Microsoft Dynamics SL vs. SAP ERP

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft Dynamics SL
Score 6.3 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Dynamics SL is one of the ERP products in the Dynamics family. This product was acquired from Solomon 2000. The product is typically used by SMBs, particularly in project-based businesses (e.g. construction). It has strong accounting and project management capabilities.N/A
SAP ERP
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
SAP ERP is an enterprise suite comprising Financials (A/P, A/R, accounting, reporting, risk management, etc.), Human Capital Management (HR and Payroll), and Operations (procurement, manufacturing, sales & service). This is an enterprise level product designed for large organizations.N/A
Pricing
Microsoft Dynamics SLSAP ERP
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Dynamics SLSAP ERP
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft Dynamics SLSAP ERP
Considered Both Products
Microsoft Dynamics SL

No answer on this topic

SAP ERP
Chose SAP ERP
Main differentiator: extensive proven experience in different industries, robust solution that includes each functional area, SAP ERP is not only an accounting platform, it is also a business ecosystem. Extends its basic functionalities with products for the analysis of …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Microsoft Dynamics SLSAP ERP
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Dynamics SL
8.5
2 Ratings
14% above category average
SAP ERP
8.2
24 Ratings
11% above category average
Pay calculation9.62 Ratings5.01 Ratings
Direct deposit files9.01 Ratings8.820 Ratings
Benefit plan administration00 Ratings8.722 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Dynamics SL
6.0
6 Ratings
20% below category average
SAP ERP
7.9
34 Ratings
8% above category average
API for custom integration6.06 Ratings8.334 Ratings
Plug-ins6.04 Ratings7.427 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Dynamics SL
7.3
9 Ratings
12% below category average
SAP ERP
9.7
42 Ratings
16% above category average
Single sign-on capability7.49 Ratings9.736 Ratings
Role-based user permissions7.38 Ratings9.741 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Dynamics SL
6.8
9 Ratings
7% below category average
SAP ERP
8.6
41 Ratings
16% above category average
Dashboards7.15 Ratings8.233 Ratings
Standard reports7.19 Ratings8.941 Ratings
Custom reports6.19 Ratings8.841 Ratings
General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Dynamics SL
7.4
10 Ratings
3% below category average
SAP ERP
8.6
41 Ratings
12% above category average
Accounts payable7.610 Ratings9.341 Ratings
Accounts receivable6.07 Ratings9.241 Ratings
Global Financial Support6.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Primary and Secondary Ledgers6.63 Ratings00 Ratings
Journals and Reconciliations7.43 Ratings00 Ratings
Configurable Accounting7.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Standardized Processes7.32 Ratings00 Ratings
Inventory Management
Comparison of Inventory Management features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Dynamics SL
4.3
5 Ratings
59% below category average
SAP ERP
9.0
37 Ratings
13% above category average
Inventory tracking6.05 Ratings9.436 Ratings
Location management1.02 Ratings8.833 Ratings
Automatic reordering00 Ratings9.232 Ratings
Order Management
Comparison of Order Management features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Dynamics SL
6.7
3 Ratings
15% below category average
SAP ERP
8.8
37 Ratings
12% above category average
Pricing6.02 Ratings8.935 Ratings
Order entry6.03 Ratings8.937 Ratings
Credit card processing7.02 Ratings9.124 Ratings
Cost of goods sold7.02 Ratings8.533 Ratings
Subledger and Financial Process
Comparison of Subledger and Financial Process features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Dynamics SL
5.8
3 Ratings
25% below category average
SAP ERP
-
Ratings
Billing Management6.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Revenue Recognition3.12 Ratings00 Ratings
Cash and Asset Management7.33 Ratings00 Ratings
Travel & Expense Management5.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Budgetary Control & Encumbrance Accounting6.32 Ratings00 Ratings
Period Close7.43 Ratings00 Ratings
Project Financial Management
Comparison of Project Financial Management features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Dynamics SL
4.7
3 Ratings
47% below category average
SAP ERP
-
Ratings
Budgeting and Forecasting7.33 Ratings00 Ratings
Project Costing6.33 Ratings00 Ratings
Cost Capture2.12 Ratings00 Ratings
Capital Project Management8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Project Revenue Recognition2.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Grants Management
Comparison of Grants Management features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Dynamics SL
6.3
1 Ratings
16% below category average
SAP ERP
-
Ratings
Award Lifecycle Management6.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Spending Control6.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Manufacturing
Comparison of Manufacturing features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Dynamics SL
6.0
1 Ratings
23% below category average
SAP ERP
-
Ratings
Production Management6.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Supply Chain
Comparison of Supply Chain features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Dynamics SL
6.0
1 Ratings
22% below category average
SAP ERP
-
Ratings
Inventory Planning6.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Microsoft Dynamics SLSAP ERP
Small Businesses
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Score 8.8 out of 10
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Sage Intacct
Score 8.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Infor VISUAL
Infor VISUAL
Score 9.5 out of 10
Infor VISUAL
Infor VISUAL
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP Business ByDesign
SAP Business ByDesign
Score 7.8 out of 10
SAP Business ByDesign
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Score 7.8 out of 10
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User Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics SLSAP ERP
Likelihood to Recommend
6.6
(17 ratings)
8.7
(49 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
5.4
(8 ratings)
9.5
(6 ratings)
Usability
1.8
(6 ratings)
8.1
(14 ratings)
Availability
9.9
(4 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
1.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.5
(8 ratings)
8.2
(15 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
1.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(8 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Product Scalability
1.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft Dynamics SLSAP ERP
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
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.
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SAP
The availability of the leading and non-leading ledgers meets our financial reporting requirements and helps us fulfill both the stock exchange requirements at the parent company level and country-specific requirements at the operating entity level. In addition, the Open Item Managed Account feature ensures that reporting teams optimize their efforts on subsystem-driven accounts to achieve accounting concurrency.
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Pros
Microsoft
  • 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.
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SAP
  • Organizational resource management and integration of different departments with each other as a software automation
  • We have Access to all insights and analytics data from anywhere
  • It doesn't matter how big your organization is, it supports everything from small companies to giant high-tech organizations, and they all have access to data at very high speeds.
  • If you use the web and cloud version, the initial costs will be greatly reduced and even a small start-up small company can enjoy the benefits of SAP ERP.
Read full review
Cons
Microsoft
  • 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.
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SAP
  • SAP sometimes gets slow whenever most of the people in the company simultaneously use it
  • Hopefully they would extend background job processing to all tables in SAP since it sometimes goes time out whenever extracting large historical data (ex. 5 years expense data)
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Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
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.
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SAP
The cost of SAP as an ERP is quite high and the switching costs associated with ERP systems are even higher. That being said moving from one ERP to another only happens once in a great while for large organizations. Those switching costs include retraining, IT hardware requirements, outside consultants and more
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Usability
Microsoft
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.
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SAP
It is worth my time as far as my concern I just loved the product and it has saved me from many problems that I used to [deal] with earlier overall it has [enhanced] my work efficiency that is why I am happy to give this rating to this product Also I loved the features and worth my working skills.
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Reliability and Availability
Microsoft
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.
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SAP
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Microsoft
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.
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SAP
Well, I've had several scenarios where it was evident that they simply buy time. At the same time, their Product Support and Implementation teams are most likely not in sync. What's said by a member of implementation may not hold good when you refer the same thing with a member of the support team.
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In-Person Training
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
SAP
There are online courses available from SAP called openSAP courses which can be used as a learning tool. Apart from it, SAP trainers can be arranged at an additional cost to train in person.
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Online Training
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
SAP
Self explanatory online videos are available for everyone’s access.
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Implementation Rating
Microsoft
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!
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SAP
Implementation of SAP ERP is actually taken up with phases, and every phase has a business purpose. Mostly every implementation goes well with the Golive, and support during HyperCare ensures that all issues raised post golive are fixed before going into Maintenance mode
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Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
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.
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SAP
SAP is totally integrated as are many of its greatest competitors, but the level of detail in the integration between modules puts SAP heads and shoulders above all others. Granted, the SAP implementation can be much more difficult to perform, but in the long run, the amount of effort you put in will result in excellent usability. After using Oracle's E-Business Suite for over 20 years, we did a due diligence search that lasted over 18 months before making a decision to go with SAP. This was a result of our Oracle system being made "un-upgradeable" due to a custom module that Oracle Consulting actually built for us. We were stuck in an old version of their database that would not work upon patching to the next version.
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Scalability
Microsoft
Since the backbone of the database is MS SQLServer, the database can be easily scaled.
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SAP
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • 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.
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SAP
  • SAP has helped in transparency across different business unit and single financial view of the company that previously did not exist.
  • The cost of supporting the solution is slightly higher than the previous ERP and the consulting solutions cost more.
  • Overall SAP has brought in positive ROI and uniform business practices across the organization
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ScreenShots