Excellent budget ERP for Medium and Small Businesses
Updated August 07, 2019

Excellent budget ERP for Medium and Small Businesses

Guillermo Villamizar | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Other

Modules Used

  • Accounting and Financials
  • Operations and Distribution
  • Administration and Reporting

Overall Satisfaction with SAP Business One

We use the product for our complete sales and purchase process, meanwhile, it is fully connected with the finance module and it creates automatically a journal entry for every transaction that affects the general ledger. The reporting module has many options and is really customizable, and you can create your own reports once you get familiar with the structures of tables and fields in the database.

Pros

  • All the modules are connected. A document you post on the sales or purchase modules gets an immediate journal entry on the finance module.
  • The system is very customizable. You can add extra fields to almost every document in the system.
  • The reporting is very good. You can create your own report via the Query Manager and then even add some layouts to the reports.

Cons

  • The Software Development Kit (SDK) has some errors that haven't been solved from previous versions of the system.
  • The Print Layout Designer (PLD) is somewhat tricky to work with.
  • The cost of each user license could be pretty expensive for some companies.
  • SAP Business One dramatically reduces the time of communication between the departments in the company.
  • The possibilities for the users to make their own reports (at least the simple ones), reduces the cost of the consulting you will need, although some consulting will always be needed at the start of the project if you don't have an in-house team.
  • All the processes in sales and purchase departments are greatly improved in our company, so users can spend more time analyzing information and scenarios, and less time doing routinary work and data input.
Yes - The implementation was performed using the SAP's methodology called ASAP (Accelerated SAP). The methodology is broken into 5 phases: Project Preparation, Business Blueprint, Realization, Final Preparation and Go Live & Support. Each phase of execution focuses on documentation, recommendations, and
implementations of SAP systems. After each and every phase executed
successfully quality check is carried out that will help the monitor to
deliverables and also focus on vital factors which are crucial for
success.
  • The licenses are usable on multi companies by the same users as long as the DB is on the same server.
  • The project could perform some delay if there is no 100% dedication from the users.
  • It's important to have a very well defined business blueprint.
It is very important that the internal team that will participate in the project, can have dedicated time to spent on the project. Usually most of the delays on the projects occurs because the assigned personnel don't have enough dedicated time to the project, and are always focused on their daily tasks.
SAP Business One is one of the best ERPs for a medium or small business in the market today. It has a wide variety of modules and it is really easy to use and set up. You can trace every transaction and know what user performs it, at what time, and in which date, for all your audit needs. When comparing SAP to its competition, SAP provides the best overall solution for the price you are paying. If your business grows, you'll always have the possibility to upgrade to a much complete version from the same manufacturer.
The license cost per user is a little expensive, and then annually you have to pay approximately 20% of the total cost of your licenses for the support from SAP, but what you get in return is totally worth it. You get a world class ERP for your company and the support is really good. The main benefit of the system is that you have all the departments in your company connected in real time.

SAP Business One Feature Ratings

Accounts payable
9
Accounts receivable
9
Global Financial Support
7
Primary and Secondary Ledgers
9
Journals and Reconciliations
9
Configurable Accounting
8
Standardized Processes
9
Billing Management
8
Cash and Asset Management
8
Travel & Expense Management
8
Budgetary Control & Encumbrance Accounting
8
Period Close
9
Inventory tracking
9
Automatic reordering
9
Location management
9
Pricing
9
Order entry
9
Credit card processing
8
Cost of goods sold
8
Order Orchestration
8
Dashboards
9
Standard reports
9
Custom reports
9
API for custom integration
9
Plug-ins
9
Role-based user permissions
9
Single sign-on capability
9
Award Lifecycle Management
9
Budgeting and Forecasting
9
Project Costing
9
Cost Capture
9
Capital Project Management
9
Customer Contract Compliance
8
Project Revenue Recognition
8
Project Planning and Scheduling
8
Task Insight for Project Managers
7
Project Mobile Functionality
7
Bids Analyzed and Compared
7
Contract Authoring
8
Contract Repository
8
Requisitions-to-Purchase Orders Integrated
9
Supplier Management
9
Transportation Planning and Optimization
9
Transportation Execution Management
8
Trade and Customs Management
8
Fulfillment Management
9
Warehouse Workforce Management
8
Production Process Design
9
Production Management
9
Configuration Management
8
Work Execution
9
Manufacturing Costs
9
Forecasting
9
Inventory Planning
9
Performance Monitoring
8
Proposal Management
7
Product Master Data Management
7

Using SAP Business One

100 - As SAP Business One is an ERP System, all the processes of the company are integrated onto it, so most of all of the staff have access to SAP B1. The areas that currently work within the system in our company are finance, sales, purchasing, marketing, inventory and IT.
5 - To support the SAP Business One software we have an in house team that perform the centralized support from one country to all the countries the company has operations on. They are usually systems or computer engineers, are very high skilled with ERP systems and are certified on the SAP products.
  • The whole accountability is registered on the system.
  • All the item tracking is performed on the system.
  • All the reports are generated directly from the information stored on the system.
  • We have interfaced SAP B1 with our logistic software.
  • We used SAP B1 on more than 30 companies in 15 different countries.
  • We connected the system with most of the local tax authorities that requires to send online information.
  • We could use SAP B1 on every company of the group.
  • We might be able to connect SAP B1 to our WMS System.
  • We could configure and use some modules of the tool that are not currently in use.
SAP Business One is the core of our financial an operations team, and they rely 100% on the system to perform their daily tasks. We are sure that are going to keep continue the system for many years to come, as the manufacturer always improve the product with new functions and tools.

Evaluating SAP Business One and Competitors

  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
  • Prior Experience with the Product
  • Vendor Reputation
SAP is the software leader for the ERP industry according to the gartner magic quadrant for ERP vendors. The usability of it's products is well known in the industry and the scalability of their products and its ease to connect with other programs let us to decide for SAP Business One as our system of choice.
If we had to the selection process all over again, I think it will be
exactly the same. As the time has gone by, and even though other
softwares can certainly be very well rated as well, we are pretty sure we
made the right choice by selecting SAP Business One as
our ERP software.

SAP Business One Implementation

Change management was minimal - When implementing a system like SAP Business One, it is very important to let people in the organization know that they are not going to be replaced by the new system, but they will perform better at their jobs and have a new tool they can rely on for performing the job a lot better and more efficient.

SAP Business One Training

  • In-person training
The training I get was a consultant level training, so it's basically a 6 weeks training covering every aspect and every module of the system. It covered most common use cases and exercise training so you can get along with the software, as well as examples so there culd be a better understanding.

SAP Business One Support

Even though the price of the support for SAP products in general is a little expensive, you really get what you are paying for. The
support team is really well trained and mostly they will get to the
root of the issue really fast and will always try their best to resolve
your issue ASAP.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
When we were implementing the SAP Business One software,
we perform most of the implementation with our in-house team, but then
we ran into a few questions that we do not know how to answer, so we
requested some help from our partner software support and it was very helpful
for finishing the implementation without any extra troubles.

Using SAP Business One

SAP Business One is one of the best ERPs for a medium or small business
in the market today. It has a wide variety of modules and it is really
easy to use and set up. You can trace every transaction and know what
user performs it, at what time, and in which date, for all your audit
needs. When comparing SAP to its competition, SAP provides the best
overall solution for the price you are paying. If your business grows,
you'll always have the possibility to upgrade to a much complete version
from the same manufacturer.
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
None
  • The reports are easy to generate.
  • The system in general is very user friendly.
  • the document traceability is really helpful.
  • Some modules could have better reports.
  • The MRP process could be improved.
  • The exchange rate window doesn't have a modification log.

SAP Business One Reliability

SAP Business One lets you connect to other systems and you can also create your own applications inside the main program, which lets you create anything the standard software doesn't do. The vendor is constantly releasing new updates based on user requests and making better certain modules and processes.
The SAP Business One software is up and running every time
you need it as it was planned. In more than 6 years that we have been
using the product, it has never been unavailable and if it ever was, it was because of a planned maintenance window scheduled in the company.
SAP Business One performance depends mostly on the speed of your internal servers, should you have the solution on premise as we do. Sometimes the system tends to be a little slower for some users when others are executing really big reports of performing some batch loads, but generally, the performance is acceptable to all the users.

Integrating SAP Business One

SAP Business One offers a lot op options to integrate, but it's important to know that if you are importing data to the system, you have to use the provided SDK (Software Development Kit) or use an application that it is based on the mentioned SDK, so the system can recognize the objects being added.
  • Several connections to local tax authorities.
  • Logistics Systems.
  • WMS Systems.
SAP Business One provides a SDK so you can do your own programming and you can extract the information directly from the database.
  • None at the moment.
None at the moment.
  • File import/export
  • API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
We perform most of our integrations of SAP Business One with the local tax authorities via a XML file exported directly from the database and then sent to the tax authorities via a FTP or SFTP. We can also configure the selected method to be a web service if the other end requires it.
If you are planning to integrate SAP Business One with another software or application, keep always in mind that you cannot perform modifications directly to the database, In other words, you cannot perform UPDATs or DELETEs statements directly onto the DB, because SAP's warranty can be voided if the DB gets corrupted.

Relationship with SAP

We performed the implementation of SAP Business One with an in house
team of consultants, we only rely on the partner for the purchase of the
licenses and the yearly maintenance. Our partner has been really
helpful with all the inquiries we've had regarding to the license
aspects of the implementation.
We performed the implementation of SAP Business One with an in house
team of consultants, we only rely on the partner for the purchase of the
licenses and the yearly maintenance. Our partner has been really
helpful with all the inquiries we've had regarding to the license
aspects of the implementation.
When we were on the negotiation process for acquiring the licenses for SAP Business One, as we have operations across multiple countries, our partner recommended us to acquire all of the licenses only in one country, because of the bigger volume we could get a bigger discount and still be able to use them across all our locations.
When we were on the negotiation process for acquiring the licenses for
SAP Business One, as we have operations across multiple countries, our
partner recommended us to acquire all of the licenses only in one
country, because of the bigger volume we could get a bigger discount and
still be able to use them across all our locations.

Upgrading SAP Business One

  • Better web interface and performance.
  • Upgraded reports.
  • Upgrade of the security module.
  • Improvements on the service layer for SQL Server version.
  • Multiple triggers for formatted searches.
  • Improvements on the production module.

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