ABB Ability Solution Suite vs Epicor Prophet 21

Likelihood to Recommend

Of course this is the one of the best solution available in the market at present. When you have Multiple system in a plant then you need a powerful tool for Computation which Ability does it smoothly.

Read full review

Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Oil & Energy Company, 10,001+ employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Good for distribution organizations with warehousing. Can also support both Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable, although a more thorough Accounting package is recommended. Is strong when it comes to integrating bar codes and scanners, particularly for warehouse maintenance. Prophet 21 does include a basic CRM offering. However, it is very basic, and for any real Customer Resource management, a third-party tool is best (even recommended by Epicor.)

Read full review

John Suit

System Administrator

North South Supply IncWholesale, 11-50 employees

View all 26 answers on this topic

Feature Rating Comparison

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

API for custom integration

Plug-ins

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

Single sign-on capability

Role-based user permissions

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

Inventory tracking

Location management

Manufacturing module

Automatic reordering

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

Pricing

Order entry

Cost of goods sold

End-to-end order visibility

Order exception Resolution

Credit card processing

Order Orchestration

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

Project Planning and Scheduling

Project Manager Dashboard

Resource Manager Dashboard

Task Insight for Project Managers

Project Manager Mobile Functionality

Team Member Task Collaboration

Team Member Mobile Functionality

Project Candidate Search

Project Candidate Comparison and Analysis

Defineable Resource Pools

Talent Profiles

Real-Time Project Reporting

Absence Management

Product Lifecycle Management

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

Production Process Design

Supply Chain Business Flows

Production Management

Contracted Manufacturing Management

Configuration Management

Work Definition

Work Execution

Advanced Fulfillment

Manufacturing Costs

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

Forecasting

Inventory Planning

Multi-tier Supply Chain Planning

Performance Monitoring

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

Ideation Management

Requirements Management

Proposal Management

Innovation Portfolio Management

Product Master Data Management

Vendor Portal

Project Portfolio Management

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

Pay calculation

Benefit plan administration

Direct deposit files

Salary revision and increment management

Reimbursement management

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

Dashboards

Standard reports

Custom reports

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

Accounts payable

Accounts receivable

Global Financial Support

Primary and Secondary Ledgers

Intercompany Accounting

Localizations

Journals and Reconciliations

Enterprise Accounting

Configurable Accounting

Centralized Rules Framework

Standardized Processes

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

Automated Invoice Processing

Shared Services Payments

Billings Management

Customer Receipt Applications

Customer Collections

Revenue Recognition

Cash Management

Asset Management

Travel & Expense Management

Budgetary Control & Encumbrance Accounting

Period Close

Transactions Tax

Subledger Reconciliations

3rd Party Accounting Systems

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

Budgeting and Forecasting

Project Costing

Cost Capture

Capital Project Management

Customer Invoicing

Customer Contract Compliance

Project Revenue Recognition

Project Financial Performance Analysis

Project Financials Dashboard

Real-time Financial Reporting

Embedded Business Intelligence

Project Planning Collaboration

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

Award Lifecycle Management

Spending Control

Indirect Cost Management

Billing

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

Sourcing Team Collaboration

Sourcing Analysis

Bids Analyzed and Compared

Catalog Shopping E-Commerce for Employees

Contract Authoring

Contract Compliance Management

Contract History

Contract Renewal Automation

Contract Repository

Contract Standardization and Enforcement

Electronic Signatures

Invoice Automated Matching

Purchasing Risk and Compliance Management

Requisitions-to-Purchase Orders Integrated

Spend Compliance Management

Supplier Assessment

Supplier Communication and Collaboration

Supplier Management

Supplier Portal

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

Risk Repository

Control Management

Control Mapping

Control Efficiency Assessments

Automated Control Assessments

Assessment Capture

Issue Detection

Automatic Notification

Remediation and Certification

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

Transportation Planning and Optimization

Transportation Sourcing Management

Transportation Process Integration

Transportation Execution Management

Freight Payment Automation

Trade Management

Trade Regulatory Compliance Management

Customs Entry Management

Customs Document Management

Customs Document Collaboration

Fulfillment Management

Inventory Visibility

Warehouse Workforce Management

Pros

Computation of data.
Presentation to right person.
Ability to perform critical task and sending to users.
Multiple control system connectivity.

Read full review

Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Oil & Energy Company, 10,001+ employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

The system allows us to pretty much design it to work the way want it to work. It is a very flexible system for the most part.
The system doesn't let you make too many shortcuts with getting something processed. It forces you to go through the proper steps.
The system keeps track of everything and can be easily retrieved through history searches. Detailed reports, graphs, ....

Read full review

Michael Gonzalez

Warehouse Supervisor

Q Source IncWarehousing, 11-50 employees

View all 26 answers on this topic

Cons

May be for smaller PLCs this can't be implemented.
Cost may an area ABB can look in to.
Improvement in GUI

Read full review

Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Oil & Energy Company, 10,001+ employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Prophet 21 could use better management tools for its own data. The database has a tendency to bloat and over time can grow exceedingly large without administrative intervention.
The UI can be cluttered at times and the windows tend to jump into focus or drop from focus when it isn't expected causing user confusion and data entry errors.
Branding on forms and the UI is almost nonexistent. Customizations of screen aesthetics and form layout options should be easier and not require custom programming.

Read full review

Charles Moon

Director of Marketing Communications

Sheppard Redistribution, Inc.Wholesale, 51-200 employees

View all 26 answers on this topic

Likelihood to Renew

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Epicor Prophet 21 9.1

Based on 1 answer

I've used Epicor Prophet 21 for about 12 years (in various iterations). It started out as CommerceCenter by Prophet 21 then became Prophet 21 by Activant and then Prophet 21 by Epicor. So frequently, when a software company is acquired, it stops being great. That has not been the case with Epicor Prophet 21. Over the years they've been under Epicor, the product has just gotten better and better, with major extensibility enhancements and new mobile components coming online.

Read full review

Aaron Pace

Operations Manager

Icon DistributingWholesale, 11-50 employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Usability

ABB Ability Solution Suite 10.0

Based on 1 answer

One of the best solutions in the market with a user-friendly system. This is very useful when the ABB system (Like we had 800xA) is there, new or existing; all the ABB systems can be integrated using this rather than going to a 3rd party vendor, which may have interface problems.

Read full review

Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Oil & Energy Company, 10,001+ employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Epicor Prophet 21 8.2

Based on 1 answer

Overall, I love using Prophet 21. With a few rare exceptions, functions within the application have been streamlined so they can be used with as few clicks and key presses as possible. That's not to say they've given up any functionality. The platform is incredibly powerful; just easy to use.

Read full review

Aaron Pace

Operations Manager

Icon DistributingWholesale, 11-50 employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Reliability and Availability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Epicor Prophet 21 8.2

Based on 2 answers

When hosted locally, you don't have to worry about outages unless the power goes out and the battery backups fail. It can also be hosted in the cloud which is as reliable as your internet connection. There's really no concern for outages in the software by itself. Outages are controlled by external factors.

Read full review

Aaron Pace

Operations Manager

Icon DistributingWholesale, 11-50 employees

View all 2 answers on this topic

Performance

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Epicor Prophet 21 6.4

Based on 2 answers

I do feel like there are some screens and reports that could be streamlined. Prophet 21 likes to load features all at once when going into a program but a quicker load time into order entry, for example, is worth having a little latency while a non-essential tab that doesn't get used very often is opened.

Read full review

Aaron Pace

Operations Manager

Icon DistributingWholesale, 11-50 employees

View all 2 answers on this topic

Support Rating

ABB Ability Solution Suite 10.0

Based on 1 answer

Good support in terms of quality and promptness. When we had problems with some of the commands not getting executed, their online support also provided a good solution to solve the problem. Even mission-critical task we were able to solve during this Pandemic time. The suggestion is to go for the online support 1st in the future, followed by a visit.

Read full review

Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Oil & Energy Company, 10,001+ employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Epicor Prophet 21 5.9

Based on 4 answers

The support is some of the worst I've seen across all the 122 software vendors we work with. Everything is offshore and it is always vague answers, links to wiki's that don't apply, and when we pay for project support they charge $200 an hour for someone who works remote from Mexico to call you on a poor quality VoIP connection that isn't all that well trained and often doesn't have basic IT skills

Read full review

Chris Stovel

President

Tech Plus Consulting LLCComputer & Network Security, 1-10 employees

View all 4 answers on this topic

In-Person Training

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Epicor Prophet 21 8.2

Based on 1 answer

The on-site training was great. I give it a 9 because the trainer was a chain smoker who had to excuse herself a lot to smoke. Kind of unprofessional. She was a very good trainer though.

Read full review

Aaron Pace

Operations Manager

Icon DistributingWholesale, 11-50 employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Online Training

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Epicor Prophet 21 7.3

Based on 1 answer

I had a great time with the online training. Most of the online trainings were live which meant you had opportunity to interact with instructors. I liked trying to derail them by posting funny comments to the chat window. The only complaint I had about these is they weren't recorded for later use. Well, another complaint is that they were sometimes too short.

Read full review

Aaron Pace

Operations Manager

Icon DistributingWholesale, 11-50 employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Implementation Rating

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Epicor Prophet 21 6.4

Based on 2 answers

The overall implementation is smooth. Prophet 21 sends someone on-site for as many days as you need them to step through the initial implementation. Data conversion is the biggest trick. Make sure you get help with that portion of implementation. Also, be sure to offer plenty of training incentives to keep people coming back for more training. A little money spent up front will save you tons of headaches later.

Read full review

Aaron Pace

Operations Manager

Icon DistributingWholesale, 11-50 employees

View all 2 answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

Better suited for the ABB System as Microsoft is a third party for ABB Control System.

Read full review

Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Oil & Energy Company, 10,001+ employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

I have not looked at them in detail, but have received a lot of positive comments through out the industry, we're on the fence in regards to viability of cloud based solutions, but from the information we have received it seems like NetSuite has developed a good solution for the industry.

Read full review

Verified User

Executive in Customer Service

Machinery Company, 201-500 employees

View all 26 answers on this topic

Scalability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Epicor Prophet 21 9.1

Based on 1 answer

Prophet 21 is very reliable. The database is robust and well designed. The application is also hard to break. If there's one feature I don't like, it's that they haven't accounted for the dreaded single quote. That's kind of the bane of Microsoft SQL's existence. They need to escape that character in every field that will accept it in the system. Otherwise, the system throws all kinds of errors and many times will crash.

Read full review

Aaron Pace

Operations Manager

Icon DistributingWholesale, 11-50 employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Return on Investment

Positive is definitely ROI since manual intervention is minimized and the process is automated.
Cost wise, ABB has been looked upon considering the small industry.
Overall, a good solution for a large companies.

Read full review

Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Oil & Energy Company, 10,001+ employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

P21 has been very good with how we handle cash collections and had a positive impact for us.
P21 user interface saves time and thus makes people more efficient by allowing customizations.
With ordering, inventory, customer information, and CRM all in one location it makes the need for other programs like goldmine become obsolete.

Read full review

Jim Barber

Manager Of Information Systems

Blevins, IncWholesale, 201-500 employees

View all 26 answers on this topic

Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Rating Summary

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21

ABB Ability Solution Suite

Epicor Prophet 21