This seemed the appropriate category for posting this, so here goes.
We have been investigating moving away from quickbooks into the Microsoft Dynamics line of products. So far from referrals provided by Microsoft, the two products which seem to fit our needs would be either NAV or GP.
From a high level perspective of managing and maintaining the products, I was wondering if anyone might be able to provide feedback on the pro’s vs con’s of these two. I’ve met with multiple solutions providers now, guys who implement NAV and guys who implement GP and it really seems like both can offer all the functionality and modules that will fit our business needs. My concern is that since these guys are implementers, they will obviously be biased towards the product they implement. Does anyone have suggestions or experience they may be able to share with regard to the two and if one may be more favorable over the other?
We are in an odd sort of market. Our company is a digital printer that creates postcards, business cards, brochures, etc, generally marketing material. We have an in-house design team which also provides contract services for our customers. In addition to this, we provide direct mailing of our printed materials as well as store small amounts of inventory for another portion of the business. The primary goals in looking for a higher grade product are to add enhanced accounting functionality beyond that which quickbooks provides, integrate with our existing custom application which drives all aspects of our business from the customer facing side to backend management of orders. In addition, having the capabilities to perform quoted jobs for the design work and the ability to manage and maintain inventory of finished products.
So due to the heavy financial nature of integrating with our existing platform to be able to automatically import order and invoice information into the new software, the main recommendation was to go with NAV. But due to the semi-manufacturing/inventory portion of the business GP was recommended.
From the information I’ve gotten from vendors, both products seem to be able to equally serve all of the needs, albeit some custom development work will be necessary on our and the solution providers side to perform the integration. I guess the decision now really comes to which software people have had more long term difficulties with, such as laterally migrating down the road to AX if necessary, maintaining the product itself in so much as updates and changes to business processes, etc. Basically, is one more friendly to modifications after the initial configuration? Hopefully this wasn’t too confusing of an explanation 