question first, but what's the basic description of your solution and your unique features?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, the two big pillars for what we do is electronic document management and workflow automation, and so that encompasses lots and lots of things. But since we're owned by accountants even though they haven't been in practice since 96, every year they keep their CPA license in current, so it's very, very much a passion. Such a passion. So you know, po matching approvals with audit logs, auto GL coding all the things that you would expect are pain points in traditional accounting. Those are the areas where we help, and since we tailor solutions around client needs, it's very much a collaborative process.
Speaker 1:So the users have actually helped build their own solution alongside of us and it's just a very, very good toolkit that we offer. Yeah, and I like your tagline. You know automation. As unique as you are, that really is a differentiator for what you do and how you do it right Big time.
Speaker 3:Definitely. I mean there is not. We have some clients that come to us and they have I mean they are very complex processes in their business today and they're looking for someone that isn't going to give them a straight out of the box solution and say you have to do it this way. So that's one of my favorite parts of the job, honestly is when we do get those complex business processes, what can we do to help them? And because we are unique, we can always find a way to do what it is they're needing to do, no matter how complex it is. We will tailor our solution to work with them versus forcing them to work with our solution the way we have it.
Speaker 2:It's kind of funny. We get questions well, how will you handle this problem, or how we handle that problem? And so the answer is well, how do you handle that problem today? And if they can tell us well, here's our process well then we can do it. We tell them. If you can document it, we can do it. So as long as we can understand what your rules and policies and procedures are and we can understand and document that, then we can automate that for you. But everybody, I don't know if there's two clients that have the same TrendDocs. It's a toolkit that wraps around businesses, so it really is unique for every client.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good way of saying it. It's a toolkit, right? It's the tools you need to make that process work for your business, nice, okay, so I know you guys also have recently had some new releases of TrendOps, so you want to tell us about that, heather.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we are so excited. I know everyone out there is hearing all the buzz out there about AI and machine learning and we're right there with it. So we are so excited. We have released our auto AI OCR. So what this means is you know your PDFs are going to come into TrendDocs and we're just going to read all the required data that you need to create an invoice with no user interaction the whole team. We are so excited for this.
Speaker 3:This has been in the works for a while. It is finally out there and released, and then also our machine learning. So the machine learning is a big one that everyone has been wanting, you know. That's allowing our clients to not have to focus on keying GLs for the same invoices every month to the same GLs. Trenddocs is going to do that for them and take that work off of them so they can focus on other things. So that would probably be two of our big ones. And another big one that I'm so excited about is we actually have another software that we sell called TrendForms, so this is used for things like purchase requisitions and fixed asset request. That is now going to be integrated into TrendDocs. So now both of our softwares are going to be combined into one, so it is going to be a one-stop shop for our clients. They're going to be able to do their processes from beginning to end in one place, and we are so excited about this and cannot wait for our clients to be in the system trying it out.
Speaker 1:Did I miss?
Speaker 3:anything Jared.
Speaker 2:No, I think you're all over it. The whole requisition piece. What TrendForms allows you to do is you can have non-ERP users create their own purchase requisitions that integrate into your ERP, and that's a gap in Business Central. So we believe that TrendForms is going to be a really big platform for us to grow and really help clients, boost efficiencies inside and outside the office.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what better way to control spend but get you know everybody to discuss and approve the spend before you do it.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly, yep.
Speaker 1:That's such a good feature and I know with Business Central I've had several partners ask me for a purchase requisition solution, so this is a good place to start right with.
Speaker 3:Business.
Speaker 1:Central Right Definitely is a good place to start. Right with this central right? Definitely so. And I know you also cover other things like um, besides accounts payable, automating the invoice, uh capture and coding and approvals. But what else do you do?
Speaker 3:so we have? Oh, jeremy, what are we up? To Over 40?
Speaker 2:There's at least 40 workflows.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So some of our most popular ones is we do vendor statement reconciliation. We reconcile those vendor statements for the users. We have credit card expense reconciliation, credit card statement reconciliation and expenses. I mean expenses is a big one. Handling the expense reports for you know all the team members, that's a big one as well. So you know we've gotten to AR over the past couple years contract management there's really such a long list and it's always exciting when a client comes to us with a new one that we haven't done before. So the 40, that's probably the 40 most common ones that we have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's exciting Anywhere you have paper and you have a manual approval process. That's where we're helping people. But again, since we're owned by accountants, we always start in payables because that's where most of the paper is at. But once people see how great we've helped efficiencies in accounting, well now all of a sudden HR wants to run, you know, employee onboarding through us and W-9s, or the legal team wants to help with contract management, and so we end up being more than just an accounting tool and really a whole business, you know cross-functional tool to boost efficiencies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, gotcha Nice. So and I know you do payments too right On the vendor payment side.
Speaker 2:We do the three big solutions. We have Trend Forms, Trend Docs, Trend Pay. That's our portfolio for procure to pay automation, so we can help you with requisitions and getting those integrated. We can help you with payables and that approval process and we can help you pay your vendors more efficiently too. And, of course, all of those have pre-built integrations with Business Central, and so that's what we're out there talking every day, all day about is procure-to-pay automation.
Speaker 1:Okay awesome. So I know TrendDocs just had some new features recently released, so you want to share, heather, some of those new features. Maybe you already kind of touched on that, but was there anything else that's coming up that we're looking forward to?
Speaker 3:We did have a user group in oh, was that October? I?
Speaker 2:was going to say, October.
Speaker 3:This year is flying by. So in October we had a user group with our clients and it was great. We gave we had the opportunity to listen to our clients on what are they looking for, what are they wanting to see in TrendDocs, and we got so many great suggestions out of that. So this past week we actually met together here internally as a team to review all those suggestions from our clients to put together our release for next year. So next year we are going to have another release that will be based on all the features that came from our clients, Because really our clients are the ones that are using TrendDocs.
Speaker 3:Say, you know what is the best thing to add into trend docs or what everyone would like? We just go straight to our clients, we ask them and ultimately, trend docs is created based on our clients and their feedback. So we're definitely excited to do that one last year. Uh, some of the suggestions that we got are amazing and we're so excited to get those out there because I think a lot of people are going to benefit from those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's great, you get client feedback that informs what you're going to put in the product, the next release, that's awesome. And are people given credit like, hey, this came from you know, heather, or it came from Jeremy or someone on your client's side?
Speaker 2:We do a client newsletter every month and we share tips and tricks and you know name names and give kudos and things when we can too. But what Heather's talking about is not a one time, one off situation, but it's very much an ongoing, constant feedback and our solutions are very good. That's why we're growing at the clip we have, but we're not satisfied with where we've been. We want to continue to have real-world accounting solutions fueled by real-world accountants, and so we're talking to our clients about the good, the bad, the ugly of our solutions and always improving.
Speaker 1:Right, Awesome. Well, I'm going to switch now. So we're going to take a kind of a breather here. I'm going to switch back to sharing. Yeah, take a breath. I'm not stopping the recording, but we'll take this part out. So I want to go to our breaking news, so I'll kind of introduce it and then we'll have that little red breaking news will pop up and let's see who's going to talk about the Heather. Are you going to talk about the verified ISV badge?
Speaker 3:that you guys earned. I think Jeremy's going to talk on this part. Jeremy's the natural in all this. He's in his comfort zone.
Speaker 2:I'm totally good with you hopping in wherever I think you're doing great.
Speaker 1:You think you're doing a great job All right, okay. I think you're doing great. You think you're doing a great job, all right, okay. So we have some breaking news from the TrendDocs team here, today, and I'm very excited to share with you this breaking news that TrendDocs has just earned a badge from Microsoft Dynamics World. They are now one of the first AP automation solutions to achieve that Microsoft Dynamics World verified ISV status. So, Jeremy, tell us a little bit about this honor and this badge that you have.
Speaker 2:Well, as you mentioned, trenddocs is the very first AP automation provider to earn this Microsoft Dynamics World verified ISV status, and I think it's so fitting that it's a badge, because we wear it as a badge, it's a badge of honor, and I'll kind of give you a sneak peek behind the scenes of how we earn this. And so I was talking to Jason and the guys over there, adam, about this program that they have and how it might be helpful for the community to see behind the scenes for an AP automation provider with Business Central, and so we start off by talking to three or four different Microsoft MVPs, and these are folks that are, you know, steve Chinsky, kim Dallafeld, aj Ansari the people that you know the names, they've been around, they're legends in the community. Remember, I'm only four years old in the community. So I'm talking to people that are legends in the community and it starts on a hot seat and they're peppering me, peppering Heather, with questions Can you do this, what about this? And it was fast and furious for about an hour, and then after that we give them an overview of our documentation, which they loved, and then we turn them loose in sandboxes, and so very little instruction given to these MVPs. It's more or less. Here's the solution, what do you think? And so they dive in. They work real world, real time.
Speaker 2:Business Central documents to TrendDocs, trenddocs to Business Central and they try to shoot holes in it. And at the end of the day, there weren't too many holes shot in the solution. Honestly, I don't recall any. It was all very glowingly good news and of course, that's not surprising to us because TrendDocs was also the first AP automation provider on AppSource for Business Central. So we've gained BC clients from a lot of bigger companies that say they have integrations but apparently don't. But we're serving dozens of BC clients, having migrated from GP, you know. So this award is something that kind of for us is not a surprise, but maybe to the industry it is. Maybe folks are thinking well, trenddocs I've never heard of them, but MSDW everybody knows, and so if you have their approval, if you're friends with them, you're friends with us, and so we're hoping that that really causes some waves in the partner community, you know, and we would welcome conversations to share more about that.
Speaker 1:Right and we're looking at this evaluation report, which is what the MVPs you know, steve Chensky and others contributed to that evaluation right.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and that's available on. Obviously, msdw did a press release about it so you can get more information on their website or trenddocscom. We have a solution up there and you know, a lot of times you go to a website and you look for a report and you have to give your name and your number and your email in order to get the report and so you know. Okay, somebody's going to be emailing me about this. Well, at TrendDocs, that's not the way that we work and we believe if you want the information, you shouldn't have to fear us pestering you, which we're not going to do anyway, but it's out there for anybody. You don't have to put your information in. Just go to TrendDocscom and you can get the report under the resources tab. So there's TrendDocscom resources, white papers. Download it, share it freely.
Speaker 1:Okay, awesome. And as part of this process, the press release says that they independently verify customer and partner references. How does that work?
Speaker 2:Well, to be honest with you, I'm not really sure how all they did that. We shared information with them that's confidential. You know, here's people that we work with, here are clients you may speak with. So I'm not certain who all they spoke with or what all they got from them beyond what's in the report. We did kind of open up the books and there's no smoke and mirrors. We're very transparent, a lot of times even to a fault, you know. But we said here's who we are, here's who our clients are. Talk to anybody you want, and so they did. And that's what he tells.
Speaker 1:Okay, or if they can't find it on your website or at Microsoft Dynamics World, they can always reach out to you too, right, jeremy?
Speaker 2:Anytime, However you'd like. I'm very active on LinkedIn and social media, but however they would like to contact us of course we would love to speak.
Speaker 1:Okay, perfect, so just to kind of wrap up here, thank you both, heather and Jeremy, for joining us today and kind of sharing your breaking news about this badge the Microsoft Dynamics World verified ISV status. So congratulations for that. This is Jeremy's contact information. So again, if you need to reach out to him, you want to get a copy of that evaluation report or just learn anything about TrendDocs, feel free to reach out to him. Jeremy, do you want to kind of go over your contact info?
Speaker 2:If you don't mind, I would like to. My last name phonetically has a T in it but grammatically it does not, and so my last name is. My email is jprichard at trenddocscom. So that's jprichard at trenddocscom. Of course, my direct phone number is 859-309-8742. And again, very active in LinkedIn and in the community, and so I would love, if it's at Summit or DynamicsCon or wherever we might cross paths, I would appreciate, you know, getting to shake people's hands and just have an introduction, and we're truly looking for win-win-win scenarios, starting with the partner ISV relationship and serving the businesses. But if it's not a win, win, win, then frankly you know we're not interested in those. But if there's situations where everybody wins, that's really what we're looking to do.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, so Jeremy Pritchard, and I heard his name, jay Pritchard, at TrendDocscom. So thank you, jeremy, for going over your contact info and thank you, heather, for sharing your history and your background and I'm a fellow accountant too, so I appreciate that. Thank you for having us, of course. Yeah, it was great having you both. So, hey, folks, we'll see you on the next episode of ISV Talks and thank you for joining us. We'll see you next time, friends. Bye-bye.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Carol.
Speaker 1:Thanks.