Within the professional service industry one of the more commonly known ERP systems is Deltek, but does that really make it the best solution for you?
Microsoft Dynamics GP is also well known in the mid-market space and offers a solution for all types of organizations. Microsoft’s strategy then becomes to have Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) who are the true specialists in their respective industries or practices to be able to meet the specifics for a particular niche. There are ISVs who specialize in practices such as job costing or project tracking and there are others who specialize in industry specific solutions like Deltek who focus on professional services, engineering and architecture firms.
Here are some reasons why you should consider Dynamics GP with the ISV solution before implementing a Deltek Management solution:
- Integration between your operations and financial system. With Project Suite, your operations are fully integrated to Dynamics GP therefore creating a tighter link between the two, which allows your company to obtain more detailed and specific project-based reports.
- Robust cost center and inter-company transaction capabilities. Dynamics GP already has a very flexible multi-company functionality. When you add an ISV solution like Project Suite, you can now have the opportunity to automate your inter-company transactions by project so that the markups and costs are allocated and properly reflected within the appropriate company.
- Cost of implementing a module vs. the cost of implementing a completely new solution. If you are already on Microsoft Dynamics GP, are comfortable working within this environment and have already spent many hours personalizing your reports, you should keep this in mind when calculating your costs of a new system. If you were to migrate to a new solution, these reports would need to be recreated and you should consider the time required to do this. There will always be a learning curve when a new process is introduced, but at least this one will be shorter since your organization would already be used to the interface and the standard accounting processes that will remain the same.
As a last piece of advice, when deciding between Microsoft Dynamics GP and the suite of Deltek products (or any solution that you are implementing!), make a list of the functionalities that are essential and which are nice-to-have. Where the costs can quickly increase without you realizing is when these nice-to-have features that look great in a demo could take a long time to implement and are not always included in the solution that you need right now.
By JOVACO Solutions,
Good post. Thanks for this post.