Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations (or Dynamics AX) was an ERP product in the Dynamics family. It has been split into separate Dynamics 365 products to provide more flexibility to customers, allowing users to pay only for the functionality they need. Microsoft Dynamics AX will reach end of support in 2021, and end of extended support in 2023. Financial tracking and budgeting features are now found in the newly launched
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Sage 100cloud
Score 6.9 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Sage 100 (or Sage 100cloud is a business management software offering a broad range of modules designed to meet the many needs of virtually any business. It encompasses financial operations and accounting, payroll, business intelligence, CRM, eBusiness, manufacturing and distribution.
It integrates fully with the other Microsoft software we use daily, and this coordination speeds up our work and gives us the agility to run easily. For example, in a purchase inquiry, the customer, after submitting a request, identifies the teams that should work on the project, and if they need further review by other people, they are added to the process, and everything is managed seamlessly rather than the sales process. Get the result as fast as possible.
For small and medium business in the distribution and light manufacturing space, Sage 100 is probably the best bang for your buck. As a very scaleable system, you can modify the system to meet the needs of a growing business without making gross changes to the core of the system
Microsoft Dynamics AX's scalability to meet our regional office needs provide flexibility to the team's requirements.
Combined with Citrix Xenapp, the application offers seamless access for users on high latency unreliable network connection to the application.
Application maintenance and updates are easy which makes it possible for us to manage remotely considering the servers are located in a remote Asia site.
MRP can be slow to adapt to changes in actual production or supply chain transactions.
Setting up number sequences seems a trivial matter, but these numbers ID transactions once they are in the ledger and are key--easy to miss this point in the implementation process.
Bank rec being easily automated and able to quickly plug into a bank back end to get data is not the best.
Payment processing can be 'clunky' based on checks, ACH, Wires...as some of these items are not triggered out of the box in AX, bur are easily added --talking ACH and Wires specifically.
Microsoft Dynamics continues to evolve by bringing more functionality to the customer. Also there are several independent software providers that offer a wide range of solutions for vertical markets.
I would put this out to bid, if I were at the same organization. There have been a lot of improvements and changes in enterprise software and my preference would be to find a good web-based or cloud-based tool. Lower overall cost of ownership and improved efficiency would be my target criteria for a rebid of this.
Overall the product does what we need it to do in order for us to function as a company. While there are some concerns over ongoing costs, the belief is, once we have it fully acclimated to our business the cost should settle into alignment with our original expectations. The new features that are consistently being added do add value to the product as they are usually customer request directed.
It is easy, flexible, user friendly and feature laden. Out of the box or easily customized to meet our "wish" list . Sage offers a variety of modules and bolt-ons, user defined fields etc., allowing us to conduct business "our way" without forcing us into a one-size- fits- none mold or having to purchase expensive and cumbersome programming modifications
Some integration and high volume ramping challenges, particularly with BizTalk and SQL Server, but getting sorted out. Outages over time appeared to be more dependent on integration complexity than AX MES.
Some integration and high volume ramping challenges, particularly with BizTalk and SQL Server, but getting sorted out. Outages over time appeared to be more dependent on integration complexity than AX MES.
We use a 3rd-party Microsoft Partner for the system. They are responsive and very knowledgeable. While costs have been mentioned several times in this review they are very aware of costs and have developers who are more economical they use to help offset the level of work required to meet our changes and fix our issues.
It took a lot of work, but Microsoft ultimately did a good job with in-person training, including being onsite in multiple global locations for extended periods.
Our solution deviated from a number of key out-of-the-box standards that were included in Online training. We just used that for introduction to the general functionality.
Some rough spots, but ultimately worked out. The contract didn't appear to be structured to support the level of overlapping facility deployments required to meet timeline commitments. Merging cultures on the program was also challenging. Overall, not an easy implementation by any stretch. Everyone did the best they could.
We had an advantage in implementing the tool in that our director of Ops had been part of the team implementing the ERP for other users so we knew what to expect and were able to avoid a lot of the challenges people sometimes face with implementations. However, the process still took far longer than desired.
I was not part of the decision making process to select Microsoft Dynamics AX, however, I do know that an exhaustive search was done and many options were considered alongside Microsoft Dynamics AX and I feel that the right decision was made in choosing this solution.
I've reviewed Accpac, Syspro, SAP Business 1 and Platinum. Sage is far easier to use and setup than Syspro and SAP Business 1. Generally speaking, most accounting software does the same thing, at the end of the day, how easy is it to modify data inside the system and review to make sure that your system integrity is intact. I find that Sage 100 is excellent at these things.
