Welcome to the world of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, where the quest to find the perfect software to streamline your IT and accounting/finance processes is an ongoing challenge. You've likely heard of NetSuite - a powerhouse in the ERP landscape - and you're wondering what alternatives are out there.
In this blog post, we will dive into a detailed comparison of NetSuite and its major competitors, including Sage Intacct, QuickBooks, Acumatica and more. Our goal is to provide you with an unbiased, comprehensive overview of each platform's capabilities, features, and limitations, (with a slight lean towards NetSuite as a preferred solution, given we are a NetSuite Solution Provider).
NetSuite is a powerful cloud-based business management software suite designed to help companies streamline and automate their processes. NetSuite saves time, reduces errors, and helps businesses stay organized and compliant with industry regulations. It also helps reduce manual data entry and provides real-time visibility into all areas of the business.
With its integrated features, businesses can quickly and easily access the data they need to make informed decisions. It is an all-in-one solution that provides all the functionality you could ever need to run your business. Some it's key features include:
With its easy-to-use and intuitive interface, NetSuite helps businesses of all sizes manage their operations more efficiently.
What sets NetSuite apart from other business management software solutions is its ability to manage multiple functions across a single system. It covers everything you'd need to run your business, making it incredibly cost-effective.
NetSuite offers a range of add-on modules for specific industries, such as retail, manufacturing and IT services. It also offers a SuiteSucess implementation methodology, which allows you to go-live NetSuite within 100 days, making it one of the most efficient implementation options on the market.
One of the features that makes NetSuite stand out is it's financial consolidation. NetSuite OneWorld allows companies to manage their finances for all of their entities in one system. This is not easy, and many ERPs have to implement complicated, costly and awkward customisations to be able to offer this.
Finally, and arguably the most important, is that NetSuite is highly scalable. It can grow alongside your business, not against it. For many ERP systems, adding new entities, modules and integrations can be a massive headache, most of which require complex development time.
NetSuite is extremely simple to customise, a lot of which is point and click, so can be done without having to enlist the help of your implementation partner. This allows businesses to grow without the need to invest in additional hardware, software or development time. To find out more about NetSuite's modules and implementations, check out our comprehensive guide which explains everything you need to know about NetSuite pricing.
In terms of functionality, NetSuite has it all. However, some areas are a bit more lacking than others. For example, the project management module is fairly basic, so if you have complex project management needs then it may be better to go for a different solution. NetSuite is also among the pricier ERP options available, which might make it unaffordable for some small businesses.
Sage Intacct is a cloud-based financial management system designed to help organisations grow and succeed. It offers powerful financial solutions to help businesses streamline processes, improve visibility, and drive better results. It enables businesses to manage their financial operations with real-time insights, better accuracy, and deeper analysis.
Sage Intacct offers solutions for financial management, billing and collections, inventory management, and more. It also integrates with a variety of applications and services to provide a comprehensive solution for financial management and reporting.
Sage Intacct is well-regarded for its advanced financial management features. It has strong core accounting functions, project accounting, and support for multi-entity and multi-currency transactions. This makes it an excellent choice for organisations that require in-depth financial analysis and comprehensive reporting.
Sage Intacct also has a user-friendly interface and modular design, which makes the software accessible for accounting teams and easy to scale. Businesses can add features as needed, allowing them to adapt the system to their requirements without overwhelming users with unnecessary tools.
Sage Intacct also connects seamlessly with popular applications like Salesforce and other CRM, HR, and ERP systems, allowing organisations to build a cohesive application ecosystem to meet their unique needs.
Despite Intaccts good accounting functionality, it lacks pretty much everything else. There's no native HCM, Payroll, CRM, WMS, Ecommerce, or Retail modules. As such, integrations with third-party apps would be required to plug these gaps. Although this is possible, it will likely slow down the system and increase the risk of error.
Global tax and compliance support is also somewhat limited, with the strongest support focused on US and UK based companies. This lack of native tax solutions for many other countries can make it less suitable for organisations with significant international operations.
Lastly, while Sage Intacct provides a good range of standard reports, users needing highly customised reporting often encounter limitations. Customised reports frequently require third-party tools or specialised development, which can increase costs and make it more challenging to achieve tailored insights.
NetSuite outperforms Intacct in various aspects, making it a better choice for some businesses. Here's why:
QuickBooks Financial Management is an accounting software system designed and developed by Intuit, Inc. It is one of the most popular accounting software systems available and is used by millions of small businesses around the world, particularly across the US.
QuickBooks Financial Management is a comprehensive and easy-to-use accounting system that helps small businesses manage their finances and operations more efficiently. It provides users with a wide range of features and capabilities which help automate and streamline their accounting tasks.
QuickBooks is a popular choice for small businesses due to its affordability and ease of use. Designed with simplicity in mind, it offers accessible financial management features, including invoicing, expense tracking, and basic financial reporting. This straightforward approach makes QuickBooks an attractive option for businesses that may not have dedicated finance teams.
Another advantage of QuickBooks is its strong brand reputation and extensive user base, which translates to a wide array of learning resources, community support, and compatibility with many financial tools. This makes it easier for businesses to find support and solutions for common issues.
Quickbooks can also integrate well with a wide range of third-party apps. This allows businesses to enhance their QuickBooks’ functionality as they grow, helping them build a more comprehensive toolkit while using a familiar software foundation.
Despite its strengths, QuickBooks has some limitations. It is primarily designed for small businesses, so its feature set can be restrictive for companies with complex financial needs or larger user bases. For example, QuickBooks limits user numbers depending on the plan, with the Small Business Advanced package supporting a maximum of 25 users, which may not suffice for growing companies.
Another drawback is it's limited overall functionality. It only offers basic financial features, and doesn't offer advanced financial workflows such as multi-entity consolidation, fixed assets, and multi-book accounting, which may be critical for companies needing more comprehensive financial control.
QuickBooks' inventory and project management tools are also basic at best, and may not be suitable for businesses with advanced needs in manufacturing, distribution, or resource allocation. This lack of advanced functionality often necessitates an upgrade to a more robust ERP solution as the business expands.
Acumatica Cloud ERP is a comprehensive, cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution designed to help small and midsize companies manage their financials, operations, customer relationships, and more. It provides a single integrated system for a wide range of business processes, including financial management, customer relationship management, distribution and inventory management, project accounting, and more.
It is designed to be easily configured, allowing businesses to customize the software to meet their specific needs. The solution can be accessed from any device, from any location, ensuring businesses have the most up-to-date information when they need it. Acumatica Cloud ERP also provides advanced reporting and analytics capabilities, which enable businesses to easily monitor and analyze their performance.
Acumatica Cloud ERP is known for its comprehensive cloud-based functionality designed for small to midsize companies. It offers a single, integrated platform that includes financial management, CRM, inventory and distribution management, project accounting, and more. This broad functionality allows businesses to manage multiple aspects of their operations within one system, which can improve efficiency and data accuracy.
Another key strength of Acumatica is its customisability and flexibility; businesses can easily tailor the software to meet their specific needs, thanks to its configurable modules and user-friendly design. Acumatica also provides remote accessibility from any device with internet access, enabling real-time data access for users in various locations and making it particularly beneficial for remote teams or companies with multiple locations.
However, Acumatica has a few limitations to consider. Its reporting capabilities and customisation can sometimes require advanced technical knowledge or third-party tools. Out-of-the-box reports are often limited, and users may need programming expertise to create more complex, customised reports, which can be a hurdle for companies without in-house technical skills.
Another potential drawback is that Acumatica is not a "pure" cloud ERP system. Acumatica gives customers the option to deploy the software as a single-tenant solution, meaning each customer has their own instance of the software rather than sharing resources on a unified platform. This means customers use different versions of the software. While some updates are simple, customisations can break with each new release, resulting in added maintenance.
Finally, multi-country support and foreign currency management are limited. While Acumatica provides some international functionality, such as intercompany accounting, it may require separate instances per country. This results in a lack of real-time foreign exchange feeds and native multi-subsidiary management, which can be restrictive for businesses operating across multiple regions.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is an all-in-one business management solution that helps small and midsize businesses automate and connect their financials, sales, service, and operations. It includes a comprehensive set of integrated applications, such as financials, sales, customer service, project management, supply chain, and operations.
Business Central helps businesses streamline processes, improve customer relationships, and make better decisions with real-time insights. It integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Office 365, giving users easy access to the tools they already use, such as Outlook, Teams, and Power BI.
Business Central is a cloud-based solution that's designed to be flexible and scalable, so businesses can easily add or remove applications as needed. It's also designed to be secure, so businesses can be sure their data is safe and protected.
Business Central integrates smoothly with the wider suite of Microsoft products, including Office 365, Power BI, and Teams. This integration allows users to easily access and work within familiar applications like Excel, Outlook, and Word, streamlining workflows and enhancing productivity. With Power BI, users can generate in-depth analytics and visualisations directly within Business Central, creating a unified experience that reduces the need for data exports or switching between applications.
Business Central offers both cloud and on-premise deployment options, allowing companies to choose the model that best suits their business requirements and IT infrastructure. For companies with specific security or compliance needs, the on-premise option provides control over data and system management, while the cloud version allows for automatic updates, scalability, and reduced IT maintenance costs.
Business Central is designed with a modern, intuitive interface that feels familiar to users of other Microsoft applications. This user-friendly design reduces the learning curve and facilitates adoption across teams, as employees are more likely to quickly adapt to the system. The platform also includes built-in tutorials, guided workflows, and role-based dashboards, which further simplify onboarding.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is not ideally suited for complex, multi-subsidiary organisations with global operations. While it can manage basic multi-currency transactions, it lacks native financial consolidation capabilities, which can require separate databases for each subsidiary. This setup can lead to laborious month-end reconciliations and challenges in gaining consolidated financial visibility across regions.
Although Business Central is customisable, many advanced functionalities—such as payroll, advanced CRM, and complex reporting—rely on third-party applications or partner-developed modules. Customising Business Central requires working with Visual Studio and often requires assistance from Microsoft partners, who typically charge on a time and materials basis.
This reliance on partners for customisations can increase costs, especially during updates or when troubleshooting issues. Additionally, customisations may not always be seamlessly maintained through updates, leading to extra costs and potential downtime.
Out-of-the-box, Business Central offers basic reporting capabilities but lacks the depth and flexibility of more advanced ERP solutions. Pre-built reports have limited filter options and slice-and-dice capabilities, and users cannot easily drill down into specific transaction details without additional configuration. While Business Central can integrate with Power BI for enhanced reporting, this setup requires partner assistance and additional costs, which can be prohibitive for companies without a budget for extensive third-party customisation.
SAP Business One is an integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution designed to streamline the operations of small and medium-sized businesses. It provides users with an all-in-one solution for managing their finances, inventory, customer relationships, and other business processes.
The software's dashboards, analytics, and reporting tools make it easy to gain insights into the performance of the business. SAP Business One integrates with other software solutions, like SAP HANA, to provide an even more comprehensive view of operations. It also offers customizable features to meet specific business needs.
SAP Business One is designed to cater to the unique needs of various industries, providing tailored features that help streamline specialised processes. For example, in manufacturing, SAP B1 includes capabilities like production planning, bill of materials (BOM) management, and inventory tracking, allowing manufacturers to manage production schedules and control costs more effectively.
Compared to larger ERP systems like NetSuite, SAP Business One provides an affordable entry into ERP for small and medium-sized businesses. Its modular structure allows businesses to start with core functions and gradually add more advanced modules, which helps control costs by only investing in what’s necessary as the business grows. Additionally, SAP B1’s cloud deployment options can reduce upfront costs, as businesses avoid the need for extensive on-premise infrastructure.
SAP Business One includes customisable dashboards that present critical business information in a visual, easy-to-understand format. Users can set up dashboards to track key performance indicators (KPIs), such as sales, cash flow, inventory levels, and production costs, which provides a real-time view of business performance without requiring advanced technical skills. The built-in analytics tools also allow users to generate reports and access insights quickly, helping business leaders make informed decisions based on data.
SAP Business One is generally best suited for businesses with fewer than 350 employees, as performance can decline with larger user numbers. For companies needing multi-subsidiary financial consolidation, SAP B1 requires additional add-ons, which can increase costs and complexity. As such, SAP Business One is not suitable for companies with complex customisation and integration needs.
Creating advanced reports beyond the standard options in SAP B1 can be challenging for users. Custom reports depend on SAP Crystal Reports, which requires technical skills and may result in consulting costs for companies lacking internal technical resources.
Lastly, while SAP Business One is available in the cloud, it is typically deployed as a single-tenant solution hosted on third-party infrastructure, requiring manual upgrades. This structure can result in additional consulting fees and challenges in maintaining customisations through upgrades, making it less seamless than multi-tenant cloud solutions like NetSuite.
We've mentioned about cloud vs on premise solutions a lot in this blog. Still not sure what the differences are? Check out our blog post to find out more!
In conclusion, choosing the right ERP solution can be challenging. Our comparison of NetSuite and its competitors offers insights to help you decide. Each has pros and cons, so select one that fits your company's needs and growth goals. Although we are a NetSuite solution provider, we have worked with many different ERPs, and know which ones are suitable to which companies. Get in touch and we will help you in your ERP evaluation journey.