Microsoft Dynamics SL vs. PrimePay vs. Sparkrock

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

syncHR is designed for mid to large size companies, typically 200-2000 employees. Any organization that has a strong reporting need and/or a complicated payroll process could benefit from the unique features built into the platform

For all companies that want to improve the performance of their employees and increase productivity, this software helps all daily business tasks to be executed on time efficiently and smoothly. A very useful program that's why we don't stop using it.

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

• Automated retroactive change processing and mid-period rate changes – completely automated with no manual intervention needed - If you ever need to give someone a merit increase and make it retroactive or if an employee is entitled to enroll in health benefits on their first day employment but has 30 days to enroll, syncHR will automatically handles these retro changes.
• A single application designed from the ground up that gives equal weight to HR, payroll, and benefit functions - syncHR is designed as a true unified solution with no back-end mainframes or separate front-ends vs backends. Everything is processed real-time in the cloud which has eliminated all discrepancies.
• Customer Service - syncHR provides a designated account manager as your single point of contact. Since the The StaffWell Group is a 24/7 business, I needed a company that was available when I needed them. syncHR delivered with 24/7 emergency support.
• Event-driven employee self service - Other systems we have used rely on employees to make the correct choices as to what is required when completing an employee initiated transaction. With syncHR, the system always directs the employee to the next step reducing both errors and calls to our support staff. I believe this is also the reason why we had a 40% increase in the adoption of ESS.
• Dynamic Security & Workflows - syncHR has no static pages which allows security and workflows to be updated automatically whenever a change is made. This has virtually eliminated the time and effort required from HR to manually update workflows to the correct personnel.

• Data collection - the system is robust and we can tailor it to collect the information we need.
• Easily configurable - the system is easy to configure to meet our specific business needs.
• Reporting and data extraction - the system allows for easy access to information that helps inform business decisions.

• 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

• Learning Management System- syncHR currently does not offer an LMS system. They only track and report training dates, licenses and certifications.
• Although syncHR is a global solution it is somewhat limited to tracking employee headcount, HR documents, paperless on boarding and benefit information. There is no international payroll option like the one they provide for domestic employees. Although the system can handle multiple languages and currencies, I would like to see a global payroll option.
• Succession Planning - syncHR provides little functionality for succession planning. The system can track budgets vs actuals, goals and ratings but does not offer a true succession planning module

• Many of the improvements are being met with each upgrade. Altus Dynamics has an idea portal that customers can add ideas to and vote on other customer ideas. This means that most issues that come up are resolved with each new upgrade.

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

We are already scheduled for our upgrade to NAV 2016 beginning in May 2016.

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

Overall the system is very easy to navigate but more importantly my employees find it so easy to use. The percentage of employees who now use ESS went up by 40%

Complete workflow management to keep up to date and orderly the daily activities of employees. Allows for seamless cash flow, invoicing, general ledger, payroll, and inventory.

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

Whenever we need support our designated account manager is there to provide answers for us. If she doesn't have or know the answer, additional support is provided via a service matter expert in that field. Support hours are 24/7

Complete tracking of employee performance, hours worked, attendance and absences, vacations, and overtime.

Incentivized

Training was very well done and thorough

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

During the first few weeks of implementation it is important to have all key members participate in meetings. Finance, HR, Payroll and Benefits should be involved from the early stages to ensure that the solution is designed to meet your specific requirements. Since syncHR personalizes their solution for each company a few wrong steps early on regarding the design we wanted caused us to spend extra time later. The more info you provide syncHR upfront the better they can take all of your rules and needs into account from day one. In our case, finance did not get involved right away and therefore some of the items that we needed for our GL needed to be re-done. SyncHR was very accommodating though as they spent extra time with us to update some of the allocations so that finance got what they needed

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

As I mentioned I have used UltiPro, ADP, Ceridian as well as several others and none of them seem to offer half of the functionality and service that syncHR provides. Although we had some problems from time to time, I hold companies in high regard by how they resolve these problems. It's a comfort knowing that my HCM provider truly cares about me and my business so if for no other reason than this, I feel syncHR is far and away the best system I have used. The system works as advertised which is all I could ask for

• Real-time data that is available at our fingertips
• Flexibility of the system to address changing needs over time
• Elimination of the huge administrative burdens that we were experiencing as a result of the previous system due to lack of integration

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

• Due to complexity of our payroll, it would typically take us almost 3 full days to verify hours and perform retro changes before actually running payroll. With so many retroactive changes and manual calculations it was a time consuming and error prone process. With syncHR, the accuracy of payroll has increased tremendously and the amount of time we now spend preparing to process payroll decreased to less than 4 hours per week. All approved time seamlessly moves from the T&A module into payroll and all retro transactions are automatically processed.
• When I initially selected syncHR I was a little hesitant because I never heard of them before and was concerned about their viability as a company and customer service. Several years later I'm happy to say that syncHR has provided better support than any of the better know competitors ever did.
• Although no system is ever perfect, overall syncHR has exceeded most of my expectations. The sales and implementation process was wonderful, the salesperson was responsive and did not oversell what the system could do.
• Training & Implementation - syncHR spent a considerable amount of time learning my business rules in order to build the system to meet my requirements. Training was provided on all aspects of the system until my team felt comfortable enough to handle things on their own. I never felt as though we had a set number of hours of training or that our questions, no matter how redundant or simple were a bother to them.

• As a technician it's hard for me to say what effect the ROI has had on our organization, however our finance team seems satisfied on it. We look forward to deploying the staff dashboards for better financial tracking throughout our whole organization.