Microsoft Dynamics SL vs. Odoo

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.

Incentivized

It is well suited for inventory tracking, shipping and sales work flows. While some customization is needed to make it functional, if done correctly Odoo can serves as a powerful one stop shop for all of a businesses needs. The ease of customization for email templates, both for sales communications and marketing outreach leaves something to be desired. Perhaps our team hasn't explored this fully enough. I have personally found it intimidating in trying to construct a news letter using the email marketing module

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• The creation of products is extremely simple, I like that it does not complicate you to put a lot of detail, of course if you want to put more detailed information later it allows you to do it without problems
• The fact that I can manage my inventory of my warehouse is very convenient, I only generate my stock report of the products we have in stock and taking inventory is easier
• The management of opportunities in the CRM is also great, because the guys from the sales department generate their opportunity, place what their client is requiring and we, the logisticians, can automatically generate the quote for what they are requesting, and from there they can only download their quote and send it to their clients.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Customer service is nonexistent. You will need a 3rd party to assist you.
• The system has an open app for integrating with other programs. These are developed by third parties and can be hit or miss in functionality.
• The system offers great flexibility; however, it is too much and requires coding. For example, changing a Sales order PDF requires coding to modify the document.
• Initial implementation is clunky and seems to require a 3rd party just for setup.

Incentivized

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 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.

Incentivized

Once you complete the training with Odoo, you have a great grasp of how the system works, and most every feature is intuitive- There is rarely a task within Odoo that I get frustrated trying to figure out- I can typically look through the system and find what I need to do, and if I ever do need support, the Odoo Support team is excellent

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

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.

Incentivized

Easy - there is NO SUPPORT (like in ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!!!!!). Even for legally mandatory requirements where the system MUST work, they will gladly take a month to get back to you with a NON-answer. We couldn't even get our bank statements correctly into Odoo for 2 months - leading to no reconciliation and the company accounts were a mess (still are!!) as a result - Completely irresponsible. Have not EVEN had an apology from Odoo - they couldn't care less !!

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

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.

Incentivized

We decided to go with Odoo over Netsuite due to a few factors. Price was a big reason why, Netsuite is the most expensive ERP we vetted. I also did not have a great experience with Netsuite at my last job. I was on the roll out team and it did not work as promised for POS, inventory managing or reporting, it crashed constantly in the middle of using it. Just over all very poor. Considering it is owned by Oracle and the most expensive, you would think it would be able to function on some sort of base level. That company ended up terminating their contract with Netsuite early and going with a different company.

We don't have crashing or error issues. I can complete receives, cycle counts etc and all of my information saves. Visually, Odoo is more satisfying also.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• In older versions, it was super expensive to make it even work. You had to hire third-party developers all the time.
• Newest versions have better built in functionality.
• Cost is pretty high. Odoo plus developers to support it could bankrupt a small business.

Incentivized