Considering an Upgrade from Dynamics GP to Dynamics AX?

Recently I’ve delivered Dynamics GP training to new users who came from a company using Dynamics AX.  In my own experience, other than the additional features that Dynamics AX offers over Dynamics GP (which are considerable) and getting accustomed to the ability to post a transaction initiated in the General Ledger back to a subsidiary module in AX, there is a lot of commonality in the User Interface (UI) between the two applications.  This is particularly important for companies that have perhaps outgrown Dynamics GP and are considering a move to a more full-featured ERP system such as AX.  Microsoft has done a commendable job of unifying their ERP system UI’s, which offers the client the benefit of quicker and easier user adoption when moving from one application to another.

Additionally, both applications are tightly integrated with Microsoft Office tools, further easing the transition to a new system.

The first image below is of the Dynamics GP 2015 Financial module, with the menu items arranged in basically the same sequence as the Dynamics AX 2012 R3 General Ledger module image below it.  Notice how the menus and the Navigation Pane layout are quite similar in both applications, albeit the AX UI is cleaner, in my opinion.  Maybe the GP development team can get together with the AX dev team on that one.

Based on their comments, my recent trainees report the same experience.  They’ve indicated that adapting to Dynamics GP from AX has been much quicker than they thought it would be, primarily because of the similarities between the two UI’s.

In considering an upgrade from Dynamics GP to Dynamics AX, user adoption and performance ramp-up can be relegated to the bottom of the list of concerns.