Microsoft Dynamics SL

We have been able to downsize our Accounting Department, creating more efficiencies and less "downtime" within that department.

We have been able to eliminate the need to outsource our IT department, thereby reducing a large budget item.

We have the ability to create and modify custom reports within our package.

We are "paper free" since all vendor documents, contracts, financial reports and purchase orders are digitally maintained in the program allowing us to archive as necessary.

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.

Nothing significant

Project data is updated quickly and reporting tools available for management daily.

Faster Closing Cycle

Improved Reconciliation Tools

Accurate and Timely Revenue Recognition

Through tracking productivity gains, in 2012 improvements to the system (customization and business rule enforcement) saved over 1200 hours of employee time. These changes contributed the same effect to the bottom line as increasing sales by 2,000,000 dollars. We had a similar result in 2013.

Since we can produce changes to the system and new functionality, we are more responsive to the changing needs of an expanding global business. We have been able to fulfill the invoicing and reporting needs of each country in which we do business.

Centralization capabilities have allowed the corporate accounting team to remain relatively small as the field locations have been added, keeping headcount manageable.

Ease of integrations and access to data for reporting has allowed growth outside of core accounting.

With the switch to SL 2011 and the use of the Business Portal or APPS we were able to eliminate employee time and effort to data enter what we need for project management. We have been able to drop that admin time by roughly 3 FTEs corporate wide one of which was a full time accounting professional.

Training time on this product has been streamlined with out of the box functionality. We get better use and greater consistence of data within the structure that we put in place, from drop down lists to tables restricting data entry to what we want to measure. Overall with the uploading of data from 1975 we have a full scope of project information to review as needed in this product. You cannot ask for more than that.

Data structure is so strong within this product that when we need to pull it out into Excel we know exactly where it lies and how to access. IF we were ever to migrate to some other software, we know what we need and where it is. But since we have been on this product since 1999, I think we will stay.

Microsoft Dynamics SL has a fantastic USER GROUP that allows me to connect with others in the industry to learn from them and share what I know. I am a strong believer in this power and this product offers just what I need in user group meetings.

Increased employee efficiency. While using this program, I was able to complete payments to factories pretty seamlessly. I just had to select the invoice that was getting paid, and include it in the batch for payment.

Better customer service. I was able to better communicate with factories what was owed to them and why by entering the debit or credit notes and adding them to the batch to submit for payment.

SL helps us to be an agile business. It can handle upturns and downturns without affecting staffing.

Increased employee efficiency.

Easy to tie reconciliations with bank statements. If you are off, it is easy to find where and why you are off.

Able to see what others are posting in case you have questions on certain items.

Not my question to answer for our company.

Less time needs to be invested to create invoices from timecards.

Project profitability is right there for you to review as the whole product is "project-centric"-we do less of the work that tends to lose us money and more lucrative work.

The ease with which we are able to hide unwanted fields makes data entry simple.

The intuitive naming of the tables makes report writing much easier than most accounting/ERP products.

Since our company is relatively small, Dynamics has been a good option for us since we need a package that is more complex and robust than something like QuickBooks, but we aren't big enough to warrant spending all the money on a solution like Oracle or SAP. The overall return on investment has been good.

n/a, we are resellers

We paid a partner an obscene amount of money for an upgrade almost a year ago, and almost every part of it has gone badly. We are STILL finding problems that didn't exist before the upgrade happened. Our partner has been somewhat attentive at certain issues, and not at all with others. It's been very frustrating to shell out more funds for support and still having problems that we were told would be 'fixed.'

Dramatic improvement in our ability to judge the profitability of jobs.

Lots of improvements in delivering invoices and statements to customers.

Automated AP approvals and imaging made our last tax audit a breeze.

Ease of reporting data is a big plus. Financial statements with drill down capability are very useful.

One integrated system means less data moving around and more real time information.

EFT payments, email statements and live linked Excel charts have improved our efficency

Too many more to name.