Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations Was Not Built for Project Businesses – Part 1

This is an 8-part blog series on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance vs Adeaca Project Business Automation. The purpose is to analyze the Dynamics 365 ERP for the functional support you will need as a project-based company. See the rest of the articles in the series at the bottom of this article.

Companies that operate in project-driven industries such as Architecture, Engineering & Construction, ETO/Contract Manufacturing, and Professional Services are called Project Businesses. What do these companies have in common? They have unstructured business models that make their requirements for business systems unique.

Most project businesses considering the Microsoft enterprise ERP, which is now called Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance, will find the project management  and accounting module wholly inadequate to support their business processes. That’s not surprising because it was not built with projects in mind. As a result, project businesses adopt disparate applications to meet their needs. And when it’s all said and done, these companies end up operating in different tools and systems that are not integrated.

Adeaca Project Business Automation (PBA) provides a complete alternative to this solution, bringing the primary project functions of a project business inside the D365F&O ERP. After all, we love Dynamics. A project business seeking to fully integrate their business processes on one platform will find that Adeaca PBA turns Dynamics 365 into a system that meets all their needs and more.

Check out this updated Whitepaper on Dynamics 365 Project Operations – the recent release from Microsoft that is an enhancement and combination of the previous D365 Finance project management and accounting module (PMA) and Project Service Automation (PSA).

This whitepaper provides a high-level overview of the functionality contained in Project Operations and compares it to Adeaca Project Business Automation. Understand exactly what capabilities are included, what you need, and how to get them.

This is the first blog in an eight-part blog series that will provide a comprehensive high-level comparison between the project functionality found natively in D365F&O and Adeaca PBA.

One Team, One Dream, One Platform

When your primary business depends on the successful delivery of projects to your customers, it’s critical to be on point. This means everyone in your company needs to be on the same page, strategically aligned to corporate objectives. It is our mission to provide one system that supports the entire value chain for project businesses.

Most project businesses today employ multiple systems including applications such as Microsoft Project, Oracle Primavera, Excel, etc. to support their value chain. This includes project management, project accounting, time and expense reporting, project analytics, and more. Operating through these disparate applications means processes are not connected, and data is not uniform or integrated.

Businesses end up spending a lot of time, money and resources trying to manually translate, consolidate and validate large amounts of project data from multiple point solutions. This manual integration process can lead to mistakes and delays, which can cause important decisions to be made based on unreliable data.

To address this problem, we’ve created a solution that unifies all business processes on one platform to support the entire project business value chain. Companies need to be able to instantly see the financial impact of operational issues in their projects in order to lower risk and improve outcomes.

Know What You’re Really Getting into Before You Decide

While D365F&O may at first glance seem to include features to support many critical processes in project businesses, the fact is that these capabilities are basic and offer insufficient sophistication and substance to effectively manage a project-based organization.

Originally, D365F&O was developed for manufacturers and supply chain-centric organizations. The introduction of a project accounting module was focused on managing projects from a general ledger perspective while collecting costs and generating invoices.

Efforts to expand the scope of this module have been unsuccessful. And although, the “Project Accounting” module was renamed to “Project Management and Accounting,” most of its functions remain project accounting oriented. While D365F&O is a solid platform for project accounting and billing, it provides little support for the financial and operational project management that project businesses demand.

The bottom line is buying into a mainstream cloud-based ERP system only to purchase additional third-party applications for different business processes is not an effective and efficient solution. Moving to the cloud represents an opportunity for businesses to unify their company by integrating all processes into one platform. Adeaca PBA provides such an integrated cloud solution.

The next several blogs in this series will take a functional comparison deep dive of both D365F&O and Adeaca PBA including:

• Budget management
• Month-end
• Cost control
• Project scheduling
• Issue and risk management
• Resource management
• Project insight and analytics

If you’re considering D365F&O, do your own research before taking the plunge. We’re here to help you decide.

This is an 8-part blog series on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance vs Adeaca Project Business Automation. The purpose is to analyze the Dynamics 365 ERP for the functional support you will need as a project-based company. Discover what is included in D365F and what you may need to supplement your implementation of it as a project-driven organization in the construction and engineering, ETO manufacturing, or professional services industries.  

1. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations Was Not Built for Project Businesses

2. Budget Management: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance vs. Adeaca PBA

3. Month-End Process: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance vs. Adeaca PBA

4. Cost Control: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance vs. Adeaca PBA

5. Project Scheduling: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance vs. Adeaca PBA

6. Issue and Risk Management: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance vs. Adeaca PBA

7. Resource Management: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance vs. Adeaca PBA

8. Project Insight and Analytics: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance vs. Adeaca PBA

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