ContractWorks, An Onit Product vs. Microsoft Dynamics SL

[A] user-friendly platform that allows multiple users to store and organize documents across various departments within the company for easy access. [A] tagging feature is a helpful tool in sending reminders for upcoming renewals, etc.

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.

Incentivized

• Managing renewals[.]
• Managing timed fee increases[.]
• Easy storing and retrieval of contracts[.]
• Manage roles to determine who sees what. Very granular.
• [The] signature process is quite powerful, and because it's integrated comes with management.

• 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.

Incentivized

• Allowing changes to documents midway through approvals/signatures.
• More sophisticated interface for searching in document text would be nice.
• Some ability to restart agreements that have been declined by intermediate approvers would be nice also.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

Current Supply Chain users find great value in ContractWorks. We've been able to demonstrate a better, faster, efficient, cost effective way to solve document and data requirements. ContractWorks is gaining greater interest and acceptance across the Enterprise.

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.

Incentivized

If you can browse [folder-based] software, then you are good to go from the start. [On] more than one occasion I have offered a tour to new users, just to be told: "thank you, I got it this is easy to use". [The search] feature works exactly as expected, [making] your life so much easier.

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.

Incentivized

I've never heard that we've had an outage or error and I 'm in ContractWorks days, evenings and weekends.

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.

Incentivized

We haven't integrated ContractWorks with other systems. Otherwise, reasonably sized documents load fairly quickly and reports extract quickly. I work remotely sometimes it takes an extra minute

My questions are answered just about immediately, and this is true for all members of my team who have reached out for support. Furthermore, when we have asked about features that do not yet exist, we received detailed commentary from the company and its developers letting us know whether we could realistically expect any of those features to come to be. I am beyond satisfied with support.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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!

Incentivized

ContractWorks is the sole software that I have used. Prior to this, I used a spreadsheet and Outlook notifications to manage contract milestones.

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.

Incentivized

Tasked with finding a cost conscious Contract Management platform, we knew change and acceptance across the Enterprise would come slow. Using ContractWorks means not overspending in initial months with fewer users. As our core group becomes more proficient and we demonstrate/prove ease of use to other departments with scale up use and cost together

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

Incentivized

• It has opened up a lot of time that contract managers/administrators wasted.
• Added efficiencies and the ability to manage contracts remotely.

• 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.

Incentivized