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Microsoft Dynamics SL

Microsoft Dynamics SL

Overview

What is Microsoft Dynamics SL?

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…

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Recent Reviews

Dynamics SL

9 out of 10
July 05, 2014
Incentivized
We are resellers and consultants for Dynamics SL. We support clients in the Professional Services, Bio-Pharma, Insurance, Distribution, …
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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 35 features
  • Accounts payable (10)
    7.6
    76%
  • Single sign-on capability (9)
    7.4
    74%
  • Standard reports (9)
    7.1
    71%
  • Custom reports (9)
    6.1
    61%
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Pricing

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What is Microsoft Dynamics SL?

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.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

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

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Product Demos

081814 SSYH Collections Manager Demo

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LinguaPack for Dynamics SL Demo

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Microsoft Dynamics SL 2015 Quick Query

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Microsoft Dynamics SL Bank Reconciliation Demo

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.

8.5
Avg 7.2

Customization

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

6
Avg 7.3

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.

7.3
Avg 8.1

Reporting & Analytics

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

6.8
Avg 7.0

General Ledger and Configurable Accounting

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

7.4
Avg 7.6

Inventory Management

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

4.3
Avg 7.9

Order Management

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

6.7
Avg 7.8

Subledger and Financial Process

Revenue management solution including capabilities for subledgers and financial processes

5.8
Avg 7.4

Project Financial Management

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

4.7
Avg 7.6

Grants Management

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

6.3
Avg 7.6

Manufacturing

Manufacturing solution for managing manufacturing processes and costs.

6
Avg 7.5

Supply Chain

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

6
Avg 7.2
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Product Details

What is Microsoft Dynamics SL?

Microsoft Dynamics SL Integrations

Microsoft Dynamics SL Competitors

Microsoft Dynamics SL Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Infor ERP, NetSuite ERP, and Sage Intacct are common alternatives for Microsoft Dynamics SL.

Reviewers rate Accounts payable highest, with a score of 7.6.

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

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Reviews and Ratings

(68)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-2 of 2)
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Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Mackay Communications, Inc deals in all phases of Marine Navigation and Communication systems as well as emergency satellite communication equipment and services. We use all the modules of Dynamics SL except the Project related modules. We use the product to track field service, sales, inventory, and purchasing for a world wide 24 hour a day business located in 7 countries. Using the multi-company features, we are able to use a single repository for Inventory, vendors, customers, sales and service activities.
  • Field service modules (dispatch, contracts and equipment tracking) work very well for us. Each service location has control of their operations, but their service information is visible across the company.
  • Multi-company operations are a great benefit. We have 7 individual corporations operating in a single database. there is a single repository for shared information, allowing us to appear as a single seamless operation to our customers, while maintaining separate operational reports and separate and consolidated financial reporting.
  • TCO is very competitive. We have invested less than 150 K in the Product and user licenses. Our annual fees for support are under 30 K.
  • Dynamics SL has a strong independent Users Group. This resource is very valuable as I know people across the world that are a good forum for seeking answers.
  • Customization Manager and the Visual Tools software development kit allows us to easily customize and extend the functionality to meet changing business requirements. We have created solutions for Inter-Company inventory transfers, multi-currency financial reporting and many small changes to enhance productivity
  • The field service module is not multi-currency compliant. I would like to have this feature added to the product in the near future. We have customized the modules to print in multiple currencies, but the underlying data is stored in a single base currency.
  • Payroll reporting is weak. Workers compensation reporting needs a lot of work. We have outsourced the fulfillment of depository and tax reporting (W-2, tax deposits, reporting and filing.
  • Financial reports (FRx and Management Reporter) are slow and cumbersome. We have built our own financial reports and reporting trees that are much faster and more flexible.
It's extremely useful in a multi-company environment. Service Dispatch, Contracts and Equipment are very useful to our company. The project reporting modules are very powerful. We do not currently use them, but we have plans to add them in the future. If you are in the Service, Construction and Professional Services fields, then this product deserves consideration.
  • 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.
I have evaluated many competitive products in the past. Dynamics Nav, Mass90, Dynamics GP, Platinum and others. This product is ahead in TCO and flexibility. Since the customization uses standard Microsoft tools (VBA, Visual Studio, and MS SQLServer, Object Model) it is much better go companies that want to be highly responsive to changing business conditions. The SDK (software development kit) is not an add-on toolkit, it is the exact same tools used to create the original product. It makes it very easy to integrate changes that have the same look and feel across all operations.
150
Field Service Dispatch, Service Billing, Service Contracts, Product and service quotes,Product and Equipment Sales, Inventory, Purchasing, Billing, Collections, all phases of accounting (A/P, A/R, P/R, G/L, Financial reporting). This product provides all our needs except for a specialized product we use to bill for Satellite Phone service plans and usage billing.
2
Support and enhancement is a 2 person operation. We have 3 on staff to support the IT infrastructure. Dynamics SL support requires a support and testing person and a developer level person to design and produce enhancements to the product. The support testing person is tasked with; responding to user requests for assistance, user account maintenance, testing enhancements, Crystal Reports, SQLServer Reporting Servicesand other operational duties as assigned. The developer skill set is; design skills, database skills (prototyping and T-Sql programming), and programming skills (VBA, Visual Studio - Visual Basic.net, Crystal Reports and Sql Reporting Services). Both positions require excellent listening and communication skills.
  • Customization and modification of the 'out of the box' programs. Using VBA and Customization Manager, there are few things that can not be modified and enhanced to adapt the software to the company.
  • Software Development Kit: Although the users do now directly use this product, they see the enhancements that are provided by creating new screens and functionality. We have added over 50 new screens to the product.
  • Shared resources (Customers, Vendors, Employees, Inventory Items, Dispatch, Reporting, ...) allows us to expand the number of company without 'Data Synchronization' headaches caused by products that do not let multiple companies reside in a common database.
  • We were able to customize the system to create a streamlined way to transfer and track inventory between companies,
  • Implemented an extended notes feature that allow for multiple comments and notes that can be attached to any screen.
  • Created out own Financial Reporting that is fast and responsive.
  • We plan to add more multi-currency reporting ans tracking features.
  • Implementation of project accounting is in the short-term future.
  • Mobile field service applications are also in the short-term future.
Since the backbone of the database is MS SQLServer, the database can be easily scaled.
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.
Jack Boyer | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
We are a professional services firm mostly with client billings of time making up 70-80% of our revenues. Creating billing transactions from timecards based on many different rules that are sometimes client based, task based, project based or even fixed price-make for the need for some capable software.

We are much happier with the web apps having moved off of the business portal time entry tool which was extremely slow and time consuming.

We use Dynamics SL across the whole organization and everyone enters a timecard. We use the software for expense reporting and evaluating which were good projects and bad, which tasks were good and which were bad. We use the software to help us make better estimates on future similar projects.

We've used Dynamics SL the entire 20 years we've been in business and really love it.
  • Facilitates Time Entry from any device.
  • Facilitates billing with "Allocator" which is really a transaction creator-creating billing records from time cards using unique rules
  • Simplifies the review of draft invoices-making transactions not ready to be billed yet default to the next billing period so revenue does not "leak".
  • When we have a lot of invoices rather than just a few large invoices, we can be frustrated by how long it takes Flexible Billings to generate a lot of invoices
  • It would be nice if Dynamics SL had an easy integration to some of the nicer salestax tools such as Avalara and CCH.
  • It would be nice if the fixed assets module and electronic banking were not third party.
Organizations that have challenging project accounting needs should definitely review this product. Very few products come close to Dynamics SL in handling these broader project accounting needs as well as Dynamics SL. We have had clients insist on buying Dynamics GP because someone in their firm already knows it-only to learn that they should have gone with SL as we suggested. Organizations that need extremely robust Order Management features should also look at Dynamics SL closely. Not only are the features very strong-they are also project-centric so if you need 5 different lines on a sales order to update 5 different projects-no problem. You can even enter a project on the fly while entering a sales order-assuming you have permissions.

Dynamics SL, like Dynamics NAV has a tremendous toolset for customizing. If you allow the customizing to occur-make sure that you have the staff or budget to support lots of customizations as the mods do make support and upgrading a bit more challenging.
  • 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.
We selected Dynamics SL because our business lives and dies by the success of our projects. A product that can tell you that you have a problem before you invoice, helps you get your project back on track much better. It's also much easier to evaluate across projects, tasks and project types-what you do well and where you need to improve.
Dynamics SL requires very little maintenance for us in part because we set it up correctly and partly because we stay current with the releases.

We have a lot of Dynamics SL experience on staff so if anything bad were to happen we could fix it right away. Fortunately this has not happen in a long time. Microsoft has improved the testing process on this product so that service packs and new version are cleaner.
21
Accounting, professional services providers, managers. We use most of the modules available.
8
We have people that do support for our Dynamics SL users so perhaps this is not a fair question for us. Just about everyone on the team can provide in-house support if we were to need it. We rarely do need it however as the software is stable for us.
  • Time Card Entry
  • Time Card Approval
  • Billing transactions that get generated automatically from time cards.
  • We charge trip charges based on distance to clients offices in Flexible Billings
  • We've created SQL Reporting Services reports that red, yellow and green light utilization from services professionals on the team.
  • We use Quick Queries to fetch worked, billed, and realized time for all.
  • We could use the purchasing and inventory modules better
  • We could integrate with nice requisitions products such as Paramount's Workplace.
  • We could share our nice project accounting data with clients on a portal that is part of SharePoint.
No
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Prior Experience with the Product
  • Vendor Reputation
Ease of converting time cards to draft invoices was probably most important to us. This is how we make money and we don't want our managers having to invest a lot of time on admin work when they can have a tool that does most of the work here automatically.
We are happy with where we ended up. I would not change anything. We were thorough and practical and have a solution that does not take us a lot of time to do our work.
  • Implemented in-house
  • Professional services company
We are a professional services firm that implements Dynamics SL, Dynamics GP and Dynamics NAV so we did this ourselves as you would expect. The process was easy and painless in part because we understand the software so well and have such a broad team of support specialists to help with questions.
No
Change management was minimal
Because we had a process that worked and only needed the software to automate that process - we did not need to go through any organizational change to be successful. Our firm is only 21 people. When we do this for clients we do often document an "as is" and "to be" workflow so that we have a blue print before we start to build.
  • Finding time to work on it while doing the rest of our work
  • Configuring the allocator module to default exactly what we needed into the draft invoices
  • Getting every one to enter time weekly-no exceptions.
Don't use a firm to help you unless they have a fair amount of experience. This product is deep and broad-get all the capabilities you paid for.
No
We provide this support ourselves to users of Dynamics SL-so we don't need to buy it. The group that we speak to at Microsoft has a lot of experience and passion about doing a good job when we do need to contact them. We have over 100 years of Dynamics SL support experience so it is rare that we need to call Microsoft.
The Boyer support team here has a team that can do environmental support, application support and custom programming support. Our clients tend to get to the right person fairly quickly due to our use of Dynamics CRM to assist with the queue. Microsoft has a team of people with 10+ years of experience when we call or email so the answers come quickly on the rare time that we need their help.
Yes
It depends on the severity of the problem. Serious problems get dealt with quickly. Issues where it is difficult to discern if the "bug" is really a design disagreement between what the user wants and what the software does obviously take longer. We can typically mitigate these differences with either a work around or some custom code for our clients.
We have gotten tremendous support from Microsoft on all 3 products-not just Dynamics SL but Dynamics NAV and Dynamics GP as well. I would say that Microsoft goes the extra mile in that they will even help debug a partner's code rather than just say "it's your fault-deal with it". This is rare for us but is happening now and we are getting the help we need for a very large Dynamics SL client.
  • Integrating sales order lines with project revenue and costs is unmatched.
  • Having project costs and revenues entered from any screen is extremely handy. You can make a Journal Entry to a project-updating both project and task
  • Hiding fields, making fields required, even creating your own screens and reports with the toolset are easy relative to most accounting software/ERP solutions.
  • Archiving data to a data warehouse if custom tables and custom programs have been added.
  • Transaction Import is not quite as easy to use as other transaction importing tools-but it's free.
  • Modifying some of the project accounting reports in Crystal is a bit difficult at times.
Yes
It works great. It's built with HTML 5 so works on any browser, tablet, or phone. This was such a huge and needed improvement to Dynamics SL! we are very happy that Microsoft made this investment as people get crabby when it takes them too long to enter their time.
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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