Auto parts dealers have a weird ERP problem. You're not quite retail, not quite manufacturing, and not quite distribution — you're all three stitched together with VIN lookups, supersession logic, and core charges that most generic ERPs choke on. I've spent the last four years helping mid-sized dealers and distributors move off legacy systems, and the question I get most often now is: should we go with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central or one of these newer AI-native platforms like Tellency ERP?
So let's do a fair breakdown. I'll tell you where Dynamics wins (it does, genuinely) and where Tellency ERP pulls ahead for parts dealers specifically. No marketing fluff.
Quick Overview: Tellency ERP vs Microsoft Dynamics 365
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is the enterprise default. Business Central handles the SMB and mid-market side; Finance & Operations handles larger operations. It's been around forever, the ecosystem is massive, and if you're already in the Microsoft stack (Teams, Outlook, Power BI), the integration story is genuinely strong.
Tellency ERP is an AI-native ERP built by Aiinak. Instead of bolting AI onto an old database-first architecture, the entire thing is designed around autonomous agents — agents that actually do the work of invoicing, reordering, reconciling, and chasing suppliers. Pricing runs roughly 70% cheaper than Dynamics 365 F&O implementations, and deployment is measured in a week, not six months.
Here's the thing: that one-week number sounds like a marketing claim. In my experience deploying agents for a three-warehouse parts operation, it took us nine business days to go live with Tellency, including data migration from their old on-prem system. A Dynamics 365 rollout for a similar-size dealer I worked with the year before took seven months and a $180K implementation partner bill.
Feature-by-Feature Breakdown
Both systems cover the core ERP functions — inventory, purchasing, AR/AP, general ledger, reporting. But the details matter a lot for auto parts.
Inventory and catalog management. Dynamics 365 is capable here but requires heavy customization for parts-specific needs. Supersession chains, interchange numbers, core tracking, and fitment data usually need a third-party add-on like LS Retail or a custom ISV solution. That's an extra $30-80 per user per month on top of Dynamics licensing.
Tellency handles supersession and interchange natively because you can describe the logic in plain English during setup. You literally tell the agent: "When a part number is obsolete, automatically suggest the superseded part and flag it on quotes." It configures itself. Not perfect — I've seen it misinterpret edge cases around aftermarket vs OEM substitution — but you can correct it in two sentences and it learns.
Procurement and supplier management. This is where Dynamics has a real strength: its supplier portal and purchase requisition workflows are mature, battle-tested, and connect cleanly to EDI providers. If you're buying from 40+ tier-1 suppliers with strict EDI requirements, Dynamics is more proven.
Tellency supports EDI (850, 855, 856, 810) but the agent-driven procurement flow is where it shines for smaller dealers. The procurement agent watches stock levels, reads supplier pricing emails, compares quotes across three or four vendors, and drafts POs automatically. A buyer I worked with said it saved him about 12 hours a week of email-and-spreadsheet juggling.
Financial reporting. Dynamics wins on depth. Power BI integration is genuinely excellent, and if you have a finance team that already lives in Excel and BI dashboards, they'll be happy. Tellency's reporting is good but more conversational — you ask questions in natural language and get answers. That's great for operators, less great for a CFO who wants pixel-perfect board packs.
AI Capabilities: Where the Real Difference Is
This is the section most comparison articles get wrong. They list "AI features" as if checking boxes. But AI in ERP has two very different flavors:
AI as copilot — suggests, summarizes, autocompletes. You still do the work.
AI as agent — does the work. You approve or override.
Dynamics 365 Copilot is solidly in the first camp. It'll draft an email to a supplier, summarize an invoice, suggest a journal entry. Useful. But the human still clicks through each step. After six months of using Copilot at a parts distributor I consult for, the team estimated it saved maybe 4-6 hours per person per week — real savings, nothing to sneeze at.
Tellency's agents are in the second camp. The invoicing agent reads incoming emails, matches them against POs and receipts, flags discrepancies, and processes clean invoices end-to-end without a human in the loop. The inventory agent rebalances stock between branches overnight based on demand patterns. The HR agent runs payroll prep, catches timecard anomalies, and drafts reminder emails to managers who haven't approved hours.
What I've found after running agent-driven ERP for several months: the time savings are in a different league. Not 4-6 hours per person per week — more like 15-20, especially in accounts payable and procurement. Businesses typically report 30-50% reductions in admin time in these specific workflows, which lines up with what I've seen.
The honest limitation? Agents still make mistakes. Every few weeks, the invoicing agent will miscategorize a core charge or misread a freight line. You need someone checking the exception queue daily. If you can't commit one person to spending 30 minutes a day on agent oversight, don't deploy agent-based ERP yet. Period.
Pricing Comparison
Here's where things get painful for Dynamics customers.
Dynamics 365 Business Central starts at $70 per user per month for Essentials and $100 for Premium. That sounds reasonable until you add implementation costs. A typical auto parts dealer with 15-25 users should budget $80K-$200K for initial implementation through a partner — and that's for Business Central. If you need the bigger Finance & Operations platform, you're looking at $210 per user per month plus $300K-$1M+ in implementation. I'm not exaggerating those numbers; I've seen the invoices.
Add the parts-industry ISV ($30-80/user/month), EDI integration ($500-2000/month), and ongoing partner support ($3K-10K/month), and a 20-user dealership is typically spending $8K-15K per month all-in on Dynamics after the implementation.
Tellency ERP pricing is simpler. The agents run $499/month each, and most parts dealers need three to five: invoicing, inventory, procurement, and optionally HR and finance. Call it $1,500-2,500/month for the agent tier, plus standard per-user ERP access. Deployment runs a week with Aiinak's team, no six-figure implementation partner required.
Do the math on year-one TCO and Tellency usually comes in 60-75% cheaper for a typical parts dealer. That gap narrows in year three as Dynamics amortizes its implementation cost, but by then you've already funded two years of additional working capital.
Which Is Right for Auto Parts Dealers?
Honestly, both can work. Here's how I'd decide.
Go with Microsoft Dynamics 365 if:
- You're already deep in the Microsoft ecosystem and your IT team has Dynamics expertise
- You have complex multi-entity consolidation, heavy manufacturing, or 50+ EDI trading partners with rigid compliance requirements
- You have $150K+ budget for implementation and a 6-9 month timeline
- Your CFO demands mature, auditor-familiar financial reporting out of the box
Go with Tellency ERP if:
- You're a dealer or distributor doing $5M-$100M in annual revenue and want ERP working in weeks, not quarters
- Your team is drowning in manual invoicing, PO matching, or inventory rebalancing across locations
- You want to cut admin headcount growth without cutting service quality
- Budget matters — you'd rather spend the saved money on parts inventory or a new branch
The mistake most teams make is picking the "safe" enterprise option without calculating what two years of extra implementation time actually costs them. Every month your ERP is half-configured is a month your AP clerk is still manually keying invoices and your buyer is still pulling stock reports at midnight.
If you want to see whether agent-driven ERP actually fits your operation, try Tellency ERP — they'll run a free pilot against your actual workflows, not a scripted demo. That's the fastest way to know if the AI handles your supersession logic, your core charge quirks, and your supplier mix without six months of discovery calls.
One last thing. Don't let anyone sell you on AI ERP without showing you the exception queue in a live account. That queue is where the truth lives. If it's clean and actionable, the system works. If it's a dumping ground of agent errors nobody cleans up, walk away — regardless of which vendor is pitching you.
Originally published on Aiinak Blog. Aiinak is an AI agent platform that runs your entire business — deploy autonomous agents for Sales, HR, Support, Finance, and IT Ops.
