Jirav vs. Microsoft Dynamics SL

I feel that Jirav would be best suited for companies with less than 75 employees that need a more robust software than Fathom (Quickbooks Onlne integrated FP&A tool based in Australia) that is very customizable, with simple revenue modeling, few personnel changes every month, few departments, no multi currency, and need collaboration only with top-level personnel. I think Jirav is a product that is being highly recommended in the accounting industry for outsourced accounting firms, but accounting only looks at historical information and there needs to more finance industry influence, approval, and input so they can improve their product.

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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• Jirav integrates well with Quickbooks Online (QBO), and I like how you can easily customize the reporting presentation by combining GL accounts and showing more or less details as needed for managerial reporting
• I like that Jirav is browser-based and that I can easily share reports with internal and external parties for comments
• I feel more confident using Jirav than I do with Excel because there is more data validation, and some notifications will appear if there are errors in the model
• The sales capacity model and ramping employees schedule that their implementation / professional services team built for us works well overall (with some limitations)
• Ideally, having a direct integration into Jirav would be great for all our data. However, some of our software didn't have a direct integration, so I was glad that Jirav offered the ability to use a connected Google Sheet that lets me input data that can be imported directly into the system

• 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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• At times, I feel that Jirav is too customizable. It would be great if they could tailor the system to be more industry-specific. For example, if the system could provide standard formulas for SaaS industry metrics already within the system, then that would have saved me a ton of time with having to create the metrics myself. The formula creation for metrics is quite tedious as well because you can only do simple calculations, such as A + B or A x C. You cannot do A + B + C or A x B x C.
• I struggle with the way they have their staff planning set up because I have to reimport an Excel every month with all the changes (new hires, terminations, pay changes), and the changes appear to be retroactive on reports, which doesn't make sense if someone receives a raise or pay change during the year. It would be much easier for planning for bookings if they could add a column for quota by salesperson.
• If there are notifications of errors in the model, then the notifications will continue to present themselves after I resolve the issue. It would be nice if I could clear out notifications I know are not relevant anymore. I also still find errors in the system that I would have expected the system to notify me about, such as Assumptions that are set up but they are not included in any formulas, so I should delete that assumption to prevent anyone from thinking changing that assumption will impact the model.
• There is some functionality for sharing reports and information, but there is not enough granularity in security settings to allow me to share certain information easily. For example, if I want to share information with managers to manage their departments' budget, but also not see their boss' compensation, then it takes some work to set that up. Or, if I want to share a report with a recruiter of planned headcount and salary, then I need to export it to Excel first and delete Actual headcount and salary, so they don't see current employees' compensation (including the person's boss' salary).
• Customer and vendor names do not import, only the totals, so if you look at Actuals vs Plan, the actuals will show a total figure and the plan will show detail, creating the need for an external and manual reconciliation
• There is no multi-currency available
• Scenario analysis can be difficult to do quickly. For example, if I want to see the plan with planned hires and without planned hires, then I would need to create two separate plans, individually select and delete the planned hires in one plan and keep then in another plan, which is time-consuming
• Using Google Sign-In causes the system to time-out frequently for me, so I get kicked out of the system and have to log back in. If I have multiple tabs of Jirav open, then re-logging in sometimes doesn't bring me back to where I was originally at.
• You can export reports to Excel, but there are no formulas of the calculations, which makes it more difficult to understand how calculations are being performed unless you look in the browser and dig into the calculations. This also might make it more difficult if you decide to go to another software in the future since you may need to start from scratch in the next software
• Seasonality has been difficult to model. For example, the way our model is set up, I can use an assumption for Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4. However, if I update Q3 for this year, then it also updates Q3 of all subsequent years, which I don't want. A more complex model and additional maintenance would be needed to accomplish more accurate seasonality planning

• 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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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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Fathom was the cheapest and most basic as an add-on directly to QuickBooks Online Plus, but you lose functionality with Fathom if you use QuickBooks Online Advanced (QBOA). The main loss of functionality for me was the lack of multiple department reporting, which was absolutely necessary for my analysis. Jirav was half the price of Moscaic.tech, but I've heard Mosaic has standard metrics for the SaaS-industry, which is appealing after going through the tedious process of setting up metrics in Jirav. QBOA has additional reporting than QBO Plus, but not enough robust features for planning and modeling. PlaceCPM is Salesforce-based and a I felt having a strong Salesforce admin that can great reports made their unnecessary, and I feel like most of the time you need a Salesforce admin just to run Salesforce. Cube, Vena and OnPlan are spreadsheet-based, but I don't want to use spreadsheets. Prophix, Board and Anaplan seem outdated. Workday was more than what I needed

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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• 1-3 day shortening of post-month end close analysis from integration with our accounting software
• Elimination of several manual Excels related to headcount variance, salary variance, and planning

• 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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