Microsoft Dynamics SL vs. Trello

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

For teams or individuals with lots of individual tasks/details to track, Trello is perfect! It basically removes the need for a paper checklist. For those that need an overall project management tool that requires less tasks and more overarching goals, collaboration amongst various teams, and gantt charts I would suggest monday.com

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

• Helps track employees "to do before hire", "to do after hired," and "to do when employee leaves"
• Provides important information on each employee like personal information along with data collected during the time of hire and during employment time
• Allows more than one person to be assigned to a task per employee and will remain open until everyone involved has completed their task

• 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

• I use colour coding a lot so I would like a wider range of colour options.
• Also as a visual thinker I would like to be able to easily add images to cards.
• I would like to be able to attach a wider range of file formats to cards.

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 am very likely to renew Trello, because it doesn't cost anything to do so. I am also very likely to use Trello's upgraded features in the future because a lot of my team's data is stored on there and they have already gotten used to the platform. Trello is very easy for new team members to pick up, making the onboarding and usability very streamlined.

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

Trello is incredibly intuitive, both on desktop and mobile right away. It is also full of helpful features that make it even easier to use, and is flexible enough to suit almost any organizational need. Onboarding for the software is thorough, but concise, and the service is frequently updated with even more QOL improvements.

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

yes always support available when I need it!

Never experienced issues with the above!

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

I haven't reached out to their support very often and their support is very limited anyway for the free users. They do have tons of great articles and videos in their Help Center and constantly send emails with updates and add-ons to the product. The fact that I've barely ever had to contact their support team means that they've developed a great product.

Incentivized

It was helpful and informative! It was back before the pandemic in 2019 so I'm not sure if they still do it but I really enjoyed the experience

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

For our small business, getting a few of us started well on Trello was the key, I think. As long as a couple of us were really comfortable with the interface, we could lead others and help them with any questions. From now on, anyone who works with us just naturally uses Trello for information sharing - it's just part of what we do.

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

Trello is more simple and not as "robust" as the other tools, but it's easier to use and manage and understand and ACTUALLY get stuff done with. It's simplicity is part of the beauty of using it. You don't need a million options that nobody uses, you just need to get stuff done.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

Feels like anyone across the org (no matter their location) can use the tool easily!

Not sure if we use those

• 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

• Trello keeps me organized, focused, and on track. I could filter the Trello board to only see my issues and understand what I needed to work on and when.
• Trello helped our team implement an agile structure. It's a very simple kanban method of viewing all of your team's tasks and statuses. You can completely customize the columns to your team's specific workflow and create tags relevant to your work.
• Trello helps reduce unnecessary communications between teams. When I want to request translations, I simply create a card on the localization Trello board -- no need to directly message anyone on the team, and I can watch the status of the card change from "in progress" to "in review" to "translated," all without having to directly ask for updates.

Incentivized