Cx Observer vs. Microsoft Dynamics GP vs. QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise

Microsoft Dynamics GP is well-suited for our environment, as we pay a diverse group of employees, including on-the-road drivers, shop employees (some in other locations), and office employees. It easily tracks time off, taxes, pay, etc. The reporting allows us to verify with our drivers how they are paid each week, whether it be through mileage or stop-offs.

Incentivized

QuickBooks Enterprise is great for managing our inventory, purchases and income as we receive it. We use it to help budget and plan our monthly purchases, as well as keep each location on track when it comes to their expenses. It's also used for payroll and timekeeping at each store.

Incentivized

• User friendly interface
• Able to be extended into multiple areas of your business
• One feature we have been using for a few years is EFT for payables - it has significantly reduced the time spent paying vendors and reduced our check printing and mailing costs. It is very easy to setup and use.

Incentivized

• Made for small to mid-sized product-based businesses.
• Once you use the program, you will be amazed at how important the tool is and how it can be used to analyze and manipulate numbers.
• Saves a lot of time and money than if you do all the things manually.

• Supply chain management is adequate but not exceptional, and there are challenges tying the product to a website front end. These features are present and work fine in many environments but are often lacking for customers who need more robust systems.
• Reporting tools often require consulting expertise or an internal business analyst to develop. Many smaller companies don't have this skill set, so it can be costly to upgrade to GP from a smaller packages like QuickBooks.
• Some features that are available in competing products are still not present in GP, such as full copy-paste functionality and more intelligent workflow/batch processing functions.

Incentivized

• I would like to see more ways to customize reports and have that process be more user friendly.
• I would like to see the process of creating year end giving statements be made more user friendly. Since I only do it once a year, I have to figure the process out every year.

Incentivized

Due the economic challenges that Puerto Rico is having, the company has had to merge some companies in order to be more efficient. It has been easy in GP to process those merges, even thought we had to spend days to accomplish that the process was smooth and accurate. In addition we were able to streamline the purchasing and sales process and the organization is confident to keep renewing GP for the future versions.

Incentivized

While QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise has been an amazing tool for many years, it seems it is getting phased out for QuickBooks Online. Intuit is decreasing the level of support it offers for QuickBooks Desktop in lieu of stronger support for QuickBooks Online. Although the desktop version is robust and helpful, it seems QBO is the way of the future for bookkeeping with QuickBooks.

Incentivized

Menus are generally quite difficult to navigate, user-friendliness is lacking, platform can at times be unstable (crashes, etc), reports tha would seem to report one thing do not actually return that data. Usability is probably the biggest weakness of Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Incentivized

QuickBooks provides all staff immediate access to the data in whatever form each person wants it. The balancing on entries prevents incorrect data entry on payables/receivables. Reports are easy to customize and save for future use. The records are easy to audit.

Incentivized

Rating: 7 out of 10
We rate QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise's availability a 7 out of 10. For the most part, the software is dependable and available when we need it. When hosted on a properly managed local server or through a reputable third-party cloud provider, uptime is generally consistent, and routine day-to-day operations run smoothly.
However, availability challenges do arise, particularly when accessing QuickBooks remotely or during periods of high system demand. Because it's a desktop-based solution, availability is highly dependent on our internal IT infrastructure. If our network goes down, a server needs maintenance, or if there’s an issue with a remote desktop connection, access to QuickBooks can be temporarily disrupted. These outages aren’t necessarily caused by QuickBooks itself, but they do impact our experience with availability.
Additionally, we’ve occasionally experienced application errors, especially after updates or when working with large company files. While Intuit support is usually helpful in resolving these issues, they can still lead to frustrating delays—especially during critical periods like month-end closing or grant reporting deadlines.
Planned maintenance, while infrequent, also affects availability, especially when using a hosted environment. Coordination with IT or hosting providers is sometimes needed to minimize downtime.
Overall, QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise is a reliable tool, but its dependence on local infrastructure introduces more potential points of failure compared to cloud-native solutions. Enhancements in cloud-based access or hybrid models could significantly improve both accessibility and uptime. That said, with strong internal IT support or a reliable cloud hosting provider, the availability can easily rise to an 8 or 9.

Incentivized

I rate QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise's performance a 5 out of 10, mainly because while it’s functional for most routine tasks, it can lag significantly when handling complex operations, large data files, or during multi-user sessions. As our organization has grown, we’ve noticed that report generation—especially for customized or multi-dimensional reports—can be slow, sometimes taking several minutes to load or refresh. This impacts productivity, particularly during key financial cycles like audits, monthly closings, or grant reporting.
Performance degradation is especially noticeable when multiple users are active in the system at the same time. Even with a solid server setup, there’s often a drop in responsiveness when more than a handful of users are generating reports or entering transactions concurrently.
We’ve also experienced some slowdowns in third-party integrations, particularly when syncing with Vena Solutions or exporting data for use in external tools. While the integrations are valuable, they occasionally stall or require workarounds, adding friction to our workflows.
In short, QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise delivers the basics well, but its performance limitations become more apparent in high-volume or complex use cases. It would benefit from better optimization for large datasets and faster processing for advanced reporting. Upgrades in system architecture—such as deeper support for cloud hosting or more efficient data handling—could significantly improve the user experience and move this rating closer to an 8.

Incentivized

The rating is directed to the thrid party serive provider that we use. I do not now how good the Microsoft direct support is.

Incentivized

Very rare do I call the Quickbooks Enterprise Solutions support staff and I get a customer service associate quickly. On average, my wait time is near an hour, and at times even longer. After spending the first three minutes discussing my problem, they then begin to poke and prod around, sometimes the questions continue. But 80% of the time, the problem is over their head and they have to escalate the issue. The only problem is this escalation arrives usually after spending forty-five minutes poking and proding around but learning nothing. In short, my experience is rarely all that well, let alone great

Incentivized

The in-person training for QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise received a 9 out of 10 based on feedback from my manager, and this rating reflects the overall effectiveness and value of the experience. The training provided a hands-on, interactive environment where staff could immediately apply what they were learning to the system, which made the process much more practical and engaging.
One of the standout features was the personalized support provided by the trainer, who was able to address specific questions and scenarios tailored to our organization’s unique needs. This was particularly helpful for areas like nonprofit accounting and grant management, where we had more specific requirements that could have been difficult to grasp in a standard training setting.
The trainer’s expertise and clear explanations allowed the team to gain a deeper understanding of QuickBooks’ more advanced functions, ensuring that everyone could use the software effectively. The small group size also facilitated a collaborative learning environment, where participants could share insights and learn from each other.
However, the training wasn't perfect. Some minor logistical issues—such as coordinating schedules and ensuring all staff could attend—were factors that slightly impacted the overall experience. Despite this, the quality and effectiveness of the training made it an extremely valuable part of the implementation process.

Incentivized

easy to learn system, specially with some kind of support. Just like with any other system, things get lot easier if you have guidance to lead you in your search for answers. having said that, QB is very easy to use and very easy to teach. you wont spend much time memorizing where to click.

Incentivized

Basically the challenge with this implementation was the Business Portal, too many errors and even the aplication is up and running the users are still having issues. We will start planning the migraton to GP 2015 soon.

Incentivized

If you're loading QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions onto a computer that you're going to directly log into, you should be able to do it yourself. If you are going to connect to a server through a network or remote connection, you should probably have a professional IT person set it up for you.

Incentivized

Because GP doesn't do CRM we have looked at D365 Customer Engagement for our field service, and F&O as a replacement. Vaporware, no direct upgrade path, and if you want to continue with GP for your back office and just use Field Service it's an insanely complex integration import/export. D365 F&O is a huge implementation cost, and without a direct migration path every bit of data has to be custom imported. There really is no straightforward way to stack up GP against these programs currently. Again, the future of GP is in some doubt.

Incentivized

QuickBooks seems to be more focused on the accounting side of the business than FreshBooks. I've also tried Peachtree software. Peachtree seemed more restrictive. The user had to adapt their procedures to the methods of the software rather than the reverse. I tried Peachtree a number of times but always came back to QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise.

Incentivized

The functionality that GP and related ISV solutions offer and the ease of integration of GP to other systems makes it an extremely scalable solution

Incentivized

I would rate QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise a 7 out of 10 for overall scalability. The product offers solid scalability features, particularly for small to mid-sized organizations like ours that are growing and need reliable multi-user access, enhanced data capacity, and cross-departmental functionality. It handles increasing transaction volumes and user growth quite well, especially with its support for up to 40 users and the ability to manage large lists (customers, vendors, accounts, etc.)—a significant improvement over QuickBooks Pro or Premier.
Its role-based permissions system also allows us to assign tailored access by department or user level, which is essential for maintaining control and security across teams like finance, HR, and program management. Additionally, features like advanced reporting, inventory management, and class tracking have helped us better manage multiple programs or sites within one system.
That said, the scalability still has some limits. For example, deploying the software across multiple physical locations or for remote teams requires additional IT infrastructure—such as hosting it on a third-party cloud server or setting up a VPN—which introduces cost and complexity. Also, while QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise can technically handle a high volume of data, performance can decline as the file size grows over time unless regular maintenance and optimization are done.
In summary, QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise scales well within its designed range, particularly for growing nonprofits and NGOs. However, organizations with distributed teams or very large, complex operations may eventually find the system’s desktop-based architecture less agile compared to cloud-native ERP platforms. With enhancements to cloud integration and remote accessibility, this rating could easily increase.

Incentivized

• We have never missed a payroll using Great Plains. We have the ability to fix any issues that come up quickly.
• It streamlines our departments that handle money into one unified system. This gives accounting and finance the overall picture in one system.
• With Integration Manager we have to worry less about taking time to hand key transactions. This cuts down on entry time and increase efficiency for our clerks.

Incentivized

• Memorized transactions save time and can prevent errors.
• Improved accessibility saves time- multiuser, multi-companies open at once.
• Annual audit with CPA firm is easier being able to export whole file to them.
• Worry about bookkeepers who claim they know QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise and accounting but in reality do not. Doesn't require really knowing debits from credits. Big worry.

Incentivized