Microsoft Dynamics NAV is a business solution from Microsoft that delivers comprehensive business management functionality for small and midsize businesses.
A unique combination of business intelligence, collaboration and communication tools connects the many moving parts of your organization, giving you better visibility into and control over what's going on in your business.
NAV is one of the best all round Financial Reporting and GL systems I have worked with.
The power of NAV is in the dimensions. Companies with an changing environments should give NAV a hard look. Stop loosing all those staff hours creating 15+ number account numbers with your segment needs built in. NAV can handle these changes in minutes rather than hours or days. Excel integration is snap. Product can be easily modified (by your VAR) to give you that custom tweaks you need.
I use to install Navision (prior to the Microsoft purchase) of the product. I have done this in multiple environments (service, professional, distribution).
Navision is a unique system in that is presents its information in pure accounting form. Thus Sales would be show as a credit, Sales Returns as a debit; an overdrawn cash account as a credit, accumulated depreciation as a credit.
Almost all the screens are similar, thus learning the A/R module, you've learned about 95% of the A/P Module as well as G/L.
Drawbacks (in the versions I've used) - Inventory is funky, Bank Reconciliation non-existent, payroll a bear to install and maintain.
Advantages (in the versions I've used) - ability to drill down for data, abilty to link to Excel spreadsheets. its filters and built-in standard screens
I have implemented earlier versions of NAV (about 5 years ago) and while I know there are lots of positive changes in the new version, I would say that while the implementation and use of NAV is easier than SAP, there are a couple of downsides that should be looked at and that are as follows-
Overall a great system. I am now implementing the Axapta version of MS Dynamics in my retail company at present.
What I liked most
Data we need is easily extracted into Excel for further manipulation.
What I liked least:
Annual maintenance and the fact that you must pay to add new capabilities after the initial installation.