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Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
Formerly Dynamics NAV

Overview

What is Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (formerly Dynamics NAV) is one of the ERP products in the Dynamics family. The technology is based on the Navision product acquired by Microsoft in 2002. This product is the best-selling Microsoft ERP platform, and…

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Recent Reviews
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 66 features
  • Role-based user permissions (20)
    9.0
    90%
  • Accounts payable (20)
    9.0
    90%
  • Standard reports (21)
    5.1
    51%
  • Custom reports (20)
    5.1
    51%
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Pricing

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What is Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (formerly Dynamics NAV) is one of the ERP products in the Dynamics family. The technology is based on the Navision product acquired by Microsoft in 2002. This product is the best-selling Microsoft ERP platform, and is often used by companies in the…

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  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Product Demos

Microsoft Power BI Demo | Tensoft

YouTube
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Features

Payroll Management

Provides for pay calculation and benefit plan administration, in addition to managing direct deposit, salary revisions and payroll tracking.

7.6
Avg 7.2

Customization

This addresses a company’s ability to configure the software to fit its specific use case and workflow.

8
Avg 7.2

Security

This component helps a company minimize the security risks by controlling access to the software and its data, and encouraging best practices among users.

9
Avg 8.1

Reporting & Analytics

Users can report on and analyze usage, performance, ROI, and/or other metrics of success.

5.1
Avg 6.9

General Ledger and Configurable Accounting

Financial management solution, including capabilities for general ledger and configurable accounting

8.8
Avg 7.6

Inventory Management

The ability to track and manage the flow of goods or materials into and out of an inventory.

8.7
Avg 7.9

Order Management

The ability to process orders, and track them from quote to cash.

7.9
Avg 7.8

Subledger and Financial Process

Revenue management solution including capabilities for subledgers and financial processes

8.4
Avg 7.4

Project Financial Management

Project financial management solution including capabilities for project budgeting, cost control, billing and contract management.

8.7
Avg 7.6

Project Execution Management

Project execution management solution including capabilities for project scheduling, resource management, and team member task management.

7.7
Avg 6.8

Grants Management

Grants management solution for higher education, public sector, or non-profits with capabilities for managing financial awards for program and project funding

9.7
Avg 7.4

Procurement

Procurement management solution with capabilities for sourcing, contracting, procure-to-pay and supplier management

8
Avg 7.0

Risk Management

Risk management solution with capabilities for managing controls, assessing control effectiveness, certifying controls, and addressing deficiencies

9.6
Avg 6.5

Logistics

Logistics solution with capabilities for transportation planning, transportation execution, trade compliance, customs management, warehouse management and warehouse workforce management.

7.7
Avg 6.9

Manufacturing

Manufacturing solution for managing manufacturing processes and costs.

7.1
Avg 7.5

Supply Chain

Supply Chain Planning solution with capabilities for planning, performance monitoring, change responses and execution.

9.5
Avg 7.3

Product Lifecycle Management

Product Lifecycle Management solution with capabilities for innovation management, product development

9.3
Avg 7.3
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Product Details

What is Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Video

Introduction to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Integrations

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Competitors

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (formerly Dynamics NAV) is one of the ERP products in the Dynamics family. The technology is based on the Navision product acquired by Microsoft in 2002. This product is the best-selling Microsoft ERP platform, and is often used by companies in the manufacturing and distribution verticals.

Infor ERP, NetSuite ERP, and Sage 300 are common alternatives for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Reviewers rate Credit card processing and Primary and Secondary Ledgers and Journals and Reconciliations highest, with a score of 10.

The most common users of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(201)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-21 of 21)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Phil Blake | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As part of our cloud migration we moved to BC from GP. We implemented Dynamics 365 CRM so it was a natural fit to move to BC for our account software. It will eliminate a lot of the manual tasks we were doing since the integration across the Microsoft ecosystem was very good.
  • Integration with MS ecosystem
  • Sales processing
  • General account functions
  • The interface could be a little more intuitive.
Being that I'm on the technical side I found the ability to tie it into our existing Microsoft CRM to be very easy. This eliminates the need to track products and sales in multiple systems
Patient Gomba | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is used across the whole organization for managing all your business finances and accounting processes for the Company. There is easy monitoring of budgets and reports can be generated in relation to managing Inventory and cash flow management. We can easily work with different currencies and as as easily converting any currency to local currency. With NAV we can easily track resource costs and their usage. In all NAV easily automate all accounting processes hence help in month and year end processes.
  • Vendor Application - able to generate a report on the number if open documents and initiate application of these open documents.
  • Vendor Statements -This is the procedure to run the vendor statement, which you can either print to pdf or excel, depending on how you choose to send it to your supplier.
  • Vendor Balances - able to generate a report of vendor balances in Excel or PDF.
  • Manual Journals - One is able to upload a Journal in NAV then export it before emailing it to Approver before posting it for checks and accuracy.
  • Vendor Ledger entries - Should give an option on filters to be able to produce a report with multiple User IDs.
  • Automatically allocate payments.
  • Sending a notification for Overdue payments.
With multi-currency capabilities of NAV you can determine how your accounts can be posted, as well as allow the company to then manage both vendor and customer accounts in different and relevant currencies so if you deal with international Suppliers NAV will be the best system as it allows and suits multi-currencies.
Best for companies that value transparency as NAV allows for audit trails as it keeps record of every done process through integrated systems and shared data therefore NAV is suited for companies after greater transparency and good record keeping.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We're a manufacturing company with multiple sales umbrella companies. We use Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central to place the order to the manufacturing facility, receive parts required to completed manufacturing and keep track of all accounting GL/AP/AR.

We enter PO's after we sell to the client by the sales department admin, then the manufacturing admin does the requisition, the procurement department keeps track of all the parts orders to ensure we can complete the building of the equipment by the required time promised to the client, and the accounting keeps track of all income, expenses and other costs. It helps us streamline our procedures and ensure that all departments see the big picture of what is happening in the company.
  • Lot/Serial tracking, due to our parts being imported worldwide, and in order to ship to clients and clear customs, this helps a lot.
  • Reporting in the platform, this helps us a lot in our weekly management meetings so everyone can help present and make sure everyone is aware.
  • Getting information from the old NAV, if you're transitioning not everything is easily available.
  • Some of the 3rd party software we use are not integrated or required customization which added to the cost.
Since we required a lot of our employees to be mobile the use of the app makes it very convenient to make sure that everyone gets the admin side of their work completed in a timely matter. Also, since we have been using Office 365 for 3 years it was nice to have a platform that integrated into that.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My organization adopted Business Central as part of an upgrade to the entire electronic medical record platform, with this component taking the place of an older general ledger platform that didn't quite meet our needs. We adopted Office 365 two years ago, and having this platform able to integrate with that system and utilize the same user accounts for access was ideal, along with the reliability we've seen from O365 in general. There just wasn't a huge need to have our GL installed locally, and from experience working with Dynamics locally installed at another facility, I much preferred the idea of letting Microsoft handle the updates for us instead of having to hire it out to another company annually.
  • Reporting is top-notch, and the ability to dig down into an entry is fantastic. If I'm curious about where a specific number or total came from, finding out is as simple as clicking on it and drilling down until I have my answer.
  • The stability of the platform is excellent -- no worries about our servers going down at all. :)
  • Our CFO position is outsourced, and this platform lets him work on our GL from anywhere. He showed me the other day on his phone how we can review journal entries, and was raving about how it makes him more responsive and effective.
  • The only downside I've really seen so far is that the licensing can get expensive if you have a large accounting department. It's several times the cost of a single O365 license, which makes it a bit cost-prohibitive to spread the love around. This sucks because there's some great executive dashboarding that I'd love to be able to set up for my CEO, but burning a license each month just so he can look at a dashboard is a waste of money.
I think that Business Central is closely on-par with being just as useful as Quickbooks in organizations that would normally lean towards Quickbooks first, but probably scales up a little better for slightly larger organizations. It's kind of the power-user version of Quickbooks I think. It still meets smaller organizations' needs, it just has the ability to kick it up a notch when needed. If you are in an organization that is experiencing growth, this is probably the better solution to build from.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Dynmics NAV is being used as a multi-department, complete ERP system at our headquarters/manufacturing facility. It addresses integration and connectivity issues with other software and adaptive technologies: formulation and manufacturing batching software, scanners and bar codes, inventory, financials, emailing of invoices and statement, sales and purchasing... all from their user portal.
  • Good integration with other software and technologies.
  • Good viewing interface for both AP and AR.
  • Ability to customize most reports.
  • Some functions could be a bit more user friendly, intuitive.
  • Better migration from previous ERP software (especially other Microsoft products). "Growing pains" associated with change?! Maybe.
  • A few redundancies and procedural missteps on menus and tabs can make the portal a bit crowded.
It addresses well some integration and connectivity issues with other software and adapted technologies: formulation and manufacturing batching software, scanners and bar codes, inventory, financials, emailing of invoices and statement, sales and purchasing... etc. I believe it to be better suited to a medium to large company. Not as simple and seamless as we expected for migrating from another Microsoft Dynamics software product (we moved from GP to NAV). Our staff is going through a tougher time than we thought to learn some procedures. Normal growing pains?!
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
NAV is used across the entire organization from purchasing, engineering, production, accounting, quality, shipping, customer and technical service, sales, and marketing. The implementation of NAV was intended to replace disparate systems that were not integrated to improve the integrity of data throughout the entire organization. The goal was to get all product and financial data into a single platform, so we had the assurance the same data could be accessed by users across the organization, doing away with old systems and spreadsheets.
  • Automate the creation of bills of materials for production. We can now generate a BoM from a sales order.
  • Organization of all data pertaining to thousands of parts, assemblies, and finished goods. Engineering and purchasing have a common portal.
  • We can create sales orders from quotations instead of re-entering them (this did require some bolt-on software). Less redundant work with fewer entry errors.
  • Accounting can provide reports based on specific criteria stored in NAV. We can pull better and more detailed intelligence.
  • It doesn't work out of the box. It requires consultants and experts to make it work. This makes it far more expensive to get up and running and maintain than originally anticipated.
  • Additional software purchases are needed for full functionality. For example, it doesn't offer a product configurator which was an expensive purchase that needed to be made separately.
  • It is difficult to get data into NAV from old systems. Now, for sales data prior to the implementation of NAV, we have to go back into the legacy system.
NAV has all the basics but lacks depth. When evaluating NAV be sure it does everything you want it to do out of the box as customizing it is very expensive and difficult. Be sure it has all of the functionality you need up front and that your data set is clean and all the fields you need are included. Our company is a diverse, two division operation and a lot of manipulations were necessary to make it work for the two businesses that provide different products and services. It would likely be well suited for smaller wholesale or retail operations, but if you are a more than moderately complex manufacturer, there may be other options. It is driven by Microsoft which in itself adds complexity.
Akos Krommer, CISA, ACDA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
MS Dynamics NAV is used across my company for different purposes, like financial reporting, accounting, and basically to fully manage our business through the whole sales cycle. One of the biggest problems that it solves for me pretty much in a great way is accounts receivable and expense tracking and reporting on the monthly sales performance.
  • It is really great to use for financial reporting and generating invoices for clients.
  • Cloud capabilities of the system
  • Automation of several features (notifications, etc.)
  • Integration with many 3rd party tools
  • Permission setup can get quite complicated.
  • Requires lots of training to get fully confident with the software.
  • Sometimes it can get really slow, which makes the whole user experience bad.
MS Dynamics NAV can be a fantastic tool for small or middle-sized businesses, however, for very large organizations, I must say, other tools on the market are far better and can handle business problems much better. In my opinion, it works especially well in the manufacturing, distribution and professional services industry.
Thayer Ramahi | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Calgary Foothills PCN uses NAV for all its financial needs: GL, AP, AR and payroll runs.
It is just used by our finance team to take care of our operations and administration finance and generate financial reports to auditors and boards.
  • User friendly, does not need much to train users on how to use it, enter data or generate reports.
  • Secure, it has a very secure & permission account setup.
  • Flexible and customizable for all the company needs: general accounting, A/R, A/P, Fixed Assets, and Budgeting needs.
  • Love the search tool, very powerful.
  • Reports need improvement for sure.
  • Does not integrate with other software or tools.
  • Navigation could be a challenge to some users.
  • Customization, modifications and upgrades require a 3rd party vendor to do.
Would recommend any company with many departments within to adopt the system because it helps to integrate all departments together into a single data base. Real time information helps in making critical decision within the company and helps to improve service delivery.
We are using it as a Main ERP and it runs all the tasks involved in the process of the company. We found that it can do things that our previous ERP couldn't like integrate with other Microsoft products.
Take more training to learn how to use the system. Repeat the training after 3 and 6 months.
Johnn Karanja | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We implemented Microsoft Dynamics NAV in our corporation to handle financial and marketing obligations. We have gained a lot ever since we implemented this platform. Personally, I incorporate this program to undertake some financial obligations such as tracking sales and invoices. For that reason, it is now simple to view invoices of several clients. I like this platform since it easily integrates with other Microsoft services such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Additionally, this program is simple to install and set-up. Therefore, with just little training, the user is able to offer perfect results.
  • Financial Management: We are able to carry out some financial tasks such as invoicing and purchase.
  • Human Resource Management: the HR department use this platform to track skills of employees.
  • Sales and marketing: With Microsoft Dynamics NAV, it is now simple to track sales and marketing.
  • The cost estimation of getting a genuine Microsoft Dynamics NAV is extremely high. It would be better if they would reduce the total cost of subscription.
  • Some templates available are outdated, hence this platform is less competitive on the market.
Microsoft Dynamics NAV best suit the needs in area such as supply chain management, business intelligence, and project management.
May 24, 2018

Great investment

Mykel Scott, CPA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it as a full ERP solution. A place where they have been really helpful in our business is through the jobs module. We are a company that does a majority of our business as a service provider, and a vast majority of our business is done in this module. Jobs give us the tool to recognize income correctly and manage costs.
  • Easy to navigate
  • Simple interface
  • Works well with other Microsoft products
  • Faster posting of journal entries
  • More in module help
  • Printable tables
Simple to use and navigate for someone new to the program. However, one issue we have had with Dynamics Nav is with tax exemptions. Many times our customers use one time transaction specific exemptions. The system does not allow exemptions to be applied on a transaction specific basis and only on the customer level.
Lukas Sundahl, MBA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using Microsoft Dynamics to handle our operations and financial management. We have switched over from a more manual process of invoicing and tracking hours to using NAV. NAV streamlines our accounting process and helps us get invoices billed faster and perform more detailed accounting reports. We will be able to speed up the close process now with NAV.
  • Microsoft Dynamics NAV allows a copy and paste feature from Excel. This allows quicker input of data.
  • Dynamics NAV connects to Microsoft OneNote which helps us organize pertinent information. Then, from within NAV we can access the documents/information saved in OneNote.
  • Dynamics NAV is very intuitive to use especially if you are familiar with using Excel, Word and even Access on a consistent basis.
  • Dynamics NAV allows easy customization of data organization and the columns that are displayed on various tabs within the program.
  • While Dynamics NAV has the copy paste feature it could have more options for importing data quickly (like the ones Microsoft Access has built in).
  • Dynamics NAV could have some of its menu items consolidated and accessible from within one screen versus going out to another place in NAV.
  • The dashboards within NAV could be improved and offer more detail.
Dynamics NAV is well suited for organizations that want to be able to customize their ERP system. The software has many features that can be added and adjusted as needed. Plus, with PowerBI companies have the option to connect NAV to PowerBI for more robust reporting of data. NAV is well suited for businesses because so many people are already familiar with other Microsoft products.
Roberta Jones | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Microsoft Dynamics NAV across our organization for our Finance software. Every department uses the software differently, but for the most part we all use it for budgeting, processing invoices, creating purchase orders, checking the status of check payments, and other finance services. We also use the software to track project grants, incoming payments from other organizations that we bill for services, and to track orders and invoice aging.
  • Microsoft Dynamics NAV is a really great software to use if you need to create and track purchase orders for your organization. The software is very easy to use and works well with most operating systems. The software is also a useful tool for tracking your budget because you can create reports to see exactly where your money is being spent. It even allows you to break down expenditures by the type, ie: hardware, software, service contracts, etc.
  • One of the best things that I like about the software is that it will not allow you to process duplicate invoices or write duplicate checks. If you trying putting in an invoice number that has already been processed then it will notify you immediately. It basically repeats the same functionality when creating checks for the payment of invoices. If you've already posted a check for a specific invoice then it will ask you a series of questions to ensure you're not creating a duplicate and actually need to print an additional check.
  • Another function that I like about the software is that it's so easy to use. I never had to read a manual to learn how to operate the software or complete tasks. The software basically walks you step by step through each process and guides you along so there are few mistakes that you can make while using the software.
  • The version of software that we currently use isn't compatible with Windows 7, therefore we had to install it using the virtual computer under Windows XP. This created a few additional steps that the users had to go through in order to access the software which generated more calls to our IT Helpdesk.
  • We did research how much it would cost to upgrade the software so that we could get a version compatible with Windows 7, but the cost was way too expensive for our organization. Also, when we need to make updates or changes to the software, there are very few consultants who are familiar with the software so we are limited in who we can use for consulting services. Since we are limited in choosing consultants who can make updates and changes to the software the fees are usually really expensive for their services.
  • There is a .zup file that we constantly have to delete in order for the database to work properly and update. Users get a pop-up about once a week asking if they want to replace the .zup file and if the file is not deleted then the opening page for the software will not show up correctly and the database will not have the most up to date information.
I would recommend other companies to use Microsoft Dynamics NAV because it's very easy to install and use. The only concern I have is the cost of maintaining it and the cost of upgrading the software if it's needed. If a company has the funds to maintain the software so it stays up to date then they will find Microsoft Dynamics NAV to be a very useful software to manage budget and finance services for their organization.
February 27, 2017

NAV is a real winner!

Ronald Swank | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
NAV is being used throughout our entire company. We use it in production, accounting, AP, AR, virtually every aspect of our business.
  • Information... So much availability to any and everything you could want.
  • NAV can be customized so much, sometimes it can be overwhelming the amount you can modify it.
NAV works for any operation. We manufacture and it works wonders linking together the manufacturing aspects with the accounting and sales aspects of our needs.
Gene Fagelson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
I personally have used, consulted, developed and installed NAV for over 22 years, going back to the original character based product. I have used NAV across a wide spectrum of businesses and assisted hundreds of companies with their implementations. I describe the software as a full featured ERP system that conforms to your industry and business rules rather than forcing you to conform to the software. As the product has matured, the feature rich environment has improved and stayed current with the needs of the business world. There are very few companies that are able to use an ERP system right out-of-the-box and NAV has solved this problem by providing the end-user with an almost unlimited ability to customize their environment. Add to this the availability of source code and there is almost no problem or process that cannot be addressed.
  • All of the Dynamics ERP systems are fully integrated with the full family of their Office products (Word, Excel, etc.) but the true power behind Dynamics-NAV is that it comes with complete access to the source code. Although most ERP packages provide some type of a development environment, it is always a third-party software package and requires an additional expense. NAV comes with full source code access and devolvement tools out-of-the-box and requires no additional purchase. The user is able to modify pages, reports and even add additional fields to the standard tables. If your company has an internal development staff you have the ability to purchase the same full development license that the VAR has, allowing you to handle all system customizations and support in-house. The sum total of this high flexibility is that you are able to make NAV conform to your business rather than you conforming to the software.
  • In addition to the available source code, NAV provides the user with an unlimited ability to modify and build within the rich environment of C/AL code. In over 20 years of modifying the NAV product I have never had a client ask for a modification or custom functionality that I was not able to provide. Add to this the fact that NAV now includes many development points that allow the user to place their custom code inside of the system without impacting the base code. This makes the upgrade process quick and easy and avoids the common occurrence of being version locked.
  • The user interface of Dynamics NAV has been well thought out and provides a very easy to learn and use package. Master records (Customer, Vendor, Items, etc.) have been laid out in a standard format. Once you learn where fields are located on one record you have learned them all. The forms (called Pages in NAV) have a very similar structure and, by design, are uncluttered and easily customized by the user without impacting the base code. This allows each user to configure the Page to the way they work, easing the learning process and speeding up daily work and data entry.
  • The NAV environment has grown to be very feature rich in the functionality offered and provides the user with almost everything they need with the purchase of the base product. Advanced features can be added if required as can a large number of third party add-ons made exclusively for the NAV environment. Additionally, user licenses are sold as concurrent and not as named. Concurrent licenses control the number of users allowed into the system at any one time meaning that anyone can be provided with the ability to log into the system. This allows the company to setup an unlimited number of users with the ability to access the system at any given time. This allows the occasional user to share a license with other users who only need to access the system to enter a small amount of data or run a few reports. This functionality is a plus for the company with a large sales staff or outside workers who only need limited access to the system. Named licenses would require that you purchase an access license for every person who needs to access the system.
  • As with most ERP packages, the Jobs functionality within NAV is somewhat limited in functions. It has been primarily designed for large projects such as building a house or large piece of equipment where the process is set from the start and has little change. Small job shops where each project is custom find the package very restrictive and inflexible to use. The WIP calculation has been greatly improved with the last couple of releases but still does not allow the user to a great amount of flexibility or provide you with the ability to post in detail to the general ledger.
  • The item reservation process is very restrictive in the way it was written. NAV does allow you to reserve inventory against sales and projects but is very unforgiving if the need arises to change or release those goods. It is possible but requires that the user jump through multiple hoops to accomplish the task.
  • Security within NAV is very good but requires that you build custom user roles as the standard roles provided by the package do not lend themselves well to the normal company environment. The standard permission roles tend to either provide too much access or too little and are often hard to follow and understand. However, NAV has provided a new tool that makes the creation of custom roles quick and easy but still requires that they be created. Additionally, NAV still does not provide field-level security, only record level. It is possible to modify the code to control this or purchase an add-on but is not available out-of-the-box.
Needless to say I am a very big believer in Dynamics NAV but do understand that there are times when other ERP offerings are better suited. I feel that if the company looking at purchasing an ERP system can use the package right out-of-the-box they are better suited to go with Dynamics GP or SL. Both packages are very feature rich and offer a great amount of standard functionality. However, if you require a system that needs to conform to your work environment there is no better package in Dynamics NAV. Additionally, if you are in an industry that is very unique and/or specialized, an industry specific package may be better suited. Dynamics NAV can be made to fit any industry or requirement, the determining factor is, as always, cost.
Josep Coves Barreiro | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It's used across the whole organization, it adresses from budget to customer invoice management. It's also the tool used for finances, product management and also used as an small CRM solution to track customers. Since it's a water company most customers ar fix and it's odd they vary. It has also some custom developments in order to provide functionality at certain areas.
  • Financials
  • Budget management
  • User concurrency
  • User interface is quite old fashioned, it should migrate to a modern web responsive interface
  • Reporting should be improved
Small to mid-size companies which need an ERP solution which is affordable and works under Windows environments
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Dynamics NAV is used throughout the organization for all aspects of the company other than HR & payroll. We are a manufacturing company and are currently in the process of deploying Dynamics NAV to our subsidiaries.
  • Data integrity is paramount and in 18+ years of using Dynamics NAV with both the original native database as well as SQL, we have never lost any data.
  • Dynamics NAV has all of the functionality that small to medium sized businesses need to operate in an efficient and effective manner.
  • The ability to customize Dynamics NAV allows it to be adapted to practically any environment.
  • Report generation has always been somewhat below what would be expected. We rely on third-party tools to produce our reports.
  • User documentation, although better than previous versions still needs a lot of improvement.
Works very well in a manufacturing environment. Very flexible.
Joe Florio | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized

At Enzo Life Sciences we used Microsoft Dynamics Nav across the entire organization. We used NAV as a full scale ERP system ranging from accounting, sales, purchasing, manufacturing inventory control, shipping and receiving. It addresses the issues a lot of smaller to mid size companies face. It integrates all areas of the business to support a robust and comprehensive reporting structure.

The company I was with had 13 different companies both USD and foreign currencies were exchanged. The system was flexible in the ability to modify or tailor it to the business needs. Enzo was a manufacturing company. It allowed for accurate inventory costing and financial integrity. I strongly recommend small to mis size companies use this ERP system in place of larger more robust and EXPENSIVE applications on the market. This implementation for our company was cost effective and delivered on all of our corporate needs.

  • Financial Reporting.
  • Inventory Control.
  • Ease of order to cash process - Shipping.
  • Ease of purchase to pay process - Receiving.
  • They could use improvement on inter-company eliminations in the consolidations module.
  • They could use improvement with regard to scaling down the user security - it is complex and robust.
Microsoft Dynamics NAV is well suited in the manufacturing and assembly business. The project business may struggle without any add-ons.
Brian Sanders | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Dynamics NAV is being used by our entire organization. Our company consists of three business divisions - wholesale, e-commerce and direct-to-consumer. As a fully-integrated ERP system, Microsoft Dynamics NAV handles all aspects of our business, including sales, purchasing, inventory control, order fulfillment, receivables, payables and financial reporting. Through a combination of base modules, add-on modules and customized code, Microsoft Dynamics NAV handles the demanding needs of our business well.
  • Microsoft Dynamics NAV is highly customizable. Many ERP systems provide similar functionality, however, they can be difficult (or costly) to customize to meet your companies' specific needs.
  • Microsoft Dynamics NAV has a relatively-low cost of entry, for its feature set. Other similar ERP systems, can cost substantially more.
  • Microsoft Dynamics NAV provides a fully-integrated system, for running your business. With it, there is no need to have separate warehouse, EDI or accounting systems, for example. Everything is in one place and access to the information, can be restricted by user role.
  • Microsoft Dynamics NAV allows you to easily "navigate" or "drill-down" into the underlying data, for things such as inventory or customer balance. There is no need to launch a separate window or form, to find related information,
  • Microsoft Dynamics NAV has extensive filtering capabilities, which allows you to look at only the data you are interested in seeing.
  • There are not a lot of "out of the box" automation processes, for Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Different versions of NAV, have had various job scheduling functionality. However, each process that is automated, must be confirmed that it will function correctly, in an automatic mode. In our installation, most of the automation processes have been custom-developed.
  • Microsoft Dynamics NAV could have better documentation. Much of the documentation is original, from multiple versions ago. There is generally no step-by-step instructions, on performing various functions. Instead, most help is context-sensitive, obtained by pressing F1, on a particular field.
  • Older versions of Microsoft Dynamics NAV had a built-in WYSIWYG report builder, which made designing reports fairly straight-forward. Later versions (2013 and forward) rely exclusively on Visual Studio and SQL Reporting Services, which require a greater technical level of expertise, to use.
When working with a Microsoft Dynamics NAV partner, during the selection process, be sure to identify what is "base product" and what would require customization. As Microsoft Dynamics NAV is so highly customizable, it is easy for a partner to say "sure, it can do that". However, the devil is in the details, in determining the level of effort that would be required, to make it happen. This can also apply to add-on providers, as add-ons are typically designed to blend into the base product, seamlessly.
James Yeates | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Dynamics NAV (NAV) is being used primarily by customer service and finance. Customer service inputs all sales orders, processes them, and then invoices the orders. Finance uses NAV to house all data regarding customers, costs and vendors.
  • Its EDI function allows for an easy way to process orders. When there are several hundreds of orders, this is extremely efficient.
  • NAV can pull historical data.
  • NAV can be great when needed to know how certain customers handle their credit terms.
  • With multiple users, it gets slow, especially if working offline from a VPN.
  • One has to be very careful in making sure they do not hit a wrong button by mistake. Not enough safeguards.
  • NAV should be able to limit access to certain licensees so that information can not be improperly used.
Microsoft Dynamics NAV is well suited for dealing with retail clients as well as exporting any type of data to Excel. It is not great for giving you historical data in an easily readable way.
May 30, 2015

Why NAV?

Peter Stockemer | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are currently using NAV 2009 R2 Classic Client across our entire organization for operations and financials.
  • Configurable/Customizable
  • User-Friendly
  • Solid Finacials
  • Reporting is very limited out of the box
  • Not scalable
  • Unclear error messaging
Microsoft Dynamics NAV is good for a SMB with simple manufacturing needs.
Mary Bricco | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
Sikich LLP is a Microsoft Dynamics Nav reseller. My position is a Sr. Technical consultant.
  • Easy to learn and use.
  • Highly customizable
  • Easy to integrate
  • Warehouse item tracking is lacking
Microsoft Dynamics NAV can be customized for most any business.
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