Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Company in the US

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BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION

Build an Operation You Can See, Trust, and Scale.

Ascent Innovations helps organizations solve complex financial and operational problems with Microsoft Dynamics 365; connecting systems, processes, and data so your teams can trust the numbers, see what’s happening in real time, and make better decisions.
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Trusted by Organizations of all sizes and Industries across the Globe

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Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Company

Better Technology Starts With a Better Understanding of the Business

Most organizations don’t need more software. They need to understand..

Why doesn’t inventory match?
Why does financial reporting take so long?
Why are teams still relying on spreadsheets, manual handoffs, and disconnected systems?
Why does growth keep adding complexity?

That’s where we start.

Ascent looks at the operational and financial problems behind the technology, then builds the systems, processes, integrations, and trusted data needed to solve them.

20+ Years of Experience

Serving organizations through multiple generations of Microsoft ERP from legacy Dynamics systems to today’s cloud and AI-enabled platforms.

25+ Industries Served

Experience across industries, business models, and complex operating environments

End-to-End Partnership

From business discovery and solution design through implementation, training, and adoption.

Microsoft Solutions Partner

Demonstrated expertise, certified skills, and experience delivering Microsoft business solutions.

Where it says Chicago land service coverage ---> What Changes When Your Business Works as One?

Financial Clarity
Understand cost, profitability, cash flow, project performance, and financial results with information leadership can trust.
Operational Control
Visibility across inventory, purchasing, supply chain, production, projects, warehousing, service, assets, and other critical workflows.
Connected Processes
Reduce manual handoffs, duplicate entry, spreadsheets, and disconnected workflows across the organization.
Trusted Data
Establish a consistent source of information so teams spend less time reconciling data and more time improving performance.
Faster Decisions
Timely, reliable information that allows teams to identify issues early and act decisively
A Foundation for Growth
Standardize processes and systems so the organization can add locations, entities, acquisitions, products, or capabilities without adding unnecessary complexity.

Our Illinois Headquarters

Ascent Innovations
Schaumburg, Illinois 60173
Chicago Metropolitan Area

What Sets Us Apart as Your Upgrade Partner

Technology should support how your organization needs to operate—not force the business to work around the technology.

What Sets Us Apart as Your Upgrade Partner

Technology should support how your organization needs to operate—not force the business to work around the technology.

Dynamics 365 Finance

See cash flow, close the books faster, manage multiple entities, and understand where profit is actually being made.
Learn More

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management

Know what inventory you have, what needs to be purchased or produced, where orders are getting stuck, and what it will take to fulfill demand.
Learn More

Dynamics 365 Business Central

Replace disconnected accounting, inventory, sales, and operations tools with one system for running the day-to-day business.
Learn More

Microsoft Power Platform

Replace email approvals, spreadsheets, and repetitive manual tasks with automated workflows, simple internal apps, and connected reporting.
Learn More
Services

Maximize the Business Value of Your Technology Investment

Implementing technology is only one part of modernization. The real goal is improving how the organization operates.

Implementation

Set up Dynamics 365 around how your business operates from finance and reporting to inventory, supply chain, production, and approvals.

Upgrade & Modernization

Move off legacy ERP systems without carrying every old workaround, customization, and broken process into the new environment.

Audit & Assessment

Find where your current ERP is creating extra work, unreliable reporting, process gaps, or missed opportunities and determine what should be fixed first.

Optimization

Improve an existing Dynamics environment so teams can work faster, use more of the system, and rely less on spreadsheets and manual workarounds.

Integrations, Automation & Analytics

Connect Dynamics 365 with the other systems your business depends on, automate repetitive work, and give teams better access to the information they need

Different Industries. Similar Business Problems.

Every industry has its own requirements.

Manufacturing

Manufacturers are managing rising costs, labor constraints, supply chain disruption, and increasing pressure to produce more with better visibility into cost and capacity.
  • Connect planning to actual demand — Align purchasing, materials, production, inventory, and capacity so teams are not planning in separate spreadsheets or reacting after shortages occur.
  • Improve inventory accuracy — Track what is on hand, committed, in production, moving between locations, or waiting to ship.
  • Understand true production cost — Capture material, labor, overhead, scrap, outside services, and other costs where they occur.
  • Connect the plant floor to the ERP — Use barcodes, mobile devices, production reporting, and warehouse transactions to capture information as work happens.
  • Standardize multi-site operations — Bring plants, warehouses, acquisitions, and legal entities onto repeatable processes without losing the requirements unique to each facility.
  • Improve financial and operational visibility — Give leadership a clearer view of demand, production performance, inventory, cost, and margin across the organization.

Steel & Metal Fabrication

Steel and metal fabricators operate in an environment where material-price volatility, tariffs, engineering changes, supply disruption, and project execution can directly affect margin.
  • Connect engineering to fabrication — Integrate engineering systems such as Tekla with Dynamics 365 so current parts, dimensions, and fabrication requirements reach production without manual re-entry.
  • Manage change orders before they erode margin — Route design changes through the affected teams and capture their impact on material, labor, schedule, and customer pricing.
  • Track steel across the full operation — Maintain visibility into coils, plates, structural material, drops, assemblies, yards, warehouses, trailers, and subcontracted processing.
  • Preserve heat-number traceability — Carry material traceability from mill documentation through fabrication, galvanizing, cutting, forming, and shipment.
  • Manage commodity-driven costs — Improve inventory valuation, project costing, and pricing decisions when steel and other input costs fluctuate.
  • Know project profitability — Capture material, labor, scrap, outsourced work, and change orders against the projects that actually created the cost.

Industrial Equipment

Industrial-equipment businesses face material-cost pressure, long supply chains, complex service requirements, and business models that often extend well beyond simply building and selling equipment
  • Connect work orders to finance — Tie materials, purchasing, labor, service activity, and financial transactions back to the work being performed.
  • Manage complex equipment businesses — Support specialized workflows such as partner-share arrangements, auctions, service activity, and nonstandard commercial processes.
  • Improve cost visibility — Understand the financial impact of materials, workperformed, purchases, and equipment-related activity.
  • Consolidate multiple entities or business units — Standardize financial reportingwhile maintaining the operational requirements of each part of the organization.
  • Use operating data to support pricing — Apply historical and transactional datato pricing and commercial decisions instead of relying only on manual judgment.

Chemical & Pharmaceuticals

Chemical and pharmaceutical organizations operate under strict requirements forquality, traceability, costing, and regulatory control while also managing volatile materialcosts and complex supply chains.
  • Track what actually went into every batch — Capture actual materialconsumption, batch numbers, yield, and production output instead of relying onmanual estimates.
  • Improve formula and product costing — Configure formulas and productstructures so operations and financial reporting reflect how products are actuallymanufactured.
  • Build traceability into the process — Maintain the history needed to followmaterials through production, quality review, finished goods, and potential recallactivity.
  • Connect plant equipment to Dynamics 365 — Integrate PLC and productionsystem data to reduce manual entry and improve the accuracy of productionrecords.
  • Strengthen quality control — Bring quality checks, batch status, and productioninformation into the same operational environment.
  • Manage plant and equipment investment — Support fixed assets, equipmentleasing, depreciation, and other financial requirements associated withexpansion.

Energy & Utilities

Energy and utilities must manage rising demand, infrastructure investment, supply chaindisruption, cost pressure, and increasingly complex operational requirements.
  • Manage asset-intensive operations — Connect financial, operational, and assetinformation across equipment, infrastructure, and facilities.
  • Improve capital project visibility — Track budgets, actual costs, commitments,and project performance across major infrastructure investments.
  • Strengthen procurement and inventory control — Improve visibility into criticalmaterials, equipment, purchasing, and supplier activity.
  • Support maintenance operations — Connect maintenance requirements, workactivity, parts, assets, and financial information.
  • Improve cost control — Give leadership better visibility into operating costs,capital spending, and financial performance.
  • Create consistent reporting — Bring financial and operational informationtogether for more reliable planning, management, and compliance reporting.

Recycling & Sustainability

Tariffs, material availability, commodity prices, and increasing demand for domesticrecovery can directly affect the economics of recycling and secondary-materialbusinesses.
  • Manage reverse-production workflows — Configure the system around materialsand assets entering the operation to be dismantled, recovered, processed,reused, or disposed of.
  • Track assets and recovered materials — Maintain visibility from receipt throughprocessing and final disposition.
  • Support compliance-heavy operations — Build required tracking anddocumentation into workflows involving ITAR, EPA, ITAD certification, OEM, andrelated requirements.
  • Connect recovery activity to financial results — Tie processing, inventory,recovered material, and disposition activity back to costing and financialreporting.
  • Respond to changing commodity economics — Improve visibility into recoveredmaterial, inventory, cost, and pricing as market conditions change.

Warehousing & Distribution

Warehousing and distribution businesses compete on inventory accuracy, throughput,fulfillment speed, shipping performance, and the ability to respond quickly whendemand changes.
  • Know what inventory is available and where it is — Track inventory by facility,location, bin, batch, status, commitment, and movement.
  • Move transactions onto the warehouse floor — Use scanners, barcodes, mobiledevices, and system-generated work for receiving, movement, picking, packing,and shipping.
  • Increase picking and fulfillment throughput — Design warehouse processesaround actual order volume, product flow, labor, and customer requirements.
  • Connect EDI and retailer requirements — Automate orders, labels,documentation, shipment activity, and customer-specific requirements.
  • Connect warehouse activity to transportation — Tie picking, shipment closing,carrier processes, labeling, and delivery execution back to the order.
  • Standardize multiple facilities — Create consistent processes and inventoryvisibility across distribution centers without forcing every site into an identicaloperating model.

Public Sector

Public-sector organizations must balance financial accountability, operational efficiency, budget control, procurement requirements, and transparency across multiple departments and programs.
  • Strengthen budgeting and financial control — Connect budgets, actuals,commitments, and financial reporting across departments, programs, andfunding sources.
  • Improve procurement oversight — Standardize purchasing, approvals, vendormanagement, and contract-related workflows.
  • Manage capital projects and assets — Track project costs, infrastructureinvestments, assets, depreciation, and related financial activity.
  • Create stronger approval controls — Build defined workflows for purchasing,spending, projects, and other governed processes.
  • Improve organization-wide reporting — Give leadership a consistent view offinancial and operational performance across departments.
  • Reduce manual administrative work — Replace spreadsheets, disconnectedsystems, and manual handoffs with standardized processes and shared data.

Transportation & Transit Agencies

Transportation and transit agencies manage asset-intensive operations where fleetavailability, maintenance, procurement, capital investment, inventory, and financialcontrol all affect service delivery.
  • Manage fleet and infrastructure assets — Connect vehicle, equipment,infrastructure, and financial records across the asset lifecycle.
  • Connect maintenance to operations — Tie work orders, preventive maintenance,labor, parts, and asset history into one operational process.
  • Improve parts and inventory visibility — Track critical parts, materials, availability,usage, replenishment, and purchasing across facilities.
  • Manage capital projects and funding — Track project budgets, costs,commitments, assets, and financial performance across major initiatives.
  • Strengthen procurement and vendor control — Standardize purchasing,approvals, contracts, supplier activity, and spending.
  • Improve financial and operational reporting — Give leadership clearer visibilityacross assets, maintenance, inventory, projects, costs, and day-to-day operations.

See The Difference for Yourself

A side-by-side look at what you gain when you make the move to Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management.
CHALLENGE

Multiple Companies. Multiple ERP Systems. No Single View of the Business.

A multi-company steel organization was operating across different ERP, financial,engineering, and operational systems.

Ascent helped consolidate the companies onto Dynamics 365, standardize financial andoperational processes, connect engineering directly with production, strengtheninventory and traceability processes, and improve project costing.

The business gained a more connected operation with greater financial visibility,stronger traceability, fewer disconnected workflows, and better information formanaging project profitability.

Go-live timeline
0 mo
Client Satisfaction
0
Planning efficiency gain
0 %
CHALLENGE

Multiple Facilities Operating Like Separate Companies

A multi-location bedding and consumer products manufacturer had grown throughacquisitions, leaving facilities operating on different ERP systems, workflows, andreporting structures.

Ascent developed a phased Dynamics 365 rollout across finance, production, inventory,warehousing, transportation, and reporting.

Leadership gained a unified view of operations while facilities moved towardconsistent, repeatable processes that could support continued growth.

Less emergency POs
0 %
Unified in D365
0 DCs
Inventory accuracy
0 %
CHALLENGE

Food Operations Without Reliable Waste or Recipe Visibility

A food operation struggled with recipe management, waste tracking, inventorytraceability, quality processes, and scaling additional locations.

Ascent implemented Dynamics 365 processes around batch tracking, recipemanagement, quality, inventory, and First Expired, First Out processes.

The organization gained stronger operational visibility, improved waste control, moreconsistent processes, and a better foundation for expansion.

Dayas to month-end close
0
Project margin visibility
Real-time
Margin improvement
0 %

What Chicago-Area Clients Say About Working with Ascent

Don’t take our word for it. These are representative of the feedback we receive from Illinois clients who chose Ascent as their Dynamics 365 partner.

❝
Having Ascent based in Schaumburg meant they could be in our Addison facility whenever we needed them. That on-site presence during go-live week was invaluable — they weren’t just on a call, they were standing next to our production team on the floor.

David M.

VP Operations, precision Manufacturing Co.

❝
Having Ascent based in Schaumburg meant they could be in our Addison facility whenever we needed them. That on-site presence during go-live week was invaluable — they weren’t just on a call, they were standing next to our production team on the floor.

David M.

VP Operations, precision Manufacturing Co.

❝
Having Ascent based in Schaumburg meant they could be in our Addison facility whenever we needed them. That on-site presence during go-live week was invaluable — they weren’t just on a call, they were standing next to our production team on the floor.

David M.

VP Operations, precision Manufacturing Co.

Your Business First

Technology decisions begin with the business outcome—not the product feature.

Deep Operational & Financial Experience

Our team has worked across complex finance, supply chain, manufacturing, distribution, projects, warehousing, service, assets, analytics, and industry-specific operations

One Connected Microsoft Ecosystem

Dynamics 365 F&O or BC, Power Platform, Power BI, Microsoft Fabric, automation, integrations, and specialized applications can work together instead of becoming another collection of disconnected tools.

Built With Your Team

We involve the people from the execs to the floor so the solution reflects real workflows, requirements, and operational realities.

Modernization Doesn't End at Go-Live

Organizations continue changing. We help clients optimize, integrate, automate, analyze, and expand their environments so their technology investment continues creating business value.

Questions Chicago Businesses Ask About Our D365 Partnership

Have a question we haven’t answered? Speak directly with our Illinois team.
Schedule a Free Consultation
(847) 572-8000
Send a Message
What does Ascent Innovations do?
We help organizations solve financial and operational problems with Microsoft Dynamics 365, automation, analytics, and system integrations.
We work across manufacturing, steel and metal fabrication, industrial equipment, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, energy and utilities, recycling and sustainability, warehousing and distribution, public sector, transportation and transit.
We don’t just implement software. We first understand how your business operates, then design and implement the system around your financial, operational, and user needs. We stay through training, go-live, adoption, and ongoing support so the system works for leadership and the people using it every day.
No. We also handle upgrades, assessments, optimization, integrations, automation, analytics, and ongoing Dynamics 365 support.
Yes. We assess your current environment, identify process and reporting gaps, improve workflows, reduce manual work, and help you get more value from the system.
Yes. We integrate Dynamics 365 with systems such as engineering platforms, EDI, logistics tools, warehouse technology, Power BI, Power Platform, Microsoft Fabric, and other applications your business depends on.
Yes. We help organizations move from Dynamics AX and other legacy or heavily customized ERP systems to modern Microsoft solutions.
We start with your business goals and current processes, identify what needs to change, design the solution, implement it, train your teams, support go-live, and continue optimizing after launch.
We stay involved. Our team supports users, resolves issues, improves workflows, expands functionality, and helps your organization continue getting more value from the system as the business evolves.
Start with the business problem. We help determine which Microsoft solution, process change, integration, or modernization approach makes the most sense for your organization.

Ascent Innovations Microsoft Dynamics 365 Consulting & Business Transformation