Microsoft Dynamics GP is an ERP software with accounting capabilities. It includes various packs for customizability and features tailored to specific industries’ needs. GP is offered as a perpetual license or subscription.
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Zoho CRM
Score 8.3 out of 10
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Zoho CRM is a simple, very low-cost CRM option for the smaller end of the SMB segment.
The product has several useful integrations with other products, including QuickBooks, and Google Apps and Google Docs.
The product also has an integrated project management module.
A large company where users have one function- for instance, where someone only receives or works in payables. That minimizes the number of windows they need. A smaller company where one user does multiple functions will require a lot more training and user knowledge to navigate, and it makes it harder to secure users. You also have to understand that GP started life as Great Plains, designed for accountants. The other modules were added on after Microsoft bought Great Plains, which means that modules like Manufacturing are red-headed step children with much smaller support ecosystems. So, if you're starting fresh, you may want to look at something built for the mobile world. D365 and Business Central are a lot more money, buggy, and hard to customize and essentially still vaporware. Microsoft is heavily investing there, leading to the previously mentioned question about the future of GP. If I was starting today I would be hard pressed to justify jumping into GP in a world where Salesforce ties in with so many programs. GP has MRP but it is limited so it's hard to justify a manufacturer starting with GP today.
The default configuration has been useful from day one. It is easy to learn, and that facilitated rapid adoption. With a little effort, custom fields and formulas can be added to suit particular needs. It is also easy to define custom views and filters, which are "remembered" and available the next time you log on.
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.
Provide a shared single source of Customer information (classic CRM)
Allow us to easily create automations relevant to each department's functionality
CRM allowed us to bring up each department separately using in-house designed views with easily created logic functionality applied to fields within each view
Build custom reports and dashboards starting with supplied off the shelf examples
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.
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.
Zoho has been a wonderful tool for us for several years and there is so much more we can do with it. New features are released often which give a team like us the option to further fine tune our business process management techniques. I honestly couldn't imagine running our business not on Zoho.
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.
Compared to our previous CRM, Zoho is a breeze. I can look up customers and reports with no issue. There are times when it may be difficult to find something, but I assume that is because I am not in Zoho every day like the sales team is. It does everything we need very simply, so I would definitely recommend it to others.
We did the training and that was a huge waste of money. The information provided was basic and the instructor was sloppy (he even forgot to turn off his mic when he used the restroom - no one should ever hear what we heard). I offered up a 9 because we were able to find what we needed on your website.
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.
I feel like our implementation went smoothly, certainly better than I had expected. We did run into some issues (which is inevitable when you are implementing it inhouse rather than engaging an external team) but we were really happy with the quality of support we received from Zoho. Whenever we raised an issue to their support team, they either provided us the resolution on the spot or got back to us with an answer in a very acceptable time frame. We were also very happy with the amount of customization Zoho offered in setting up the CRM to the way we needed it to work. Lastly, training our users on it was a smooth experience as well. Zoho has a very detailed help section and their support team is always available.
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.
Zoho is a much more inexpensive solution compared to Salesforce, yet it provides a lot of the same tools that the leading competitor provides. For us, it came down to the overall value of the product based on the final price to implement and use.
I think Zoho CRM is priced at a reasonable amount. Simply put, you get what you pay for and Zoho does not disappoint. My organization is comfortable with what we pay and pleased with continually renewing the software. The billing frequency is just right. There are no complaints on our end
In addition to being a user of Zoho CRM, we are a reseller as well. Often, at times our Partners request for on-boarding the platform configuration for them. During such requirements, we have utilized the Professional services team directly from the Zoho CRM team. Our partner feedback was quite positive, throughout.
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!
We had Zoho CRM early on when it wasn't quite as robust as it is now, so there have been vast improvements, which also puts us at a disadvantage for falling into old ways of doing things rather than exploring new ways that we always wanted in the beginning.
One thing we were able to do is get rid of MailChimp and slowly migrate to Campaigns
Eventually I would like to migrate Zoom to Meeting but it's just not quite there yet.
Also, I do have to say going just from the CRM to Zoho One was a VAST improvement where many apps were available. At first, I was so disappointed in the CRM but with all the integrations it's been so much better!
