Acumatica vs Microsoft Dynamics SL

Acumatica is great for mid to large size organizations that need a fully integrated solution and many modules. The software is very robust and they are always adding more features and functionality to the product. So as your business grows the product does too. It's not like other ERP solutions that I've worked with that rarely improve.

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.

• Expense reporting - enabled by a smartphone, you can image receipts and create claims quickly
• Chart of accounts - being able to drill down in an expense category to see the individual claims that make up the total is helpful
• Reporting - I appreciate the ability to pull a standard report and export to Excel quickly and easily

• 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.

• Email integration: Horribly clunky, requires users to share email password with Acumatica to allow use of outbound emails. Should be using a more secure method like access tokens.
• Expense approval process: Once expense claims are approved, approvers (depending on role) can no longer see the approved/denied claims. Denial of claims requires a manual email/call to submitter instructing them to correct and resubmit the claim.
• CRM: Allow for tracking of cases by the opportunity in addition to business accounts. This would allow for more accurate tracking of issues related to specific opportunities.

• 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.

It is very customisable and good value for money. It is also scalable for the future. The CRM and ecommerce integtration are the main downsides.

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.

1- Its interface [is] easy to understand. 2- [The] help center is very supportive.

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.

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.

They support their customers with more tools like 1- Help center in every screen 2- Acumatica University [has] PDF books and videos 3- Contact with Acumatica team support through live chat, call, or create case

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.

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!

Acumatica trumps over QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions in many ways. First, Acumatica being in the cloud has given us agility in accessing the platform anywhere and anytime. Second, the dashboard creation feature of Acumatica has given us the ability to customize each dashboard of each of our employees. Lastly, the CRM solution of Acumatica enables us to track, manage, and monitor our sales team.

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.

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

• Acumatica provides us with real-time reports on our entire business process by connecting our sales, delivery of services/product, and up to collection. Given this, we couldn't quantify the value of seeing a clearer picture of our business, thus we are able to make timely and accurate decisions.

• 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.