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Seattle businesses and the numbers they chase
Fishing and seafood companies
Cost and revenue per vessel and per season, with product lots traced from the catch to the buyer.
Shipyards and marine services
Repair and refit work run as jobs per vessel, with parts, labor and subcontractors charged as they happen.
Coffee roasters
Green coffee bought by lot, roasted in batches, packed in several sizes and sold wholesale and online.
Marketplace sellers
Stock split between their own warehouse and marketplace fulfillment centers, with fees reconciled per payout.
Life science startups
Research programs and grants tracked as projects, lab equipment as fixed assets, burn reported to investors.
Outdoor and apparel brands
Styles in sizes and colors, seasonal buys and wholesale accounts alongside direct sales.
Architecture and engineering firms
Projects billed by phase, consultants tracked as costs, utilization watched per studio.
Construction and trades
Contractors in a busy building market run job budgets, change orders and retainage.
Fleets, seasons and the North Pacific calendar
A good share of the North Pacific fishing fleet calls Seattle home, tying up at Fishermen's Terminal and other moorages between seasons in Alaska. For the owners of those boats, a year is a string of seasons, and each season has its own costs: fuel, bait, gear, insurance, crew and repairs. They want to know whether a vessel made money on a given fishery, not just whether the company did.
In Business Central we usually treat each vessel as a dimension and each season or trip as a job or a second dimension. Purchases, fuel tickets and shipyard invoices are coded as they post, so the profit picture for each boat builds up during the season rather than months later. Processing and sales of the product can then be traced lot by lot.
One part stays specialist. Crew share settlements, with their deductions and shares by position, are rarely a good fit for standard ERP logic. Most owners keep a settlement tool and post the totals into the ledger, and we design that handoff carefully.
How a Seattle engagement runs with us
- 1
A conversation about the driver
We start by asking what unit your profit really lives in: vessel, batch, SKU, project or grant. That answer shapes the whole design.
- 2
A plan you can read
Scope, data to move, integrations and anything excluded go into a written document you approve.
- 3
Build in a sandbox
Setup and data migration happen in a test environment, and your team runs its own transactions through it.
- 4
Remote by default
We work from Phoenix on your Pacific hours; a trip to Seattle happens when a yard, roastery or warehouse walk will change the design.
- 5
Go-live off-season
Cutover is timed away from your busy season, and the same consultants help with the first closes.
When a Seattle company is better served by something else
- ✓A large processor running grading lines and plant scales needs specialist plant software, with Business Central taking summaries
- ✓A life science company heading into regulated manufacturing may need a validated quality system beside the ERP
- ✓A seller with one channel, no warehouse and simple books can often stay on its current accounting tool
Questions Seattle owners bring us
Can we see profit by vessel and by season?
Yes, that is a standard design for fleet owners. Each vessel gets a dimension, and seasons or trips are tracked as jobs or another dimension. Costs and revenue are coded as they post. Reports then show each boat's result for each fishery without a spreadsheet.
We are on Dynamics NAV. Is moving to Business Central a big change?
It is the natural next step, and users will recognize much of it. The larger work is in customizations, which need to become extensions or be replaced by standard features. We review each one and recommend keep, rebuild or drop. Our NAV migration page explains the process.
How do marketplace fees and payouts get reconciled?
Through a connector that brings in orders, fees and payouts as separate entries. Each payout then matches the bank deposit, and fees land in their own expense accounts. Stock held at fulfillment centers is tracked as its own location. We test a few real settlement reports before go-live.
Does Seattle have its own business tax we should plan for?
Yes, Seattle levies its own business license tax and business and occupation tax on top of the state's. Business Central does not file those returns, but it can report gross receipts in the way your preparer needs. We set up the revenue split with your tax advisor. They confirm the classifications that apply to you.
Talk to us about your project.
Tell us what you run today and what has to change. A senior consultant replies with a written next step.