Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central vs. SYSPRO

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

If your company is an ISO or AS9100 type company that needs to maintain traceability of your products throughout the manufacturing process this is a good fit. Additionally, it performs well with inventory tracking and warehouse management. If you as just a basic job shop that just needs basic functions such as inventory, scheduling, work orders, etc...I would recommend using a product more manageable and less expensive such as ShopTech E2 Systems.

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

• Integrations with peripheral applications e.g. eCommerce websites.
• SYSPRO does this very well through the use of it's web services and e.NET business objects. This makes integrations very easy.
• Non-stocked configurable product production and management.
• Through the use of SYSPRO's product configurator, configurable products are easily set-up and managed by the use of selections, criteria and tying it to parts. This is particularly useful for companies that produce configurable products and want to give their customers the ability to customize.
• Document Management.
• Out of the box, SYSPRO provides document management through crystal reports (Syspro Reporting service Reports and Documents for invoices, order acknowledgements etc.).
• Accounting functions like Nightly Processing, Month end closing, General Ledger set-up etc. are easy to set-up and manage in SYSPRO.

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

• Their Projects and Contracts module is not as good as other ERP systems I have used. Tracking by Project for Sales and Purchases is cumbersome as it uses Jobs as the connecting point for the Projects and not the Project ID itself.
• They do not have a way to have system to allow Non-Stock Part Codes to be kept in a table that you can use in Purchasing that go to a particular GL code which you can use over and over again. It only has stocking items, and all Items in a Warehouse go to that Warehouse GL code.
• Similar to above the GL coding is not on the product but on the Warehouse that product is located in. I prefer it to be by Product not Warehouse.

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

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

I've heard many reports from our users stating how difficult Syspro is to use and navigate. From an average standpoint, the Syspro Administrator has to invest a lot of time in setting up the user for success. Once the groundwork is applied, SYSPRO's overall usability becomes fair easier to the average user.

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.

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

I believe Syspro has more meat to it than the other software I have used in the past. I have worked with software programs that were in-house written and prepackaged programs as well. Our company is unique in many ways but is also pretty standard for manufacturing. We are too large for a program like QuickBooks but too small for a much bigger ERP. Syspro is about the right size program for our company. The program has the ability to turn modules on that we need and customize whatever we choose we want at the time.

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

• Our resent upgrade from Syspro 6 to Syspro 7 has had a few bumps in the road and the response time from the support time can be frustrating at times.
• The reporting systems are a powerful tool that we take advantage off often.
• The rest of the product is working as the people that use it.

Incentivized