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Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central vs SAP Business One vs SAP ERP comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the ERP category, the mindshare of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is 6.5%, up from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Business One is 3.6%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP ERP is 19.0%, down from 22.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
ERP
 

Featured Reviews

StefaanVandesompele - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides end-to-end accounting and finance module at reasonable pricing
365 Business Central integrates with Office 365 to streamline the invoice approval process. This allows businesses to manage and approve invoices efficiently within a unified system. Our organization plans to transition to the Dynamics 365 environment, where various functions will be centralized. We will consolidate everything into one system instead of maintaining multiple databases for each country with local data. Dynamics 365 is fully integrated, which should address many of our challenges when we migrate to this new environment. We look forward to seeing how it performs in practice. The project is progressing well overall, though integrating it with other tools and ensuring Dynamics 365 operates smoothly can be challenging. Dynamics 365 is user-friendly and effective. However, a deeper understanding of its technical capabilities and architecture might be necessary to optimize its use fully. The software landscape is evolving, and achieving the best reporting and functionality with just a click can be complex. A clear vision of what you want to achieve with Dynamics 365 is essential. Proper preparation and configuration are crucial to achieving the desired outcomes. This principle applies not only to Dynamics 365 but to all software packages. Understanding the system's flexibility and adaptability based on your specific business needs is key to its successful implementation. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Ijlal Naqvi - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to deploy but needs to improve in the area of BI
If I speak about a feature in the tool that helps with financial management, I would say that of all the products I have ever worked on, used, or implemented, the finance part is pretty much the same in all ERPs and bookkeeping software tools. Finance is a regulated thing. It has to generate financial statements related to all the accounts. All financial management systems will look into the ledger, accounts payable, and accounts receivable. Generally the tool has two models. If the tool's in-house model is opted, then just one person is needed to maintain the product as an ERP administrator. If it is through a partner, then we usually have managed services, so you get access to a whole bunch of resources, technical, functional, finance, manufacturing, supply chain, or resources that you can have as part of the managed services contract. My company does not use much of AI with SAP Business One since it is pretty much manual now. It's still pretty much manual for business process enhancements and it still requires more of a consultative approach with more of a human touch. With SAP S4/HANA, there is a process navigator, process data mining tool that does help users since with the use of AI it provides answers to their questions. Recommendations are subjective to the requirements of the users. I would not recommend SAP Business One to a financial services institution or a bank. I would most definitely recommend it to a small family-owned business with about 20,000,000 of revenue, and that too in the area of discrete manufacturing. I rate the tool a seven out of ten.
Srinivasan Kuppuswamy - PeerSpot reviewer
The amazing, robust framework with unlimited scalability earns its #1 status
The solution is not ready for the current e-commerce environment. Its was built for large enterprises who need to predictably optimize their human, material, and financial resources. ERP has evolved and businesses are changing. There are not many large corporations. Most are small enterprises with the capabilities of large enterprises through networking and platform integration. Some companies promote products but get things done with other enterprises as a network. Companies do not want to create new capacity but want to leverage existing capacity with innovative products. They do not want to spend resources on duplicating capacity or facilities. I do not think any ERP product is ready to support this environment so ERPs as a whole might end up being used for back-office functions only. It is not easy to evolve an ERP product because its intent is to integrate functions and processes within an organization. Whereas, in the new business model, processes are not limited to one's own enterprise but cut across different enterprises. There is no enterprise solution as this point in time for the current e-commerce environment so companies must integrate with many solutions.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The vertical covers all aspects of functionality and integrates easily with the existing Office products."
"It's quite useful for our production line, and it's easy to configure to our requirements."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The solution is easy to use, flexible, and customizable."
"The solution's integrations and interface are very good."
"The selling feature is the most valuable."
"NAV covers everything from purchasing and selling items to invoicing. Everything is within NAV, so it's all very neat."
"All of the features are valuable, depending on where you implement them. I've done implementations in 60 countries, across 86 different companies and groups, and each company has a different reason for why they want to use it. Every single feature that I've implemented has been successful, and for some companies, where they didn't use the functionality, they have moved to external products or they've integrated into other applications."
"Business One's best feature is transport management and collections."
"The SAP Business One is simple and it provides us the control we need."
"Add-ons that can be implemented are most valuable."
"We have been happy with the command line interface of SAP Business One."
"I had been using it for the end-to-end functionality."
"We are using it for accounts and finance and also for maintaining third-party transactions and non-CRM transactions."
"The solution has all the basic features that are required for us."
"The most valuable feature of SAP Business One is its user-friendly and useful business module."
"The implementation is very straightforward."
"There are many interfaces, so you really can build satellites around it like with other SAP stuff or even third-party stuff."
"It has a lot of integrity of data, and it is fast. All the users feel that they can trust this data. So, data integrity is the most important value of SAP."
"The solution provides good production planning."
"I like SAP's premade workflows for various areas, such as supply chain, procurement, or finance."
"The payroll solution and the localization for advances are valuable."
"Well-integrated multilingual technology."
"The stability is SAP ERP is not good only because the version is old. They could work on improving the versions."
 

Cons

"Microsoft Dynamics NAV will be replaced with Office 365 in the future."
"The solution can improve by having better integration with Microsoft PowerBI and reporting."
"There is a need for improvement in consolidation and multi-country master data management."
"There is room for improvement in the ability to reverse or correct transactions more easily."
"The formulas in Power BI could be simpler. Sometimes, it's difficult to figure them out, but I am part of a lot of communities that work with us, so we help each other."
"The price of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central could be reduced."
"Since it's complex for a layperson user to understand the solution, it would be better if the solution provided some training resources."
"It would be nice, in Microsoft Teams, if we were able to type more information into the chat."
"SAP Business One lacks solutions for some specific use cases, particularly in HR functions and production planning, which require a lot of customization."
"There are only a few standard reports available and if you want more then they either have to be downloaded or built."
"I'd like to see the solution become more user-friendly."
"There are a lot of good improvements coming out in every version. They release a new version every quarter, with all new up-and-coming things on each one. However, it might be lacking specifications for the specific verticals. However, SAP Business One is a generic tool. It's very widely used, and I understand why it's not into each vertical. There are solution partners available out there to give it those extra areas of what it needs, but this is depending on what kind of business you run."
"Some features are missing."
"There are problems with Business One's collection management and reconciliation."
"In terms of business processes, the production could use improvement."
"There is no dependency, the integration between the other applications."
"I'm only working on the front end with ERP's user interface, which isn't very easy for end-users. It's an old-school interface, so it's often challenging to find what you need."
"The product is less intuitive and cumbersome for certain tasks."
"The product can be a little slow when dealing with thousands of employee data."
"It is very expensive to customize to meet compliance with regulations in some countries."
"SAP is not making a big effort to make it easy to integrate solutions from other vendors. It's not easy at all... Integration is what they can do better."
"The user interface could be improved. For example, sometimes you're missing some data and can't complete a task. There should be some built-in support and suggestions on how to solve your problem. I would also like the interface to be optimized to work better with mobile devices like tablets and smartphones."
"The reporting could be improved, such as the casework, production, and activity reports. Our consultants in a subsidiary enterprise have requested that we develop a new production report. They could also improve production, financial, and HR analysis."
"Lacks sufficient technical support with slow response times."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In my opinion, the fees are reasonable."
"Microsoft Dynamics NAV has a pay-as-you-use payment model."
"The license changes every year. Sometimes it's for fixed users, and sometimes it's for concurrent users."
"Business Central charges a monthly fee of $70 to $100 per user."
"Currently, the product offers a starting price of $70 per user per month, which provides access to the complete ERP engine. It is highly reasonable."
"NAV might be a little pricey for a small or medium-sized company, but all the solutions out there are."
"The price of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is reasonable. We pay monthly for the use of the solution."
"The solution's cost is reasonable."
"The price of SAP Business One is reasonable."
"I rate the price of SAP Business One a seven out of ten."
"This solution can work with a very small company, but the price may not be the right, it may not be the right fit for them. We can't help with this because we have to really understand the market, the target audience, and we have to position the product accordingly. The price is not a very big concern because if the customer is finding value or the dealer, distributor, or implementation partner can show real value in the solution, then the price will not be a question at all."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"SAP has a high cost of licensing."
"Business One is reasonable considering the functionality."
"I rate the product pricing structure at around six out of ten due to currency fluctuations posing challenges."
"There is a license to use this solution and the price is good."
"SAP is quite expensive."
"When you have a solution that is stable, reliable, and has a high performance as this solution, the price is going to be expensive. However, when you evaluate the service you are paying for the cost is quite reasonable for this solution."
"When we talk about pricing it is expensive. On a scale of one to ten, it would rank a two. There are no additional fees but the user licenses are high."
"There is a license needed to use this solution."
"I rate the product's price a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap or affordable, and ten is really expensive. The solution is expensive."
"SAP ECC is not cheap but I consider it the best system for managing an organization's data and processes."
"The solution can cost approximately $1 million a year for maintenance for a small-size company and can grow from there. Approximately $1 million is needed for a good-size company."
"The solution is expensive so I rate cost a five out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Retailer
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Retailer
7%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Dynamics NAV?
The platform offers a robust and comprehensive cycle for supply chain and inventory management, with features like mi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Dynamics NAV?
The pricing for Dynamics 365 Business Central is reasonable. The value for money is very high.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Dynamics NAV?
There is a need for improvement in consolidation and multi-country master data management.
Are there any advantages of SAP S4 HANA over SAP Business One (SAP B1) apart from the cost?
SaP Business One is a complete solution for business management. The software applications are broad, ranging from ac...
What do you like most about SAP Business One?
It's user-friendly and comes with comprehensive manuals. So, it is easy to learn to use SAP Business One
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Business One?
The pricing model of SAP Business One is average. It is neither too good nor too bad, and there is room for more flex...
Is Anaplan better than SAP ERP?
There are different aspects of both Anaplan and SAP ERP that I like and dislike. Anaplan improves forecast accuracy a...
What do you like most about SAP ERP?
The solution has made the most significant impact on our human resources function, specifically in HR operations and ...
What needs improvement with SAP ERP?
There is a need for improvement in the business analytics aspect in financial reporting and also in sales and marketi...
 

Also Known As

Dynamics NAV, MS Dynamics NAV
Business One
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Harris Farm Markets, Mister Spex GmbH, Bounce Foods, Eurofin Services SA, Medica Medizintechnik, Associated Gaskets, Onduline, Sitka Surfboard Corporation, World Animal Protection
Ego Pharmaceuticals Pty. Ltd
B&G Manufacturing, Unilever, Life is good Inc., Joy Global Inc., City of Cape Town, Bhopal Municipal, Corporation (BMC), adidas Group, Butcher & Packer Supply Company, Franklin Valve L.P., Evoshield, Prime Meats, a Norsan Group company, EMC Corporation, Varian Medical Systems Inc., FC Bayern Mªnchen AG, AkzoNobel Chemicals B.V., T¾V Rheinland, Pacific Drilling S.A., Fire & Rescue New South Wales, University of Amsterdam, Pa_alon S.A.
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP, Microsoft, Oracle and others in ERP. Updated: April 2025.
851,174 professionals have used our research since 2012.