Acumatica ERP Software Overview

Acumatica Overview

What is Acumatica? | Acumatica Functionality Overview | Acumatica User Interface | Acumatica Videos | Acumatica Demo | Acumatica Third Party Extensions | Acumatica History | Acumatica Deployment | Acumatica Industry Fit |Acumatica Pros & Cons | Acumatica Pricing & Implementation Costs | Acumatica APIs | Acumatica FAQ

ERP Vendor: Acumatica

Deployment: Cloud or On-Premise

Company Size: 100 - 1000+ employees

Cost: $$$

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What is Acumatica?

Acumatica is a cloud and browser based ERP, developed for small and medium businesses. Founded in 2008, the American technology company does not have the same lengthy history in the ERP market as many of its historic competitors who have 30+ years tenure.

Acumatica allows businesses choice in how the ERP is set up. From Software as a Service (SaaS) which prevents the need for significant investment in on site servers, through to on site software, or even contracting with a third party host who will do the leg work in terms of server investment.

Similar to other ERPs, Acumatica has in built workflows to enable fast implementation and best in class processes. It can also be integrated with existing business software to produce a seamless user experience. Acumatica has developed a number of “editions” tailored around industries which contain different modules to suit your businesses needs. From the “General Edition” which includes Financial Management and Project Accounting, CRM and Reporting and Analytics to more industry specific module sets such as “Distribution”, “Manufacturing” and “Retail E-Commerce” which integrates customer experience across channels – online, in store, mobile and kiosk.

Acumatica ERP is slightly different in terms of pricing structure to some of the other more traditional ERP’s we have reviewed, which can at times confuse organizations, particularly those who are inexperienced in the ERP market. As Acumatica works solely through channel partners or resellers, they will be the first point of call in terms of understanding the costs associated with an implementation. Acumatica, unlike many other ERPs, do not have their own sales force.

Acumatica Functionality Overview

In this section we have curated a list of the core modules which IFS ERP offers:

IFS Applications Modules

Acumatica Financials

The Financial Management module provides a number of typical finance processes, which work together seamlessly with the other elements of the ERP to manage your organizations daily financial operations and consolidate information into monthly and quarterly reporting.

Acumatica cater for both small to medium businesses, whilst also incorporating global finance features for those businesses which operate on a multi national basis through multi-currency, multi-language and multi-company capabilities.

By migrating data into the Acumatica ERP you can provide real time access to financial information across your business, create personalized dashboards and automate processes using the in built workflows in order to minimize errors.

Some of the base features of the Financial Management module include; General Ledger, Cash Management, Accounts Payable and Receivable, Tax Management and Currency Management, Payroll Management and Fixed Asset Management. Some Financial Management modules, such as Inter Company Accounting and Fixes Assets Management are sold separately to the core solution.

Acumatica

Acumatica Projects

The project accounting suite enables an organization to track project costs, manage quotes, undertake budgeting and billing, and perform time and expense management. It is fully integrated with the General Ledger, Accounts Payable and Receivable and other modules within Acumatica’s software.

The Project Accounting module can be used to produce complex quotes, and can be linked to your CRM. As the quote progresses through the sales cycle it can be updated and progressed to a formal project once approved. Once an approved project, he Project Accounting module gives a complete, real time view of the costs associated with the project, which can be split into; materials, labour, services and inventory, enabling accurate and detailed reporting and analysis. This also allows fast comparison between budgeted, forecast and realised costs.

Importantly when managing a project, the module also provides visibility and control over change requests. Any changes to scope, budget or resources can be set up and requested through the Project Accounting suite, and subsequently approved, updating the project financials and providing a clear audit trail for these changes.

The module also provides a number of billing capabilities, including time & materials and fixed price and enables different billing and cost profiles to be set up by project. In addition, the Time Management feature enables accurate time entry and management by project resources on the go using mobile technology. Automated workflows to enable time approval can be set up and approval lines can be adapted based on project or resources.

Acumatica

Acumatica Distribution Management

Utilizing the Distribution Management suite provides both Inventory and Order Management, giving control of distribution throughout your organization and enabling existing manual or multi touch processes to be turned into ‘one click’ or automatic work flows.

The Inventory Management element can be used across multiple geographical locations, giving accurate location data which can drill down to warehouse, aisle, row and stack. This level of precision can ensure accurate product handling and inventory.

Automation can be used to provide set rules for replenishment, increasing fulfilment and reducing waste, and the data provided can enable accurate models to be created in regards to seasonality, peak trading times and minimum and maximum order values. Having real time information will enable your organization to understand your inventory and associated costs so you can reduce write-offs, identify low and obsolete inventory, reduce freight costs and understand the full costs of inventory carrying. Inventory Management also provides the functionality to create complex pricing models and volume discounts.

Order Management equally strengthens your distribution. Purchase orders can be linked to sales order to provide minimum time between receipt, sale and shipment. Bad debt can also be minimised, by providing automatic credit checking. The Distribution module also includes the Warehouse Management System (WMS) which automates the Pick, Pack and Ship process, utilizing barcodes to reduce errors and speed up picking, automate label generation and shipment tracking and providing real time updates at each stage of shipping.

Acumatica ERP

Acumatica CRM

Customer Management or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is another element available within the Acumatica suite. The CRM enables your organization to view all customer records, consolidated, in one place. Tracking customers through the entire sales cycle and enabling ongoing account management, the CRM provides all teams with access to customer records.

The CRM takes control of your sales cycle from the point of lead generation. Leads can be aggregated from a number of sources, and can be assigned across your sales teams using predefined criteria, ensuring that no leads are mismanaged or lost. Leads can then be converted into business contacts and sales opportunities, with the sales opportunity having the ability to be updated with tasks, contacts made, quotes and documents attached using the integrated document management feature.

As the CRM is integrated with the Financial Management module, teams can also have real time access to key performance data such as sales forecasts, revenue, commission and collections

Acumatica ERP

Acumatica Service Management

The Service Management module is industry specific, and provides control over ‘in the field’ services and real time communications with customers on ticket progress. The module can be used for the full cycle of service management.

Customer appointments and resources can be scheduled utilising the calendar board feature. Through the calendar board daily, weekly and monthly calendars can be viewed, customer appointments can be made and resources can be assigned based on the ticket or service requirements. The module also enables real time tracking of resource, resources are in the field they are able to provide updates on appointment start and end time, travel time and break times.

The Service Management module provides the tools to enable the most efficient use of technicians time through route optimization and location tracking to reduce time between appointments, and on the go appointment management through the mobile app.

Inventory and tools required to complete the work can also be tracked through the app, reducing down time and multiple customer visits, and managing warranties for products and parts.

Acumatica ERP

Acumatica Manufacturing

The Manufacturing Management module is another industry specific module which is, unsurprisingly, tailored for manufacturing based businesses. The module provides the data and workflows needed to plan and manage manufacturing operations and works seamlessly alongside other modules, particularly Financial Management and Distribution Management.

Through this module, organizations are able to manage make-to-stock, make-to-order, engineer-to-order, project centric, job shop, batch, or repetitive manufacturing. The Manufacturing edition covers three core elements of Manufacturing which support your organizations success – production orders, manufacturing scheduling and production performance.

The Bill of Materials module improves production scheduling for maximized throughput and capacity utilization by ensuring materials are available for production. The multi level costing method also provides the transparency needed on cost – average, standard and actual cost and the ability to add fixed and variable costs such as tooling and overheads. Version control and updates to bills of material (BOM) and routings can be managed through the Engineering change Control (ECC) functionality.

The Production Management module supports the accurate management of production orders, release and schedule orders and enables your organization to track material and labor costs. There are multiple capabilities within the module to further enhance production and manufacturing, such as Materials Planning Management, Advanced Planning and Scheduling to ensure customer demands are met through accurate and reliable delivery dates and Manufacturing Data Management to capture information real time from the shop floor.

The Manufacturing module ultimately provides the data and capability for your organization to changes in demand and schedules, unplanned breakdowns, late supplier deliveries, and other exceptions that impact what’s happening on the shop floor.

Working in conjunction with manufacturing, you can manage your order to delivery processes in a cohesive way, even if you have disparate locations and global customers.

Acumatica ERP

Acumatica Retail Commerce

Similar to Manufacturing and Service Management, the Retail Commerce module is industry specific and focussed on the retail sector, enabling omni-channel sales management, across online sales, tele sales and retail sales and providing real-time status of orders, inventory, shipments, and profitability by product and location.

By providing data across the channels, you can keep a view of profitability, costs and orders across channels. Customer satisfaction can also be increased through the Customer Self Service portal where customers can access their information including contracts, financial statements, support cases, and more.

Acumatica User Interface

Acumatica

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Acumatica

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Acumatica Videos

Acumatica Demo

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Acumatica Third Party Extensions

Like many other ERP vendors, Acumatica offers third party vendor extensions via the Acumatica Marketplace. The extensions provide a range of integrated solutions which extend the functionality of your ERP, tailored to your specific business requirements. The extensions are typically developed by Acumatica technology partners.

There are currently 200+ third party extensions available, such as:

·      Warehouse management

·      Advanced analytics

·      Invoice processing automation

·      Container tracking

·      Collections management

·      Property management

Acumatica History

Acumatica was launched in 2008, from its headquarters in Washington, USA by ERP veterans John Howell, Serguei Beloussov and Mike Chtchelkonogov. In the same year, Acumatica ERP was the technology organizations first product, followed closely in 2009 by the launch of on premise and software as a service (SaaS) versions.

Acumatica now has over 400 employees, and 6500+ customers around the globe, with offices in America, Canada, Asia, Europe and Australasia. Acumatica ERP have won awards and ratings from a number of industry bodies, including Gartner tying them for the highest rating among ERP customers.

Acumatica’s CEO is Jon Roskill, who joined Acumatica in 2014 from Microsoft, where he held the role of Corporate Vice President, leading a team of 5,000 employees and 64,000 partners. Jon has led the company through 6 years as the fastest growing ERP company. He is supported by an experienced leadership team, which includes Ali Jani Chief Product Officer formerly founder of Everest Software, and Nigel LeGresley formerly of Tableau Software.
Since its inception, Acumatica has continued to grow and invest in its products. With a number of funding rounds which have attracted Silicone Valley investment, the business is now owned by EQT Partners, an investment company. Acumatica has also seen the recruitment of high profile Microsoft executives and has been further supplemented by the acquisition of software companies, such as JAAS Advanced Manufacturing Systems software from JAAS Systems.

Acumatica release both ‘minor’ and ‘major’ upgrades on a regular basis with ‘minor’ upgrades seen typically every 2-8 weeks. None of the upgrades are mandated, but would be recommended as after 20 months, a release is no longer supported. For SaaS customers, there is a 90 day opportunity to test the upgrade in a sandbox environment, effectively allowing you to try before you upgrade.

Acumatica Deployment

Unlike some ERP vendors who only offer Cloud or On-Premise ERP solutions, Acumatica offer a range of hosting and licensing options:

• Software as a Service (SaaS) – when deployed via SaaS your Acumatica software is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), allowing you to access the software from any web browser or other web connected device, such as mobile or tablet. All infrastructure and upgrades are handled by Acumatica and you pay an annual software subscription.

• Private Cloud Subscription (PCS) – with the PCS option, your software is hosted in a private cloud with a hosting provider that you choose or can be hosted on premise. The subscription fee is again annual, however with the added benefit of updates being included in the subscription cost. In this scenario it is up to your organization when updates are applied.

• Perpetual purchase – this is a fairly traditional method of purchase. With this option an organization purchases the software and then pays a yearly ‘maintenance’ fee to keep the software up to date. In a Perpetual purchase, the initial fee is slightly lower, as it does not include the associated hosting and cloud services costs.

Acumatica Industry Fit

Services

A Service based industry in Acumatica’s ERP encompasses both small service based jobs through to complex, long term projects. The Services suite enables visibility of the full customer requirement, management of the service and integration with other ERP elements to enable evidence and data based decision making and analytics.

Construction

The Construction edition can be tailored to both small residential users, through to complex land developers and sub-contractors. Due to the mobile nature of the ERP which can be utilized on mobiles and tablets on the go, the Construction edition consolidates everything needed to manage the build.

Distribution

Similar to Manufacturing, there is a dedicated Distribution edition which supports both global and localised distribution models and enables your business to scale into the ERP as it grows. The edition provides transparency and management of the full ‘quote to cash’ cycle.

Manufacturing

With a dedicated ‘Manufacturing’ edition of the ERP, Acumatica has developed the software to enable end to end management of the manufacturing process alongside integration with financials and other elements of the ERP. The manufacturing module can track production, materials management and inventory.

Retail & Ecommerce

As business increasingly become omni-channel and multi channel, the Retail suite covers all aspects, improving how the in store customer experience is managed, through to delivering the full cycle for online purchases. The Retail suite works seamlessly with a number of front end providers.

Acumatica Pros & Cons

✅ Acumatica Pros

• A range of solution options - Acumatica ERP are completely flexible on the type of solution which you purchase: On-Premise, SaaS or Private Cloud.
• Pricing approach may benefit some businesses - especially those who are looking to scale and grow as you can add functionality when it is needed, without the upfront cost. 
• Can be used on mobile devices and tablets due to HTML5 user interface. 
• Industry specific editions are useful for those in manufacturing, retail and ecommerce. 
• Can be customized easily using C# and .NET, without the need for proprietary knowledge for customizations.

❌ Acumatica Cons

• Estimating licensing costs can be difficult and the Acumatica VAR or reseller may need to support your organization on the costing journey. This can make it difficult when trying to understand a ball park cost for an initial business case. 
• Reliance on third-party add-ons needed if implementing Acumatica in companies outside of the manufacturing and distribution vertical.
• Short business history in comparison to traditional ERP vendors such as SAP, Microsoft and Oracle which means they don't have the same reference base and have fewer 'big wins'.

Acumatica Pricing & Implementation Cost

Acumatica has two primary licensing models which serve its Cloud & On-Premise customers. Cloud customers typically pay an annual subscription fee inclusive of software, hosting, upgrades and basic support. On-Premise Acumatica customers however typically pay higher upfront costs for licensing which are then depreciated over 5-10 years, or the lifecycle of the solution.

Acumatica

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Acumatica Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Is Acumatica open source?

No, Acumatica is not an open source ERP software or framework. The code is maintained by Acumatica however custom code and modifications can be made using Acumatica's open development standard. Acumatica is therefore a very 'open' system, allowing users to customize it towards their needs.

What database does Acumatica use?

What companies use Acumatica?

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