CRM vs ERP… what’s the difference?
Dynamics 365 Business Central, Sales Professional and Sales Enterprise are all Microsoft CRM or ERP solutions. But what is the difference between the three systems, and which should you choose for your business? Let’s take a deeper dive into each of these systems and compare what they can do…
What is Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central?
Dynamics 365 Business Central is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, designed by Microsoft as a financial operations system for small to medium businesses that allows you to manage sales, stock, projects, people and accounts all under the same system.
The solution was designed to help companies improve their back-end sales and operations processes through a user-friendly piece of software that made automation simple, including a basic Relationship Management module to track pre-sales processes such as contact management and opportunity tracking. It is also SaaS (Software as a Services), meaning it’s accessible from anywhere from any device.
Why choose Business Central? If your primary reason for changing software is to improve the management of your financials and operations, but you also need some very basic capabilities to track and report on contacts and opportunities, then Business Central is perfect for you. Business Central is best if integration with other Office 365 tools such as Outlook and Teams isn’t a priority, and you don’t envisage your company needing more CRM functionality in the future.
What is Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Professional?
Dynamics 365 Sales Professional is Microsoft’s core Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. It seamlessly integrates with M365 and your Office apps as well as the most commonly used CRM processes and capabilities, such as contacts, accounts, leads, opportunities and email marketing to help power up your sales tools.
It also offers standard integration with Dynamics 365 Business Central as well as a platform to further enhance this integration as your business requirements change.
Why choose Sales Professional? If you want a powerful cloud CRM solution to consolidate and centralise your current sales processes that will empower your sales team, provide total sales visibility to take your sales processes and pipeline reporting to the next level, and utilise your existing Office 365 tools to improve your sales conversions, then Dynamics 365 Sales Professional is the perfect fit for you.
Sales Professional allows a strong integration with Outlook to help track emails, manage tasks and appointments, and contact customers through email marketing. And although you may not need it on day one, Sales Professional offers some flexibility to customise the out-of-the-box process to further tailor the solution to your business needs. You also have the possibility of upgrading your CRM solution to a more comprehensive and customisable solution within the next few years.
What is Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise?
Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise is Microsoft’s feature-rich CRM solution. As well as providing all functionality and Office 365 collaboration within Sales Professional, it offers unrestricted customisation of processes and entities – meaning you can tailor the solution to your exact needs. It offers advanced sales features such as territories, business units, competitor tracking, sales goals, playbooks and forecasting.
Why choose Sales Enterprise? If you want to develop a solution that meets all your business needs without compromise, then Sales Enterprise is the perfect fit for your business. As well as adopting standard sales processes, it allows you to create custom entities to control data around concepts that are unique to your business or industry.
Although you may not need it on day one, you can utilise other Dynamics 365 applications such as Customer Service, Field Service or Project Operations so that all your systems are under one roof.
Dynamics 365 Pricing Table
A detailed table lives here, but you can't see it in all its glory, I recommended twisting your device to see a full price comparison
| DYNAMICS 365 BUSINESS CENTRAL: RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | DYNAMICS 365 SALES PROFESSIONAL | DYNAMICS 365 SALES ENTERPRISE |
|---|
| FUNCTIONALITY | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Contact Management | Customer & Vendor Contacts Only | Yes | Yes |
| Account Management | Customer & Vendor Contacts Only | Yes | Yes |
| Lead Management | - | Yes | Yes |
| Opportunity Management | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pipeline Tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Production Management | Yes (Inventory Module required) | Yes | Yes |
| Price Lists | Yes (Inventory Module required) | Yes | Yes |
| Task/Activity Management | Limited | Yes | Yes |
| Contact & Account History | Limited | Yes | Yes |
| Marketing Lists | Limited | Yes | Yes |
| Sales Cycles & Stages | Limited | - | Yes |
| Sales Campaigns | - | - | Yes |
| Sales Goals | - | - | Yes |
| Territory Management | - | - | Yes |
| Forecasting | - | - | Yes |
| Product Families & Relationships | - | - | Yes |
| Competitor Tracking | - | - | Yes |
| Sales Teams | - | - | Yes |
| Sales Playbooks | - | - | Yes |
| Knowledgebase | - | - | Yes |
| Embedded Intelligence | - | - | Yes |
| Business Units | - | - | Yes |
| OFFICE 365 CONNECTIVITY | |||
| Email Tracking | Limited | Yes | Yes |
| Calendar Appointments | - | Yes | Yes |
| Task Tracking | - | Yes | Yes |
| SharePoint Link | - | Yes | Yes |
| Standard Power Bi App Available | - | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile/Tablet app | - | Yes | Yes |
| FINANCE INTEGRATION | |||
| Business Central Integration | Native | Standard | Standard |
| Custom Integration | - | Yes (Development required) | Yes (Development required) |
| CONFIGURATION CAPABILITIES | |||
| Custom Entities | - | 15 | Unlimited |
| Guided Process Flows | - | 5 | Unlimited |
| Queues | - | 15 | Unlimited |
| Forms & Views | Standard Only | 2 Per Entity | Unlimited |
| Third Party App Installs | Unlimited | 10 | Unlimited |
| LICENSING | |||
| License Required | D365 Business Central Essentials | D365 Sales Professional or D365 Sales Enterprise Attach | D365 Sales Enterprise or D365 Sales Enterprise Attach |
| Team Member License Available | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Additional Storage Space Per User | - | - | Yes - 250MB Database & 2 GB File Capacity |
| D365 Customer Voice Entitlement | - | - | 2000 survey responses |
| PowerApps Entitlement | - | - | Unlimited |
| Upgrade Path | - | Yes - to Sales Enterprise | N/A |
| IMPLEMENTATION | |||
| Bam Boom Cloud Implementation Packs | Relationship Management Pack (as part of a new or existing BC Implementation) £2,500 | Sales Professional Implementation Packs. Starting from £5,500 | Contact Bam Boom Cloud |
Moving to Business Central, Sales Professional or Sales Enterprise
After learning the differences between these three systems and deciding which is best suited to your business needs, what should you do next?
Whether you’re interested in Business Central, Sales Professional or Sales Enterprise, get in touch with our tech gurus to start your journey here.
Want more information about implementing Business Central?
Want to find out more about how Sales Professional can take your finance management to the next level?
