QuickBooks – For Business Just Starting Out
The most universal accounting software available in the market, QuickBooks helps small and medium-sized businesses execute basic accounting and financial management tasks like generating invoices, tracking expenses, managing payroll, and receiving payments.
Even without an accounting background, QuickBooks ease of use and different plans to fit different budgets and requirements with increased functionality available while moving up the chain is part of why it is one of the most popular accounting software on the market.
Dynamics 365 Business Central – For Business Looking to Grow
Microsoft’s cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution for small to midsized businesses, Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), has been recognized as the best ERP in 2024 by Forbes. Designed to automate and streamline business processes, D365 BC provides organizations the flexibility to customize the application to fit their unique business needs, whether in cannabis, distribution, manufacturing, construction, or more.
More than just accounting and financial management, Business Central allows organizations to connect sales, services, finance, and operations, managing their entire business from one platform. Backed by the full might of Microsoft’s infrastructure, D365 BC benefits from extensive security updates and a massive environment of additional applications and extensions. Microsoft’s significant investment in security ensures that Business Central remains a secure and reliable choice for businesses.
Additionally, the extensibility of D365 BC means that it can be modified to meet specific business requirements, providing a tailored solution that grows with the company. This flexibility makes it an ideal choice for businesses looking for an ERP system that can adapt and scale with their evolving needs.
Dynamics 365 BC provides companies with comprehensive tools and workflows to:
- Connect functions across the enterprise
- Integrate operations
- Automate supply chains
- Improve customer interactions
- Make data-driven decisions to accelerate growth and revenue
QuickBooks vs. Dynamics 365 Business Central – Which is Best?
Features
While QuickBooks is solely for accounting, Dynamics 365 BC offers a lot more features and capabilities as it is a full-scale ERP solution. Beyond finance and accounting, there’s modules for managing inventory, projects, customer relationships, HR, and more.
Scalability
QuickBooks is excellent for smaller businesses but once a company grows – new products/services, more employees, additional companies, etc. – it is unable to handle the complexities of additional business processes.
On the other hand, Dynamics 365 BC can grow with your business to handle business processes such as inventory management, project management, reporting, and forecasting. It’s easily scalable and can be customized to serve any unique business or industry requirements.
Automation & Integration
Compared to Dynamics 365 Business Central, QuickBooks lacks capabilities and connectivity. Being limited to accounting functionality, businesses rely on third-party add-on which increases the cost of the overall solution, requires additional maintenance and training, and further complicates business processes.
With Advanced Integration with other Dynamics 365 or Microsoft/Office 365 solutions, Business Central connects workflows across accounting, sales, purchasing, inventory, and distribution; users can automate the business operations for a streamlined process.
D365 BC also supports third-party integrations through AppSource but those applications – as with all apps in the Microsoft universe – are built on a common data model so businesses are not dealing with compatibility issues, complex configurations, or middleware when non-standard features are needed.
Security & Audit Controls
QuickBooks easy setup also means fewer accounting and audit controls. As more users require access to the system, weak user permissions can limit some users or provide too much access to others. QuickBooks also fails to keep a consistent audit trail of changes to master records or user logins. And with some activities being done outside the system in spreadsheets or other avenues, this can be a huge issue for regulatory compliance.
With Dynamics 365 Business Central, businesses have more granular options to limit functions by permission, groups, dimensions, or accounts. For additional security, organizations can also enable built-in workflows. BC also offers a robust audit trail that tracks changes made to data with a historical log of activities, providing protection against errors and employee mismanagement. For industries that require strict compliance measures such as Cannabis ERP, this method of auditing is a game changer.
Reporting & Analytics
QuickBooks provides basic reporting and generic insights but requires third-party add-ons to extend its reporting capabilities. With the ability to consolidate date from multiples sources, Dynamics 365 BC with embedded Power BI has the flexibility and customizability for advanced reporting with dashboards and real-time data visualizations.
Final Thoughts
The main differentiator here is the comprehensive nature of Business Central. QuickBooks is an excellent entry point for small businesses, and it’s perfectly fine for a business to start with QuickBooks, especially if their needs are limited to simple accounting. However, as businesses grow, they often encounter growing pains with QuickBooks. This is where Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC) shines.
While QuickBooks is great for getting off the ground, many businesses eventually migrate to Dynamics 365 Business Central to scale and manage their business operations within a single platform. D365 BC helps maximize revenue and reduce overhead, ensuring your business continues to grow without the limitations that might arise from sticking with a simpler solution.
Ready to take your business to the next level? Reach out to our team to discover how our QuickBooks to Business Central migration services can streamline your operations and boost your growth.
