Microsoft Dynamics SL vs. SIX ERP

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

I can really encourage every start-up that is a little further to explore SIX ERP. With the pricing it might be also the best solution on the market right now for SMEs (we did extensive comparisons and SIX was by far superior to other choices, paid and open-source). But also considering the vast modules and the extensive features with warehousing, project management etc. it is great for large corporations as only those can really make use of the extensive features. I guess also bigger corporations will love how easy it is to integrate systems, which could save a lot of money. Especially in comparison to Microsoft, Oracle or SAP the integration costs what I have seen as a consultant are ridiculously high in comparison of the SIX costs. So highly reccomended for every business owner to at least have SIX on the short list and check it out. We love it!

• 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

• Very easy to use
• Super fast
• Affordable (great transparent pricing)
• Super easy to expand and integrate other systems
• Offers more modules and functionalities as many other ERPs

• 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

• We would love to see automatic integration with taxes ... but also many others don't have this

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 don't just want to renew it, we are just in the process of evaluating a second license for the new platform MoreThanDigital Insights. So we will definitely stay with SIX ERP and we are looking forward to also seeing the evolution of the system plus grow ourselves with the system as it has unlimited users.

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

It was one of the best ERP interfaces we have seen so far. Fast, easy, love the shortcuts, and also web-first, with not much resource usage. So highly reccomended to make a demo there and just see it for yourself. We also love the custom dashboards, quick shortcuts in many areas and pages and that it was fast to onboard our employees and all of our volunteers quickly. (more work, less explaining)

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

The founder Dr. Andreas Maier was super helpful and tried to really help us as a start-up to get up and running fast as well as implementing our new platform with the ERP. Great work of him and his team! Especially the many updates every months are also a great plus; fascinating how much is being integrated - just like Marketing Automation

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 screened over 20 different solutions from local and international ERP providers. Especially the costs to scale, the easy integration and the vast functionalities were unbeatable at the price it offers. Another big plus-point was the nice interface and that it really works fast and frictionless. Some of the other systems were really slow and tedious to handle. So our team was quite happy with how easy SIX was to use.

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

• SIX saved a significant cost for Backend
• We could cancel other subscriptions in order to streamline
• Till now the ROI Break-Even was achieved already after 4 Months