Microsoft Dynamics GP

Avantages

I work for several years as a consultant implementing Microsoft Dynamics and I likes how user friendly this ERP is, is compatible with every Microsoft software, it is versatile and easy to use

Inconvénients

It is not as strong in the manufacturing module as the most famous ERPs as it lacks on some concepts for manufacturing best practices, but for a small or medium company this ERP is more than enough

Avantages

t's role tailored software that's easy to implement and use
It looks and feels familiar to software your people use every day: Microsoft Office Excel, Outlook, and Word
It enables fast, relevant access to current and complete information about your business activities and operations
It goes beyond basic reporting and extends insight across your entire organization
It seamlessly integrates with your other technology platforms
It permits one to over 1,000 concurrent users
It's highly customizable with dozens of industry-specific solutions
It automates and standardizes recurring tasks
It's scalable, versatile and flexible

Inconvénients

With respect to the allocations, once the expense is entered into the allocation account, you lose the ability to run any detail on just the total of the expense. It would be nice if you could run a trial balance on the allocation accounts the same way you can with regular accounts.
I've always thought security set up could be a bit simpler. It actually has gotten better through the years. Specifically, with eight separate entities, it would be nice to have a "master" setup where you could call up one group entity, assign the users rights, and then be finished. Currently, whenever I have a new user, I have to call up each individual entity and select all of the features I want the user to have. That means I have to do eight steps for each user.

Avantages

It is a comprehensive solution, with solid add-ons to compensate for deficits in the core system. We run a manufacturing operation with deep. multi level BOMs and FIFO costing, GP manages it very well. AP, AR and GL are solid.

The smartlists are a nice reporting tool, where you can drop the data into excel for easy analysis.

Inconvénients

The front end has a clunky feel. On the back end trying to find the table the data is stored in takes a lot of time so the learning curve from a reporting sense is very long. The SQL tables are sparse - so you could end up having to add several tables to a query just so you can connect the one table you need. Report writing process is long and arduous initially. It is really expensive to upgrade. Other solutions in past lives have required minimal tech support to upgrade, this is a major process to upgrade and therefore very expensive.

Avantages

It has a very strong financial backbone. Users are forced to view and verify accounting data during transactions in many areas. Since the software has been around for many years, there are a lot of ISVs offering add-on products for various needs. The backend is strong in that it is MS SQL Server.

Inconvénients

There are some features that do not automatically come as part of the main package. Reporting, operational and financial, has been all over the place and is still not where it needs to be. There is not a lot of remote capabilities.

Avantages

The software is relatively easy to use. The biggest advantage of GP is probably it is a Microsoft product, meaning GP works well with other Microsoft products, such as the Office suite.

The learning curve is also not that steep if users are willing to learn through various blogs, videos (especially YouTube), and through Microsoft web site.

The price is very competitive, comparing to leading-edge solution such as Intacct or NetSuite.

Inconvénients

I am a big fan of anything on the Cloud. Our controller spends lots of time to upgrade GP through different version over the years (GP is hosted either on premise or through third-party vendor's server. Of course the upgrade or any troubleshooting is not that bad with the right support from a third vendor. However, this is not value-added function in accounting/finance. If I have a choice nowadays, I will go with Intacct or NetSuite.

With a Cloud solution, users will have very little downtime. With an on-premise solution, at least in our experiences, we have lots of downtimes. Also for some reasons the software requires us to reboot the backend server from time to time due to software bugs.