When you it is also good to keep in mind the cost of future software upgrades. If you are current on your you will receive the latest software for free, but unless you have a qualified Dynamics GP technical team on staff, you will need to pay your Dynamics GP Partner for their services to perform the upgrade.
In our experience the average cost of a standard Microsoft Dynamics GP upgrade for our clients is between $2,200 and $3,700. But remember, this is just an average. The cost can be much higher depending on several variables. Here are 7 factors that can impact the price of the Dynamics GP upgrade and several tips to lower the cost:
- Customizations:
Anytime you customize a system and actually modify the source code, it becomes harder to upgrade to the next version. To determine the amount of time it will take to transfer the customizations to the new version we need to have a programmer look at it. Ideally, this would be the same programmer who wrote the code originally. This could add a couple of hours or a couple of days depending on the level of complexity of the customization. Or in some cases they might have to start from scratch, writing new customizations
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- Number of Companies
The number of companies you have set up is a big factor in determining the cost of your Dynamics GP upgrade. If you have 100 companies, obviously it’s going to take 100 times as long to do the upgrade. When an upgrade is done, we upgrade the system database first and then go through and select which companies to update. But if you don’t update the companies then you can’t interact with them, so really, all companies have to be updated during the Dynamics GP upgrade.
- Database Size & Number of Transactions
Obviously a 500 megabyte company is going to upgrade a lot faster than a 500 gigabyte company. Basically the process has to go through all of the data, upgrade the tables for it and transfer all the data back into it. And if you need to upgrade your server hardware at the same time as the software upgrade, it will also take longer to move a bigger database. The number of transactions is related to the database size; the more transactions you have, the larger the database will be.
- Custom Interfaces/Integrations
At CAL Business Solutions we with other applications. This eliminates double entry between the two systems and information can flow back and forth. Whenever an upgrade is done these connections need to be tested. Sometimes the integrations and interfaces will work the same way as they always did. But sometimes there are table changes and other modifications in the new version of Dynamics GP that will cause the interface to break. So it needs to be tested with multiple different files or setups to make sure it works, and will continue to work.
- Third Party Add On (ISV) Modules
It is very common to include add on (ISV) products on your Dynamics GP system. Almost like apps on a smart phone, these add ons help you accomplish specific tasks. Some ISV products are pretty straightforward and they upgrade just by double clicking a file. Other times it is more complex or we may need to wait until the ISV product releases an update that is compatible with the newest version of Dynamics GP.
- Current Version
Sometimes companies will skip doing regular upgrades and then decide to jump two or three versions forward. In fact, this can sometimes require even more time than performing multiple upgrades. So depending on how far back you are will also impact how much it costs to upgrade. Usually if you are over two versions back then we have to do an extra step to upgrade. For example, you can jump from version 9 to version 2010 (version 10 and GP2010 are different – GP2010 is actually GP11) but you can’t jump directly from version 9 to version 2013. While the cost may be lower than doing each of the upgrades separately, it is not quite that simple.
- Modified Reports
Modified reports are not as much of a factor in the cost of Dynamics GP upgrades as it used to be but it is still good to include on the list. Based on our experience with other upgrades, we know which reports would give us issues, and we can usually recreate any changes pretty quickly.
- Testing
We will always strongly recommend doing a test upgrade before the real thing. While this takes more time, it can potentially avoid much larger, more expensive, problems later.
You can find more money saving tips in our white paper, “30 Questions Every CFO Must Ask About the Cost of Accounting Software” at .
How often will you need to do Microsoft Dynamics GP upgrade?
Microsoft recently switched from a 1.5-2 year release schedule to a 6 month release schedule. Read: What is the Microsoft Dynamics GP release schedule? There are pros and cons to this for users. But when we talk about upgrade costs we are still referring to the major releases, done approximately every 2 years.
If you are interested in purchasing, or upgrading, Microsoft Dynamics GP, contact CAL Business Solutions sales@calszone.com or 860-485-0910x4.
By CAL Business Solutions,
