LS Central vs. Microsoft Dynamics GP vs. Microsoft Dynamics RMS (Discontinued)

Ideally it can work with any kind of retailer but workarounds and customisations required to handle deliveries.

Incentivized

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

Like I said before, it's great to use when you have to manage multiple warehouses, multiple stores or multiple websites, or all of the above and you need to keep an up to date inventory for all locations. Once learned it will make anyone's job much easier to do each day.

Incentivized

• Offline/semi-offline mode works well in areas where connectivity is an issue.
• Pricing, offers and promotions can be configured exceptionally well in LS Retail.
• POS interface design is simple, robust and easily configurable.
• Security wise there is enough detail available to trace all kinds of POS transactions.

Incentivized

• Great Plains started as back office/accounting, and that is still it's strong suit.
• SQL and the GP programming language, Dexterity, provide a robust, scalable, and stable platform with well documented maintenance and repair procedures. Relatively easy to manage, tune, and support.
• Microsoft support for GP verges on "particularly well". Doesn't quite get there but good enough once you know what you're doing
• Strong partner network, including the GP User Group (GPUG)

Incentivized

• Once you set it up correctly, it just works
• Can be customized
• Tons of options

Incentivized

• Data Director leaves room for improvement as it can be very tricky while dealing with a large number of master data records. Sometimes it doesn't write delete actions to POS.
• Furniture retail is another area where improvement is required to handle deliveries.
• Newer versions don't support data replicator which was the most reliable data tool with earlier LS Retail versions. There should be a replacement for this tool.

Incentivized

• With respect to the allocations, once the expense is entered into the allocation account, you lose the ability to run any detail on just the total of the expense. It would be nice if you could run a trial balance on the allocation accounts the same way you can with regular accounts.
• I've always thought security set up could be a bit simpler. It actually has gotten better through the years. Specifically, with eight separate entities, it would be nice to have a "master" setup where you could call up one group entity, assign the users rights, and then be finished. Currently, whenever I have a new user, I have to call up each individual entity and select all of the features I want the user to have. That means I have to do eight steps for each user.

Incentivized

• Steep learning curve
• Not as advanced as new systems on the market
• Can be buggy with websites

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

Though it is a basic accounting package, I believe some users do not find the old style menus and navigation options intuitive. There is also a great lack of training resources in the market, so users have to learn the product without guidance a lot, resulting in inefficient workflows and misuse or misunderstanding of many features.

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

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

It scores higher on overall user experience and matured features set.

Incentivized

I come from a strong background of using SAP. SAP doesn't have the flexibility of GP, an example would be SAP doesn't allow core mods, if they catch you, you lose support. Microsoft doesn't really care about mods, but they will be quick to have the vendor you used support your issue if it is caused by those mods. With SAP your company adapts to the software, where with GP you adapt the software to you.

Incentivized

It's been so long since we actually chose this program, I am not sure of the competitors out now. I started using it a couple years ago, but our company has used it for maybe 10 years now? We plan on reviewing other systems next year, so I will know more then.

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

• Timely sales visibility
• Optimum Inventory levels
• Enough data to visualise trends and patterns

Incentivized

• Microsoft Dynamics GP allows my clients to move from a paper or spreadsheet based company to an integrated, electronic, streamlined business. I love being able to help clients gain efficiencies through the use of Microsoft Dynamics GP.
• Microsoft Dynamics GP allows for better customer service because everything is at our fingertips. If someone calls questioning an invoice, we can easily look it up. If someone calls stating they paid an invoice with a certain check number, we can quickly run a query to find that particular check number to see where it was applied.
• Having everything on a single platform provides ease of use for upgrades, backups and end user training. There is only one software to learn!

Incentivized

• It has saved us time by not having to do anything manually
• It has kept our inventory updated so customers are not upset
• It's always worked, so not a lot of dev/support money required

Incentivized