Acumatica Cloud ERP – The Cool Kid on the Block

Founded in 2008, Acumatica Cloud ERP is definitely one of the new kids (ERPs) on the block. And no, I don’t mean these New Kids on the Block. However, 9 years later and among established giants such as Microsoft Dynamics NAV, SAP and NetSuite, it’s also managed to become one of the coolest on the block. Not only has it experienced huge revenue growth – with 100% and 83% in 2015 and 2016, respectively, it’s also won a multitude of awards and is increasingly getting the attention of technology research firms such as Gartner, Forrester and IDC.

In today’s world you’d be hard pressed to find companies who haven’t already deployed a number of cloud applications. Lower costs and flexible subscription models, increased accessibility, increased security and easier maintenance are just a few of the reasons why companies are choosing these solutions.

However, many companies run into the problem that their legacy ERP is unable to talk to/integrate with these other applications. So, instead of unified operations, they end up with a variety of disconnected business processes. Because Acumatica is 100% web based – it runs on the .net framework – it completely circumvents this issue, enabling customers to unify operations and take full advantage of the multi-cloud world in which we live today.

This is further supported by the fact that Acumatica has integrations with an extensive range of applications, including Salesforce, Hubspot, Office 365 and Power BI. And it doesn’t end there. By supporting developers and ISV’s with the Acumatica Developer Platform (which promises to help create cloud applications 400% faster and 400% cheaper), Acumatica has built up an impressive library of integrations.

Block Chain, Machine Learning, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Bots are just a few of today’s emerging technologies. As evidenced by their focus on innovation at Summit 2017, and their high R&D allocation, Acumatica is going to great lengths to stay at the forefront of these trends. By continuously evaluating which technologies make sense to bring into the product they are able to deliver a slew of additional value to their customers.

For example, Acumatica announced a pretty cool beta integration with Amazon’s Alexa at Summit 2017.  With this integration, users can retrieve data from Acumatica by posing a question to Alexa using the Amazon Echo. And it doesn’t stop there! Users can also send data, giving instructions to Alexa that are passed on to Acumatica. An interaction could looking something like this:

User: “Alexa, Ask Acumatica how many keyboards we have in stock.”

Alexa: “Inventory item USB Keyboard is out of stock. Do you want to order it?”

User: “Order 10 please.”

Another example is an intelligent data capture prototype that Acumatica’s developers are currently working on. In short, scanned documents are sent to accountants, who then make any necessary corrections (correcting numbers that have been transposed, taxes appearing in the wrong place, etc.). With the help of machine learning the accountant markup is fed back to the scanners, in a sense “teaching them” not to make the same mistakes again.

Ease-of-use and usability is a major focus for Acumatica. This is evident throughout the platform. Take, for example, the fact that it utilises responsive design to make the viewing experience identical across different devices and screen sizes. Another example can be found in the fact that it offers personalised, role-based dashboards, enabling individuals to quickly access the data they need to maximise their productivity

Acumatica Cloud ERP’s focus on usability has been recognized by a number of analysts. Most recently, it achieved leadership status in Nucleus Research’s 2016 ERP Technology Review Matrix. Nucleus’ ratings are based on the usability of a vendor’s products as well as on how the functionality of the products directly benefits customers.

Acumatica Cloud ERP has the functionality to support companies throughout their entire operations. From Financial Management and Distribution Management to Customer Management, Manufacturing Management and Project Accounting, Acumatica has consolidated all the functionality that businesses need into a single system that can easily be tailored to specific needs.

Two of the latest additions to the Acumatica Cloud ERP suite are the Field Service Edition and Commerce Edition. The former enables companies to “streamline dispatching, reduce response times and minimise costs” and provides scheduling, route planning, inventory management and service contract management functionality, among others.

The Commerce edition was launched in January at Summit 2017. Integrating the commerce expertise of Magento, the Commerce edition offers an end-to-end solution that integrates the store front with the back-office, enabling companies to “manage eCommerce orders, inventory, picking-packing-shipping, returns, customer support and accounting,” all from one dashboard.  Moreover, an Amazon Integration is coming soon.

Acumatica’s pricing model is simple and flexible. It’s simplicity is based on its “unlimited user pricing” approach. In other words, there is no limit to the number of users companies can have with an Acumatica license.

The flexibility of Acumatica’s pricing stems from the fact that it is not “one size fits all.” Instead,  it’s based on the features and resources that each specific company chooses to utilise. More specifically, the desired applications (Financial Management, Customer Management etc.), deployment location (own servers vs hosting provider vs pure SaaS), licensing model (perpetual vs. fixed fee) and required computing power and data storage. It is important to note that applications can be added at any time. With this flexibility, companies can pay only for what they need, when they need it.

Here at Catapult, we are happy to support both on-premise and cloud ERP solutions, as there remains in a need in the marketplace for both deployment models. However, the trend is moving rapidly in the direction of the cloud as these systems evolve and more organizations embrace the advantages they provide. An example of one such organisation is Tourism Vancouver, who we helped move to Acumatica Cloud ERP at the end of 2016.

If you are currently facing the dilemma of choosing between an On-Premise ERP or Cloud ERP, we’d love to help. We have helped organizations assess, research and propose the best solution based on unique business requirements and goals.