EFaru Small Business ERP Selection SAP versus Microsoft Dynamics

Sept. 19, 2011 - PRLog -- Accounting application is often not enough for small or mid-size business especially with warehouse management, logistics and POS operations.  Such programs as Peach Tree or QuickBooks might be attractive by their price but lacking required functionality.  What is recommended is to go one step up in the ERP price hierarchy and take a look at such small business oriented applications with elements of ERP and MRP functionality as SAP Business One or even Microsoft Dynamics GP.  Just to give you initial idea about software licenses price range, please be ready to pay at least five thousand dollars prior to setting budget for consulting services.  If this price is not realistic then revisit small business accounting packages and stay in low profile until you are ready.  In this small paper we would like to take a look at SAP Business One and Dynamics GP and make some comparisons:

1.   SAP B1 as perfect small business package with elements of mid-market functionalities such as Manufacturing, CRM, MRP, Inventory Management with Picking and Packing, Warranty Contracts, Requisition Management and Human Resources.  Database platform is Microsoft SQL Server and current version is 8.81 as we are writing these lines in September 2011.  Licensing is based on all-in-one model and one professional user is required for entry level.  It is priced around three thousand dollars for one professional named user

2.   Dynamics GP or how it was known formerly Great Plains Dynamics.  If you take a look at pricelist you might be in impression that it is in the same diapason comparing to SAP BO.  It might be a bit more expensive however because such additional features as manufacturing or human resource should be purchased at the extra cost and not included in Business Ready license.  GP has longer implementation history and in our opinion its functionality is richer comparing to SB1.  It is also hosted in Microsoft SQL Server and current version is 2010

3.   Small Business ERP maturity or life cycle.  Great Plains Software initiated its offer on the ERP market with Dynamics in earlier 1990th and prior to that epoch it was successfully offering Great Plains Accounting for DOS.  SAP acquired its Business One predecessor from software development company in Israel and it was a way later comparing to GPS.  Lifecycle is also a way to look at Corporate ERP maturity and perspectives.   GP is older and more mature while SB1 is in its young adult expansion

4.   Great Plains historical offer to small businesses.  It was Small Business Manager later renamed into Small Business Financials.  The catch was to scale down Dynamics.dic functionality and make cosmetic changes to user interface to become more intuitive.  It was a surprise for us but Microsoft Business Solutions abandoned this business line and the last SBF version was 9.0.  Recommended migration path was to Dynamics GP Business Ready

5.   Integration and Customization options.  Let’s begin with Dynamics GP.  Here you have its historical flexibility via Dexterity software development.  It also has eConnect SDK which is friendly to Microsoft Visual Studio C# or VB programmer.  And on the top of that there is Integration Manager.  Now what is offering SAP B1?  First of all it is Software Development Kit also adapted for Microsoft Visual Studio coder.  And plus there Data Transfer Workbench which could be compared to Great Plains Integration Manager but we have to make our personal opinion that it is not as powerful and flexible as IM

6.   If you are expanding internationally.  Historically Great Plains Software had resellers in Europe, Russia and other international spots.  When Microsoft acquired GPS the international offer was deemphasized and restricted to English and Spanish speaking countries excluding continental Spain.  Business One is in better position as it is localized and supported in most of the world regions including China, India, Russia, Brazil and Europe

7.   Please call us 1-866-304-3265, 1-269-605-4904 (for international customers, where our representatives pick up the phone in Naperville, IL and St. Joseph, MI call centers).  help@efaru.com.  We have local presence in Atlanta, Chicago, Southern California, South West Michigan, Houston and Dallas areas of Texas. We serve customers USA, Canada, Mexico and Brazil nationwide and internationally via web sessions and phone conferences (Skype is welcomed). Our consultants speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Chinese.  One of our experiences is international Corporate ERP and Consolidated Financial reporting

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Andrew Karasev is SAP Business One consultant and Great Plains Certified Master, MVP, MCSE and MSDBA, help@efaru.com 1-866-304-3265, 1-269-605-4904. He is also the initiator of eFaru project http://www.efaru.com and founder of Alba Spectrum information space