Fluxx Grantmaker vs. Microsoft Dynamics SL

Fluxx is well-suited for use by both small and large non-profits. Fluxx provides an intuitive interface and accurately houses grant proposal application data. Fluxx may be less useful at organizations where multiple funding layers exist, such as at community foundations which house multiple philanthropic funds. Fluxx has been an excellent product over the 10 years I have worked with it

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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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• It's easy to find grant records and related information.
• Excellent tool for managing and displaying processes.

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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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• Autofill of past information
• Recommendations of other grants
• Better word count amounts

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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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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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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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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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I have an assigned rep who is very responsive and is able to answer any questions. Other than that, the technical support has been terrible. I often don't waste time documenting bugs because I know they likely won't get fixed or even followed-up on. Instead, I search for workarounds.

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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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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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Not included above because it is not in the system is Salesforce Foundation Connect. Again, I am always hesitant with this type of question. We selected grant maker because it offered the best fit for our organization's working style and culture. There is also a personal level of service that Fluxx offers that differed from other vendors (Smart Simple is similar in this way too). At the time we made the selection, one of the main influencers was the number of large foundations adopting the platform. As they invested in features, those features rolled out to the rest of the clients. This offered us access to functionality we would not have been able to afford otherwise. We moved from another vendor whose platform allowed for customization as well, but if they built it for one client, you still had to pay for it and pay ongoing yearly fees. So, the SAAS model adopted by Fluxx appealed to us. This has paid dividends as features have been developed. For example, one large foundation added the capability to track program-related investments alongside normal grantmaking activities within Fluxx. This is not functionality we could have paid to develop, but we have program-related investments that we wanted to track alongside grants and that feature was available to us because the development was paid for by that funder. That said, most of the above vendors have compelling products (as well as others), so be sure you look at your options and talk to users (other than the ones they provide you in the reference list) and check the Idealware guides

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

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• The time it takes me to pull a grant proposal together is less now because many of my talking points are organized within Grantmaker.
• I feel more connected to my team even though I am a remote freelancer.

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• 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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