TLDR<\/strong> An ERP comparison is useless without clear criteria. From an SME perspective, the most important factors are:<\/p>\n The license price is just part of the picture. True TCO includes: Budgeted vs. actual cost diverges significantly in major ERP projects \u2014 industry research consistently finds cost overruns ranging from 30% to well over 100%, depending on project scope and complexity.<\/p>\n Can the company deploy only the modules they need initially and expand later? Or do they have to buy the whole package at once?<\/p>\n Finnish legislation (VAT handling, payroll accounting, collective agreement integrations), Finnish-language support and native integration with Finnish systems (Procountor, Netvisor, the Finnish Business Information System) matter more for Finnish SMEs than most vendors acknowledge.<\/p>\n A complex system the team doesn’t use is worse than a simple system used daily.<\/p>\n What systems does the company already run? CRM, e-commerce, accounting software? Native integrations vs. Zapier-level compatibility are very different things.<\/p>\n Severa (Visma Software) is a Finnish industry solution built specifically for professional service companies: IT firms, consulting businesses, architects, marketing agencies.<\/p>\n Project management is outstanding<\/strong>: Severa is built around the project. Resourcing, time tracking, project budgeting and project-based invoicing are integrated better than most competitors.<\/p>\n Billing automation<\/strong>: Hourly or resource-based invoicing flows directly from time entries \u2014 no separate processing step required.<\/p>\n Visma ecosystem<\/strong>: Severa integrates smoothly with Visma Sign, Visma.net Financials and other Visma products. If your company already uses a Visma product, compatibility is a real advantage.<\/p>\n Finnish-language support and localization<\/strong>: Finnish product, Finnish support, VAT and accounting practices handled correctly.<\/p>\n Weak sales pipeline and CRM<\/strong>: Severa is not a CRM. Sales pipeline management and lead tracking are at a basic level \u2014 companies typically need a separate CRM running alongside it.<\/p>\n Industry limitations<\/strong>: Severa is designed for service businesses. If your company has physical inventory management, manufacturing or multi-tier distribution, Severa doesn’t scale there.<\/p>\n Per-user pricing grows with the team<\/strong>: User-based licensing makes growth expensive. Going from ten to twenty people doubles costs linearly.<\/p>\n Implementation requires consulting<\/strong>: In practice, implementation requires a Visma partner \u2014 that raises the entry barrier.<\/p>\n Lemonsoft is a Finnish ERP that is strongest in manufacturing, logistics and wholesale companies. It’s an established product with a large Finnish customer base.<\/p>\n Inventory management and manufacturing<\/strong>: Inventory accounting, production planning, purchase orders and supplier management are Lemonsoft’s core territory. For SME manufacturing, this feature set matters.<\/p>\n Domestic solution, Finnish support<\/strong>: Finnish customer service, localized tax and payroll, compliant with Finnish standards.<\/p>\n Value in core features<\/strong>: The base license is competitive and covers most basic needs.<\/p>\n Long development history<\/strong>: A stable product with a long track record in the Finnish SME market.<\/p>\n Modern UI is missing<\/strong>: Lemonsoft’s interface is functional but doesn’t match the user experience of modern SaaS products. This is a subjective assessment, but the learning curve is steeper for younger teams.<\/p>\n Integration ecosystem is more limited<\/strong>: Native integrations with modern SaaS services (HubSpot, Slack, Google Workspace) are limited. Third-party solutions are needed.<\/p>\n RevOps is not the core philosophy<\/strong>: Connecting sales, marketing and finance in a RevOps model requires extra work \u2014 Lemonsoft is primarily an ERP, not a RevOps platform.<\/p>\n Mobile is a challenge<\/strong>: Mobile usage is more limited than cloud-native competitors.<\/p>\n Microsoft Dynamics 365 is one of the global market leaders. It’s a modular cloud solution covering CRM (Sales, Customer Service), finance (Finance, Business Central) and ERP.<\/p>\n Microsoft ecosystem<\/strong>: If your company uses Teams, Outlook, SharePoint and Azure, Dynamics connects to them natively. That’s a genuine advantage in Microsoft environments.<\/p>\n Scale and flexibility<\/strong>: Dynamics scales to large enterprise. It’s used by both 10-person SMEs and 10,000-person corporations.<\/p>\n Business Central for SMEs<\/strong>: Dynamics 365 Business Central is Microsoft’s SME-focused module, more reasonably priced than the full Dynamics portfolio.<\/p>\n Extensive partner network<\/strong>: A global network of certified partners ensures availability.<\/p>\n Complexity is a real problem<\/strong>: Dynamics is designed to be flexible \u2014 and that means configuration is labor-intensive. SMEs practically need a consultant for implementation, configuration and ongoing maintenance.<\/p>\n Total cost surprises<\/strong>: The base price sounds reasonable. But add the consulting project (typically \u20ac20,000\u2013\u20ac80,000 for an SME), training, customization and annual maintenance, and TCO climbs high.<\/p>\n Finnish localization takes effort<\/strong>: Business Central supports Finnish accounting requirements, but local depth doesn’t always match natively Finnish products. Bank connections, e-invoicing and collective agreement integrations require additional configuration.<\/p>\n Designed for large companies<\/strong>: Business Central is a compromise \u2014 simple enough for SMEs but still inherits complexity from the larger Dynamics products, and that complexity shows.<\/p>\n Full disclosure: Resappi is our product. But since this is a comparison, let’s apply the same framework \u2014 strengths and weaknesses.<\/p>\n 57 modules, all in one system<\/strong>: CRM, finance, HR, projects, sales, marketing, customer service and AI. No separate integrations between departments \u2014 data is natively shared.<\/p>\n RevOps-first architecture<\/strong>: Resappi was designed from day one to unify sales, marketing and finance management. Not integrations added after the fact, but a unified data layer.<\/p>\n Finnish integrations natively<\/strong>: Procountor, Netvisor, Pipedrive, HubSpot, Adversus, Google Workspace, Slack. These are the systems Finnish SMEs already run \u2014 they work out of the box. See all integrations<\/a>.<\/p>\n AI Brain capabilities<\/strong>: AI-powered operational guidance, Voice Claude integration for voice-controlled CRM, and automated action suggestions.<\/p>\n Pricing scales for SMEs<\/strong>: Modular pricing \u2014 you activate what you need, pay for that. No bundles where you pay for features you’ll never use.<\/p>\n Implementation without a consulting project<\/strong>: Resappi is designed so an SME can implement it independently. Demo-to-live in under a week for a typical use case.<\/p>\n Newer product<\/strong>: Resappi was founded in 2022. Compared to Lemonsoft or Severa with decades of customer references, there are fewer. That’s true.<\/p>\n Finnish market focus<\/strong>: Resappi is optimized for the Finnish market. If your company has significant international operations requiring, say, German payroll compliance, Resappi is not the primary choice.<\/p>\n Heavy industrial manufacturing depth<\/strong>: Highly complex production planning (multi-level BOM, machine shop processes) is Lemonsoft’s territory. Resappi is not the first choice for heavy manufacturing.<\/p>\n
\n– The right ERP depends on your company’s size, industry, budget and integration needs \u2014 not on what a consultant recommends
\n– Severa works best for project-driven businesses (IT services, consulting); Lemonsoft for manufacturing and distribution
\n– Microsoft Dynamics is powerful but often overengineered and expensive to maintain for SMEs
\n– Resappi is designed for RevOps logic: sales, finance, HR and projects in one system
\n– Make the decision with data \u2014 request a demo using your own real use cases from every vendor<\/p>\n
\nSelection criteria \u2014 what to measure?<\/h2>\n
1. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)<\/h3>\n
\n– Implementation project costs (consulting, configuration)
\n– Integrations with existing systems
\n– Training and change management
\n– Maintenance, updates and support
\n– Additional modules or user licenses<\/p>\n2. Modularity<\/h3>\n
3. Finnish localization and local support<\/h3>\n
4. User experience and learning curve<\/h3>\n
5. Integration ecosystem<\/h3>\n
\nSevera \u2014 specialized strength for project-driven businesses<\/h2>\n
Strengths<\/h3>\n
Weaknesses<\/h3>\n
\nLemonsoft \u2014 the manufacturing and distribution specialist<\/h2>\n
Strengths<\/h3>\n
Weaknesses<\/h3>\n
\nMicrosoft Dynamics 365 \u2014 powerful but heavy<\/h2>\n
Strengths<\/h3>\n
Weaknesses<\/h3>\n
\nResappi \u2014 built RevOps-first for SMEs<\/h2>\n
Strengths<\/h3>\n
Weaknesses<\/h3>\n
\nComparison table<\/h2>\n