Small companies with such operations as inventory and warehouse management, picking and packing, assembly on order or simple manufacturing may find themselves in the situation where simple accounting package doesn’t do these elements of Enterprise Resource Planning
If you recognize your case then we would like to give you small orientation paper where we are recommending Small Business ERP solutions built upon such packages as SAP B1 and Microsoft Dynamics GP. Both applications have inventory, bill of materials, purchasing and sales with integration tools and methodologies and open to professional reporting directly from SQL Server tables. Before we go ahead to details we would like to warn you upfront that these packages are more expensive in the sense of software licensing and implementation consulting hour numbers comparing to entry level systems such as QuickBooks, Peach Tree and MYOB. Plus you should be aware that both SAP and Microsoft Business Solutions deploy annual required contract model with the cost slightly below twenty percent from the Software price list. Let’s begin now with SAP BO and then compare it with GP also referred by its historical name Great Plains Dynamics:
1. SB1. Licensing model is all-in-one meaning you assign all-in-one license to the named user. All-in-one concept was modified where B1 initial software purchase requires at least one professional user with access to all the modules and additional users by suites. Let’s begin with business logic review. Sales begin with Sales Prospects and it could be compared to simple CRM or Client Relation Management module. Then in AR you have Quotes, Sales Orders, Invoices, Returns and Credit Memo. Purchasing starts with Purchase Quotation (might be referred as Requisition), Purchase Order then Goods Receipt PO and Goods Return all the way to Vendor Invoice. Landed Cost is also implemented. There is production module where simple discrete manufacturing could be implemented. There are add-ons available through ISV channel where such functionalities as POS retail terminal, Warehouse Management System with Barcoding, Ecommerce B2B or B2C shopping cart could be implemented
2. B1 openness to customizations, integrations and custom reporting. Custom software development is typically done in Microsoft Visual Studio C# or VB projects where you are including SB1 libraries and do programming by examples found in Software Development Kit documentation. In the case of ongoing integration you can either do it via SDK programming or deploying Data Transfer Workbench with ODBC data connection. Managerial custom reporting could be designed in Crystal Report Designer and the good news is the fact that SAP acquired Business Objects and working on promoting CR design for SB1
3. Dynamics GP. Licensing model is Business Ready where you have concurring users having access to predefined set of modules and you want to extend the collection of modules you purchase each additional module by its list price. We would dare to say that functionality offer is broader directly from Microsoft Business Solutions comparing to native SB1 offer probably due to the fact that Great Plains Dynamics is substantially older since it’s exception in earlier 1990th on Great Plains Dexterity software development platform
4. GP and its customizability. Here the concept includes dedicated and very powerful and at the same time semi-proprietary Integrated Development Environment and scripting language named as Great Plains Dexterity. In the recent decade Microsoft is promoting Visual Studio friendly eConnect Software Development Kit with code samples in C++, C# and VB in order to facilitate and popularize integration programming. Please note that GP has Integration Manager which is more powerful and flexible comparing to SAP B1 Data Transfer Workbench
5. Software Licenses and Implementation Cost comparison between GP and Business One. For small companies SB1 seems to be a bit cheaper but when mid-size company is deploying SAP BO for its domestic and international subsidiaries (where GP is not available in the large portion of international ERP market) the implementation cost might be comparable or even SAP might dictate higher implementation cost. For example if you are reasonably small company expanding its operation by opening small offices in China, Brazil, Russian Federation or continental Europe then SAP Business One might be better option as it is localized in the sense of supporting international languages and being compliant to international facility hosting country business legislation, audit and tax
6. Please call us 1-866-304-3265, 1-269-605-4904 (for international customers, where our representatives pick up the phone in Naperville 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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