Well, it probably depends on your definition of “big.” Microsoft defines its mid-market as
companies with revenues of $5 to $500 million. $500 million is big, but Microsoft has a pretty hefty range at work. The bottom line is, there are a lot of $5 million companies running Microsoft Dynamics GP, and depending on what your business objectives are, the savings in a cloud environment mean much smaller organizations find that GP often has a niche to meet their needs. In fact, a good number of our newest accounts at SMB Suite have been smaller organizations jumping up from Quickbooks.
Whether or not GP is a fit for you also depends on your budget. If you have $600 to spend on software, go with QuickBooks. Microsoft Dynamics GP is not for you. But if you’re willing to consider the real cost of software that no longer meets your business needs, you might come to the realization that $600 is just money wasted if QuickBooks falls short of your requirements.
Here’s an analogy that I just made up on the spur of the moment. Once upon a time, you had only
1 sales rep working for your company. And your phone system had only 1 outbound line. Most of
the time that sufficed. Now there are 4 sales reps working for your company and you still only
have one outbound line. So sure, you can say you have a phone and it doesn’t cost a lot of
money, but at any given time you have 3 sales reps sitting around doing nothing as they wait for a
phone line to free up. It’s pretty obvious from my rather silly example here that this would not be a good business practice.
Can you really afford to have 3 sales reps twiddling their thumbs? What’s the cost to you in lost
business? Are you in the business of paying people to do nothing? And do you doubt that my analogy holds water? Let’s look at software now. Once upon a time, you were a one-person shop. You bought QuickBooks. Maybe it was even recommended to you by your accountant. It was really, really cheap and easy to use, too. A good deal.
Now you’re a 10 person company. There’s you (the owner), your son or daughter who just joined
the business, 4 sales reps, a marketing manager, office manager, bookkeeper, and a customer
service rep. Your accounting needs have grown beyond the basics that QuickBooks provides.
Your business is more complex. Maybe you should look at QuickBooks Enterprise. But (and hey,
you had to know there would be a “but”) you’re also continuing to grow. You’re moving into new
markets. Your transaction volume has tripled in the last 5 years. How much longer will an edition
of QuickBooks meet your needs?
So do you spend money moving to QuickBooks Enterprise now only to find out in a year or two
that you’ve outgrown that, too?
It’s time to move up to the next level altogether. Do you actually know what a one or two user
Microsoft Dynamics GP system costs, or have you just heard rumors? And a better question might
be, do you know how much you GET when you purchase Dynamics GP? That’s an easy question.
Here’s a list of all the modules that some with Dynamics GP right out of the box:
