Microsoft Dynamics SL vs. NetSuite ERP

In the service series, there is a weakness in applying revenue recognition concepts which are a strong point of the project series. It is difficult to get a period sensitive WIP that could be recreated at any time for a point in time (fiscal period).

Incentivized

It is suited well for its scalability and offerings of options as you need them. Auditing Where lesser ERPs require multiple 3rd party connections to get certain functionality, NetSuite ERP offers it as part of the core already or as an advanced feature you can opt into. It is still a part of the NetSuite environment and managed by NetSuite.

Incentivized

• Ability to add companies, and sub-accounts on the fly allows for the growth of the system without conversions, and flexible reporting allows for the quick utilization of the data.
• Multi-Company allows for easy and automated data entry and reporting across multiple legal entities and business segments.
• Multi-Company also allows for easy centralization of business processes (AP check writing and Fixed Assets for example), while spreading data entry across the enterprise.
• Ability to Copy/Paste into Dynamics SL has always been a strength- especially from Excel. The additional power of being able to use Excel for a myriad of calculations, including complex allocations, and formatting the result into a JE to paste directly into the Journal Entry Screen has saved countless hours in data-entry, and made re-use of complex items very easy.

Incentivized

• Tracks fixed assets and debt activity for month end rollforwards.
• Creates a solid audit trail and supporting documentation path for anyone to follow, internally or externally (auditor).
• Maintains reporting structure and workflow processes for better implementation as training or process improvement/overhaul.

Incentivized

• When we have a lot of invoices rather than just a few large invoices, we can be frustrated by how long it takes Flexible Billings to generate a lot of invoices
• It would be nice if Dynamics SL had an easy integration to some of the nicer salestax tools such as Avalara and CCH.
• It would be nice if the fixed assets module and electronic banking were not third party.

Incentivized

• I have found it to be a bit slow sometimes when saving.
• I am not sure if this is Chase Bank or NetSuite, but a direct link to upload bank transactions or credit card transactions would be nice.
• This is too hard, bc Netsuite works really well.

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.

Incentivized

I am not the decision maker for this but I believe our company will be sticking with NetSuite for the long term. A CRM like this is a big investment and not something you move away from quickly and without a lot of planning. There is a lot of data involved and importing that into a new system is no easy task.

SL itself is relatively easy to use and most of the Help Files documentation is well kept and outstanding in the amount of information that is given. Most end users pick up the functions quickly and are off and running after some limited training. There will always be questions and research to be done, but overall SL is relatively easy to follow for a seasoned user

Incentivized

NetSuite is a cloud tool, and is easy to implement for mid-sized organizations. It comes with standard forms/ printing layouts, and financial reporting (both summary and detailed), which are very handy for business users. In addition to these, with 99.99% service availability, NetSuite makes it one of the most reliable ERP tools available on the market.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

It has been very reliable. I can only think of 1-2 times in 4.5 years that we have had issues getting in, and in each case were able to get back in within 1 hour. There has not been a major downtime

Most of the time the performance is very good. Pages load in a few seconds; financial reports take less than 5 seconds; basic searches take a few seconds. But performance can be sporadic throughout the day and cause the run time to triple.

Incentivized

Many times support will tell you that your issue is an identified bug and will be scheduled in the future to be fixed in a future release. The knowledgebase has gotten worse in recent years and much more difficult to use. many times you can't find the error during the search

Incentivized

I would like to give 8 rating for NetSuite support and reason for that is below: Whenever we faced any technical or functional issues we tried to reach out to NEtSuite support but response was not immediate. We told them about the urgency of the issue but still we were not getting response on time. Then, we have to reach out to AE to get things resolved.

Incentivized

I had in person training for a day when first got the software. The training was good. The challenge was that there was a large gap between training and when we went live so we forgot quite a lot

Online training is quite strong. I have used for specific pieces of functionality.However it is not sufficient in all areas.

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!

Incentivized

Implementation was fine but could have gone quicker.

NetSuite provided me a implementation guide who I did not think was very knowledgeable.

I recommend that you make sure the organization knows how they are going to use the software and come up with an implementation plan before importing all of the data.

We started with QuickBooks Enterprise when our company was young. We quickly outgrew this program as it was not able to accommodate the financial reporting we needed to satisfy our investors. QuickBooks was also very limited in managing our revenue as we grew. We did try Great Plains and Peachtree (now Sage 50) and we discovered that they were rather complicated for our users. They were not as easy to maneuver and manipulate as SL and we felt that SL was much more "user friendly" and simplified, but still able to produce the same results.

Incentivized

Oracle NetSuite ERP is lightyears ahead with the sophistication and accuracy of their ERP. There are so many more options for inventory management, accounting, and more. We felt that NetSuite ERP provided us with the most growth opportunity and would be able to keep up with our scaling business.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

We have been able to scale our business 25X without any major overhaul with Netsuite. Its dashboard setup makes onboarding new employees very easy and allows data to be shared across multiple offices. Its cloud setup does not put any pressure on IT to scale servers or other infrastructure. We have been able to become much more efficient in all aspects of the business.

• Dramatic improvement in our ability to judge the profitability of jobs.
• Lots of improvements in delivering invoices and statements to customers.
• Automated AP approvals and imaging made our last tax audit a breeze.
• Ease of reporting data is a big plus. Financial statements with drill down capability are very useful.
• One integrated system means less data moving around and more real time information.
• EFT payments, email statements and live linked Excel charts have improved our efficency
• Too many more to name.

Incentivized

• NetSuite software has improved our process controls and enhanced cash management, especially in huge projects.
• The software has helped us with budgeting, forecasting, and real-time financial reporting.
• Introduction of NetSuite ERP into our organisation has completely changed the way we do things by enhancing compliance, ensuring real-time project milestone tracking, and enabling portfolio management.