Midsize Business ERP ' Great Plains Standard vs. Professional

If you are in the growing mode and reach the point when you need to move away from old accounting application and incorporate something, which could be considered as industry standard ERP, you should know general direction and where to look for additional information.  Microsoft Business Solutions gives you several ERP packages to choose from: Microsoft Great Plains Standard/Professional/Small Business Financials, Microsoft Navision, Microsoft Axapta, Microsoft CRM.  In this small article we will concentrate on Microsoft Great Plains selection options.<'xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

• Pricing.  Microsoft Great Plains Professional price is about two times higher than Microsoft Great Plains Standard.  You should probably know the history.  Current Great Plains Standard was formerly available on Pervasive SQL and ctree and the product line name was Great Plains Dynamics.  This product was targeted to midsize and small businesses (with growing potential, for tiny business you should consider MYOB, Peachtree, Quickbooks, etc.)
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• Database.  Currently both products (since version 7.5) are available on MS SQL Server.  Standard is also available on MSDE and MS SQL Select 2005.  Here we are talking about midsize business and MS SQL Server 2000/2005
• Additional Modules.  Obviously both products have standard set of modules: General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, SOP, POP, Inventory Control, Payroll, HR ' Human Resources.  However if you are large/midsize business you may need additional modules: Customer/Vendor Consolidation, Intercompany Transactions, Manufacturing, Service Suite and others. 
• GP Standard Limitations.  Number of GPS users has cap 10 users.  Also in Payroll/HR you are limited to 500 employees
• eConnect.  Large corporation usually has inhouse web and software developers.  In this case you can consider creating web interface for multiple users (and doing so avoid numerous and expensive GP users licenses).  eConnect is available for both GPP and GPS.  In our opinion, however ' this is temporary gap ' when Microsoft Business Solutions will decide that eConnect should be user-licensed this might be stopped.  eConnect is currently not available for Small Business Financials.
• New Version.  MBS Great Plains Standard and Professional version 9.0 is scheduled to be released in September 2005
• Industries.  Great Plains Professional should be considered as ERP platform in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Beverages, Apparels, Conglomerates, Textile, Services, Non-for-profit, Transportation &Logistics, Warehouse management/Shipping & Receiving, Distribution, Wholesale & Retail, Government, Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology, Placement & Recruiting, Healthcare & Hospitals.
• Cross-Platform integrations.  Combining Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains ERP with non-Microsoft Business System or CRM: Lotus Notes Domino, Oracle, DB2

Good luck and you can always seek our help in customization, implementation, integration and support.  Call us: 1-866-528-0577 or 1-630-961-5918, help@albaspectrum.com">help@albaspectrum.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies ' USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving Chicago, California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York, Australia, UK, Canada, Germany, Continental Europe, Russia and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com