Microsoft Dynamics GP has long been Microsoft’s flagship ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) solution. If you are a Dynamics GP user, you no doubt appreciate how your feature-rich ERP has benefited your organization. It has provided a complete business and financial management solution for your organization, automating and facilitating ordering, selling, invoicing, and reporting. But now may be the time to consider making a move from dynamics GP to Microsoft Dynamics 365 BC (Business Central).
To determine if the time is right to move from Dynamics GP to Dynamics 365 BC, you might consider some of these advantages of switching.
The freedom of the cloud
Microsoft Dynamics GP, as an on-premise solution, works well for businesses whose employees are office based, whether in one or more physical locations.
Cloud-based Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central supports an increasingly mobile workforce. Using the power and freedom of the cloud, your users can work anytime, anywhere, and on any device. Sales teams, field services reps, executives on the go can all benefit from a switch to Dynamics BC.
Ease of integration
Built as a standalone system, Dynamics GP may not easily integrate with your other Microsoft products.
Because Dynamics BC is designed as an application within the Office 365 product suite, integration with other Microsoft products and processes is seamless. Integration with Office 365 will increase your organization’s productivity with improved decision-making tools and built-in intelligence. Your team probably makes full use of Office 365, so the switch to Dynamics BC makes sense.
Adaptability
With Dynamics GP, what you buy is what you get.
Business Central allows ongoing adaptability. In addition to existing product collaboration, BC allows integrable add-on apps tailored to your business. You can enhance reporting capabilities by adding Power BI and make your processes more efficient with Flow. If your company could benefit from a tailor-made solution, the switch to Dynamics BC makes sense.
Better reporting
When your business was in the early stage of developing sales, marketing, and customer databases, Dynamics GP worked well.
Business Central, with its availability of data via the cloud, enables improved reporting and analytics capabilities. For small or mid-sized businesses that are strategically focusing on near-term growth, this is especially valuable. Power BI is embedded within Business Central thus allowing your users to define data categories and attributes and produce dimensional reporting that can be sliced and diced in any way useful to you. If Dynamics GP’s third-party reporting is not robust enough for your growing SMB, it’s time to switch to Business Central.
Predictable costs
Dynamics GP’s licensing model requires considerable upfront capital expenditure and recurring maintenance fees. When it comes time to upgrade, some users wonder if it will be worth the cost in time and resources. They may delay or skip upgrades thus losing out on improvements and fixes.
Business Central eliminates upgrade disruptions by providing automatic, behind-the-scene updates every six months via a sandbox environment. And BC’s subscription model allows for user changes as needed as it scales with your company. If you’re ready for Microsoft to manage your ERP solution’s infrastructure for you, it’s time to switch to Dynamics BC.
If you are interested in learning more about the differences between Microsoft Dynamics GP and Business Central, and whether now would be a good time to switch, Contact our experts at BroadPoint. Microsoft Gold Certified ERP partner BroadPoint has helped over 600 organizations deploy Microsoft Dynamics solutions. Our team has the experience and skills to support you.
By BroadPoint, www.broadpoint.net