Last month the Klear Systems team attended the Acumatica 2019 R2 Roadshow in Anaheim, CA. The jam-packed event included everything a product release should and so much more! From ISV booths to a demo of the newest version of Acumatica Cloud ERP there was no lack of educational resources for attendees.
Alongside datasheets and the ability to network with the Acumatica community, however, was arguably the most beneficial aspect of attending the event -- the Customer Fireside Chat. This consisted of an interview style Q&A session with four customers currently using Acumatica ERP. Each user was able to speak to a different level of experience with the cloud-based business management platform, from newly implemented to long-time users, to even a consultant-turned-user unicorn.
Moderated by Acumatica's very own Nigel LeGresley users were asked to share their experience using Acumatica Cloud ERP, which features & functionality they had just witnessed at the roadshow they were most excited to roll out, and any other advice they might have for prospective clients considering Acumatica. Participants included Jenni Arant, VP of Strategy at Jeffree Star Cosmetics, Casval Tinoco, Information Systems Manager at Bluefin Corp, Rob Anthony, VP of Information Systems at Hoffman Southwest, and Jose Garrido, VP of Financial Systems at Confie Seguros.
Acumatica 2019R2 Anaheim Roadshow Customer Panel
Read on to see what they had to say:
"Acumatica is so much more customizable and easy to use internally. Everything you do through [other solutions] you have to use a [solution designed] person to do whatever it is for you. To the legacy data thing, one of the really cool things about Acumatica is data is data so it doesn't matter where it's coming from. You can always take data and with a data warehouse piece, something like Tableau you can connect Acumatica and another system and run reports. You can connect databases."
Jenni Arant
VP of Strategy, Jeffree Star Cosmetics
Any features or functionality in Acumatica 2019 R2 that you've seen or read that you think could be the reason for you to move on to the newest version of Acumatica?
| Jenni: | For me, a lot of times when people go through an ERP implementation they think, 'Oh this is gonna come in and we're going to need less people' and that's not always necessarily the case but it means you need the right people. So, having someone that can be connecting and working with your partner, they don't even need to be technically proficient they just need to understand the business a little bit and be willing to be flexible and change. If you're switching to Acumatica be ready to embrace change because it's awesome." |
| Casval: | Building off that, the training programs we have internally is key so that we can bring in a new person and get them up to speed really quickly, like with our WMS using Fusion on the handhelds, we're using a lot of temp staff now that started this year and we're able to flex in new temp workers and show them very quickly this is how you pick an order within the warehouse. Follow the instructions on the handheld, pick the order, and then put it on the cart and drop it off in the shipping area. |
| Rob: | As Jenni said, the aspect of change management. Coming from financial services and going into construction and plumbing - the rate of change adoption is radically different. And some people just don't want to let go. We're taking skilled plumbers, used to using that metal clipboard that opens up like a box with forms upon forms upon forms. And we're about to roll out 250 tablets in the field and some people are absolutely horrified even after all the training! So, there's a lot of hand-holding that's got to take place to make it effective otherwise the alternative is you go backwards. It just takes a lot of thought that most people overlook. |
| Jose: | My advice is to definitely have your requirements well documented and work very closely with your VAR. That relationship is critical to a successful implementation. If you and your VAR see eye-to-eye on everything your implementation will go that much more smoothly. If you have what I call "squirrels", a lot of times when you're in an implementation you come up with these ideas and you say 'hey, these are great, let's throw these on' and you keep doing that, that's really just going to keep increasing your timeline and causes a lot of confusion with how your implementation is progressing. But if you figure out upfront what you really want and provide that to you VAR and work very closely with them and test everything then your implementation will be that much more smooth. |
Any features or functionality in Acumatica 2019 R2 that you've seen or read that you think could be the reason for you to move on to the newest version of Acumatica?
| Jenni: | The one thing that I saw today that was super cool was the credit card. To be able to take your credit card or a corporate card and assign an expense to it? That seems like 20 steps of the process so that's really awesome! And then the highlighting on the GI is crazy huge! To be able to do the colors, pull it up, see it on your dashboard. And not just a widget that's red or green but to be able to see the data-table. We've just upgraded but I'm going to be rolling that out ASAP. |
| Casval: | I'd have to agree with that. The credit cards and the pivot tables on the dashboard. |
| Rob: | The GI capabilities. We're a financially driven firm so people are constantly looking at GI's as opposed to reports and there are a couple of people that, I know if they send me the GI and it's automatically highlighting the values that I'm supposed to be looking at, that has a lot of value. That's just an amazing feature! As well as the portability of getting data in and out of Acumatica. I know that's not necessarily germane to R2 but Celigo and these other vendors, it's impressive how fast and adaptable it's getting. |
| Jose: | Since we've just recently upgraded to 2019 R1 coming from version 6.1 the functionality we're really wanting to explore is the mobile capability and also the pivot tables and dashboards. Those are things that in our company we can really leverage since we have so many people across the board across the country. It's something that we really haven't been doing in terms of exploring and utilizing even though we give everybody a mobile device but we just don't leverage it. Now we have that capability with Acumatica so I'm really looking forward to that. |
Acumatica 2019 R2 introduces condition highlight for
Generic Inquiry Rows & Columns in Data Table Widgets
Photo courtesy of Tim Rodman
And if you're concerned about the volume Acumatica is able to process, well, don't be. Jenni shared a recent experience where Jeffree Star Cosmetics processed roughly 25,000 orders per day in one weekend with Acumatica Cloud ERP. "So as far as volume goes we are performing well. If volume is a concern for any prospects feel free to come talk to me", she stated. She also shared 3 key elements to keep in mind when considering an implementation:
1) The software you choose
2) The partner you choose
3) And that you have the appropriate staff
"We're a 70 year old company that 30 years ago our corporate HQ actually burned down in Mission Viejo. So, despite that when I came on board a few years ago everything was still on-prem (private cloud) and Acumatica for us is the pinnacle of an entire digital transformation. We tried to decouple every single person, from the CFO to every technician, from the physical buildings themselves. The way our phones, communication systems, conferencing, everything, we went unified in the cloud so when it came time to pick a new ERP I don't think it was a big surprise that I wanted to go SaaS (Software as a Service). The way Acumatica's built, if you were gonna build it yourself with unlimited funds you would want to do it the way Acumatica's doing it. And that's kind of how we looked at it. ... It's been great for us!"
Rob Anthony
VP of Information Systems, Hoffman Southwest
Acumatica is dedicated to continuously improving usability & productivity for their 5,200+ users worldwide. These efforts, paired with their true cloud-based solution offers the perfect business management tool for any growing organization.
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