ACCPAC -v- Great Plains - Any thoughts? 1

[SQLBI]

Hi,

My organisation have shortlisted ACCPAC and MS Great Plains as choices for a new accounting system.

On the face of things the 2 systems appear to share the same functionality in a variety of areas, but i was wondering if anyone could come up with any arguments for and against each product.

Thanks in advance.


Leigh Moore
Business Systems Manager
Vets4Pets Veterinary Group

http://www.vets.co.uk

 

[debit1]

We are currently using ACCPAC ver. 4.2 on a Pervasive DB. We are currently looking at changing to Great Plains. ACCPAC has been very buggy here and we have spent considerable money with support staff. The worst part is that when our support people get stuck, ACCPAC is of no help. We have, and have had, some of the same issues as on other posts on this forum and we are no closer to resolving them than they are. From what I have seen so far, Great Plains is much more feature rich and intuitive. With ACCPAC it is take it or leave it or pay for a 3rd party vendor solution. I also believe that MS SQL is superior to Pervasive. ACCPAC will run on MS SQL but the licensing for ACCPAC is substantially higher than with Great Plains. If you'd like to discuss the choice more fully, just oost here.

 

[CustomMedia]

First, I would suggest that if you really investigate both products you will find they are essentially identical. Where I find buyers frequently place lower consideration than they should is in the area of local support. i.e. Do you have a number of resellers in your area who are experienced and knowledgeable available to assist you. The more resellers you have available who are experienced the better support you will have available. Don't turn to the vendor for support, their main business model is not in providing end-user friendly support.

Second, given the business you are in I would suggest that you base your decision on factors such as what third party add-ons are available today that may help you run your business.

Third, what other areas of your business could leverage your accounting software. For example, ACCPAC has an excellent web-based CRM that is easy to use, easy to deploy and will fully integrate (today) with their accounting. How could your business benefit by giving your staff on line access to the history of your customers?

Finally, if someone has found ACCPAC version 4.2 to be unstable my experience suggest that you want to find another reseller to assist you or you have some basic networking issues that are making themselves apparent through the accounting application. I have had customers run v4.2 for three years with no issues at all.