Acumatica vs. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

It is well suited because it appears to have been designed to work across multiple industries, and we've kind of seen that it works well for the construction industry. Still, we've been here at the Acumatica Summit and have seen a lot of other industries being able to use the same product, so they have designed it well.

Incentivized

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?!

Incentivized

• Banking reconciliation: Quick, easy to understand and easy to follow to see where you left off
• Clearly displaying just enough data to answer questions without forcing us to work through copious amounts of detail or extracting data into other programs to get answers
• Billing and payment receipt is particularly helpful in the way that the data transfers into the banking section and is exported

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Remittance advices don't work.
• NACHA file to bank doesn't include vendor reference # which is the vendor invoice number.
• You can't do offsets between AR & AP when vendors are also customers to net the balances due to/from if agreed upon with the vendor/customer.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

Because Acumatica keeps updating every year and adapting to all the changes especially with AI capabilities, User interface, interactive assistant and many more. Not only that, there are so many ISVs and VARs that support and integrate with Acumatica that provides you alot of options to innovate your business needs.

Incentivized

We've already decided to continue using this software. It is too expensive for us to upgrade so we made a workaround by using the virtual computer with Windows XP installed on it. We did research replacing this software, but it was a better financial decision to keep what we had instead

Incentivized

I would give this rating because Accumatica is super easy to use. When I on boarded to work it was so easy to move through the various screens. In no time I was able to perform my daily required tasks with ease

Incentivized

Best in terms of reporting or coming up with a great dashboard. Seamlessly collaborated with teams without depending on particular device as its web version is the buddy for people with work flexibility. Licensing price and integrations can be the areas of improvement and can simplify the interface which will be easy for a new user.

Incentivized

It's always available.

there have been some performance issues

Incentivized

We used Acumatica Support directly for the first year or so. Overall it's pretty good, but sometimes the support staff wasn't educated on the customizations we had, nor was I as the Customer as I couldn't remember which things were customized and which things were out of the box, so when there was an error, there were some misunderstandings.

Incentivized

It provides one to efficiently be able to manage bookkeeping and inventory without much challenges. One can easily navigate through workflow processes while managing usages and budgets. Being able to produce reports in Word, Excel or PDF means one is able to have a working document to produce trends and graphs or produce pivot tables.

It was on General Inquiries and it's just a complex topic.

Most of the trainers are amazing, but there were a couple who simply read the training guide

Incentivized

I'd say the partner selection is critically important. I think the software is very easy to implement. It's very customizable to your business. Finding a partner that will work with you to understand your business and your needs is the critical piece to make sure that the system goes along with it.

Incentivized

The basic difference between Acumatica and similar solutions is their complexity and usability. It is less complex and easier to learn, and it is also based on a low-code platform, which makes it more convenient for the end user.

Dynamics fits the modern world, integrating new technology to ensure a complete business process is readily accessible in a rapidly moving world of "in-office" and "remote" work. It solves the need for several departments and streamlines procurement, warehouse, and finance processes.

Incentivized

From my understanding, the P.O. module is not very robust, at least the last time I inquired about it. At the time, it had a one-to-one match, with one invoice for one P.O. and that isn't practical for many businesses. I don't believe it would be an easy system to use for sending out invoices, if we had thousands of retail utility customers. We do a small number of invoices because we sell wholesale power, not retail, so we only Invoice the municipality. Not each utility customer.

• We were able to work in one system with customizations we needed in inventory and add all our grants in the same system
• Direct mail invoices was moved to an automated PO system saving time and allowing better financial tracking
• The grant module can be cumbersome requiring flip flopping to program partners etc during set up

Incentivized

• Better visibility of ROI throughout each period. Orders entered, shipped, and backlogs are very visible to authorized users upon login.
• Purchasing and inventory turns have been better realized. Out of stock parts reduced.
• A future customer portal will enhance the customer experience by pulling NAC data into a web-based UI. However, the portal is a separate expense.
• Time savings realized by being able to generate views or reports versus asking IT or accounting to pull a custom report.

Incentivized