Microsoft Dynamics SL vs. NetSuite ERP

For a small to mid-size business, MS Dynamics SL is effective. We are capable of managing our finances with a very low risk of error. We have worked with MS Dynamics for almost 15 years and have more than doubled the size of our business in that time with very few issues from the program. We have exponentially increased our revenue and reporting demands and have found SL to be very dependable and stable. The program does have the occasional glitch and those are sometimes outside of the realm of expertise of our IT department. SL support is excellent, but their timeliness is not as urgent as ours.

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Best suited for mid-market to lower scale enterprises (under 2,000 employees) especially if migrating from Quickbooks or another fragmented small business system. Also, multi-entity and global operational businesses are very well suited as there is robust functionality around multi-subsidiary, multi-currency and multi-tax controls. Finally, businesses with inventory & supply chain heavy businesses would find the functionality very useful as the system allows warehouse management, lot/batch tracking, fulfillment, etc. Not well suited for startups (a lot of functionality not needed) or very small businesses (under $3mm in revenues). Overkill in complexity and cost and implementation leg-work is necessary relative to the underlying operations of the business. Also, companies with a heavy manufacturing business (shop floor execution) lacks depth with true manufacturing ERPs like Epicor, Infor, etc. and companies expecting consumer grade UX feels like the interface isn't modern or very intuitive right out of the box.

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• Provides flexibility for complex project based cost accounting
• Strong and flexible allocation processer for cost allocations, markups, and pricing
• A "Flexible Billing" module under the project controller series that allows for multiple billing formats ranging from fixed price schedule of values, T&M or Cost Plus, and scheduled billing.
• Flexible reporting with options using Crystal Reports, SSRS, a Quick Query tool, and ability to tie into MS Office tools such as MS Access and MS Excel
• Tight integration with Financials, but also the ability to integrate with modules such as Sales Order, Inventory, and Field Service
• Customization abilities ranging from a VBA (visual basic for application) foundation to allow customizing existing forms to the ability to use the SDK (Software Development Kit) to build more complex customizations that integrate with Dynamics SL.

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• It gives high flexibility to maintain different kind of financial data with ease. It also support 606 standard.
• Customisation is a key, whereas we can do as many customisation based on our critical financial need.
• It is cloud based and easily scalable.

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• Reporting in the Project module is lacking functionality. I understand that most companies have specific needs when it comes to tracking project information but the standard reports are not good.
• I would recommend a product like Management Reporter that is for Projects only. Project Reporter should allow users to pull in all Project related data into reports.
• Fixing suspended batches. Obviously all of us users have experienced this mess. SL knows what needs to be corrected and there could be some step by step fixes in a separate repair module to do the steps we do in Query Analyzer.

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• The area for the largest improvement needed is the implementation process. Especially when it comes down to an accounting based ERP setup rather than a CRM model. The experts should have accounting backgrounds in addition to the system knowledge for implementation.
• There should be more training focused on the Dashboards and the maneuverability of the data focused for each graph or report within the dashboards.
• The AP system is a little problematic with more complex company hierarchy. Due to the AP Invoice headers being driven by "main line" but the expense distribution being driven by journal entries - the AP aging is hard to verify the accuracy and can be distorted by different types of transactions.

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Unfortunately, Dynamics' lack of ability to smoothly integrate with our CRM system is causing us to look at other solutions. The efficiencies that we gain by using Dynamics for our day to day accounting are lost in the constant headaches of getting sales quotes to import properly into the system for invoicing. Another major issue for us has been budgeting and reporting. We currently do all of our budgeting and board reporting in Excel, which is too time consuming and inefficient, especially when a system as robust as Dynamics should easily be able to handle this relatively simple task.

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NetSuite is able to cover all of our needs, spanning multiple departments and managerial levels. We use it daily for a multitude of functions, including creating promotions, estimating inventory, pulling historical reports, forecasting sales, and more. Overall, we're very satisfied with NetSuite as an ERP solution and recommend it to medium to large businesses.

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I rate it a 10 because we have removed the fields we don't need so users can really crank the data into the system. The software was designed for the professional services firm in mind but does a tremendous job for construction firms and "blended" companies that are both distribution firms but project centric as well. Perhaps they drop ship inventory to a project where their employees or subs need to work on a project for example.

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NetSuite is a cloud tool, and is easy to implement for mid-sized organizations. It comes with standard forms/ printing layouts, and financial reporting (both summary and detailed), which are very handy for business users. In addition to these, with 99.99% service availability, NetSuite makes it one of the most reliable ERP tools available on the market.

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We have had only one unplanned outage for 2 hours in the last 30 months. We shut down for 30 min to 1 hour once a month, but that is for Microsoft OS updates to the servers. Being a 24/7 world wide operation, the reliability is really important. We do get an 8 hour window on the weekend that we can be down for a short period to install Microsoft Dynamics SL updates, but we do not have many of those. On our last version upgrade, we shut the users out at 9:30 am and were fully operational in less than 6 hours. The upgrade was New SQL server, New SL server and 2 new Citrix servers.

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It has been very reliable. I can only think of 1-2 times in 4.5 years that we have had issues getting in, and in each case were able to get back in within 1 hour. There has not been a major downtime

Most of the time the performance is very good. Pages load in a few seconds; financial reports take less than 5 seconds; basic searches take a few seconds. But performance can be sporadic throughout the day and cause the run time to triple.

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Support is only used when needed, so unfortunately ,they get all the odd issues. It's a difficult business, but Microsoft and our firm do a great job of meeting customer needs. We get routine feedback that our support services are very good.

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I would like to give 8 rating for NetSuite support and reason for that is below: Whenever we faced any technical or functional issues we tried to reach out to NEtSuite support but response was not immediate. We told them about the urgency of the issue but still we were not getting response on time. Then, we have to reach out to AE to get things resolved.

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I had in person training for a day when first got the software. The training was good. The challenge was that there was a large gap between training and when we went live so we forgot quite a lot

Online training is quite strong. I have used for specific pieces of functionality.However it is not sufficient in all areas.

Just to let it take its course. The implementation for me once I became a part of my former organization was pretty seamless. Just get to know the basics and call the support team to ask questions if you need help on an issue, should they arise. They are ready, willing, and able to help!

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I felt NetSuite Professional Services did an excellent job of guiding us in the implementation. I also felt our internal teams were a little resistant to the change and engagement of new software. Had we performed better engaging and buying into the new software, I would be able to rate the implementation better. Therefore, the lower number should not be viewed as a deficiency with the software or the professional services teams, but as an reminder of how important complete buy-in from the local users is.

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Of the comparable mid-range ERP systems, Dynamics SL competes at the lower end based on price, but also above the high-end based on flexibility, data, and reporting. Being able to stay with the same core accounting from a $100 million dollar company to a $3 billion dollar company shows the range of capabilities.

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QuickBooks Online is, by far, a better and easier-to-use product for smaller companies. Only switch to Netsuite if you have to. We switched to NetSuite because we have numerous subsidiaries, and QuickBooks would not be able to handle the complexity.

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Since the backbone of the database is MS SQLServer, the database can be easily scaled.

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We have been able to scale our business 25X without any major overhaul with Netsuite. Its dashboard setup makes onboarding new employees very easy and allows data to be shared across multiple offices. Its cloud setup does not put any pressure on IT to scale servers or other infrastructure. We have been able to become much more efficient in all aspects of the business.

• More time is spent on manipulating reports which can and should be automated.
• Lack of electronic invoicing process and other green technology features creates more cost on printing and storage costs.
• The lack of a user friendly interface requires more training and a bigger learning curve for staff.

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• NetSuite ERP has allowed us to see more clear details around where our business is financially which leads to smarter business decisions.
• NetSuite ERP has freed up time that was spent on certain functions in our old accounting software, leading to more efficiency.
• NetSuite ERP has given us more visibility across business divisions.

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