AccuLynx vs. Viewpoint Spectrum

When you want to track your quotes that have gone out to customers so that you can follow up on them, this system makes it way easier to do that. It also makes it way easier to track invoice dates. One area that it is less appropriate is for detailed big public bids where a traditional estimate template is not appropriate.

Incentivized

The Installation team is amazing. They provide clear guidance at the beginning of the process regarding what is expected and what needs to be done. The implementation manager follows up monthly with you to make sure you are on track and if you need additional help. They are very helpful and responsive in resolving issues.

Incentivized

• Estimating.
• Customer Management.
• Scheduling Material Delivery/Orders & Labor.
• Tracking job profitability.
• Invoicing.
• Reporting.
• Access everything from anywhere via app, etc. in real time.
• Entire company can communicate with each other.

Incentivized

• Job Costing - Viewpoint Spectrum handles job costing per project, per work order, per site, and gives us an up to date analysis of the project.
• HR - helps to keep all of the training certifications and HR incidents in a consistent and manageable order for all Managers to use.

Incentivized

• Pricing in the database for each item is done manually due to the merger of two large suppliers nationally who decided to write their own database and estimating program and disconnect themselves from AccuLynx that had the ability to automatically update pricing. I feel that was a huge mistake on the part of the supplier. AccuLynx is trying to rectify that relationship.
• It's unfortunate that the only calendaring option is Google Calendar. We are very tied to Outlook which we feel is more user-friendly and we know it well.

Incentivized

• Support isn't readily available. You can submit a ticket and wait days before it's picked up. Even critical issues (system outages) can wait an hour or two before someone responds.
• Large companies will feel limited. This product wasn't designed to handle large amounts of data, and performance seems to slow when there are more than 80 concurrent users.
• The new developments are limited. HR Management is less robust than a third-party product specializing in HR Management. Viewpoint Analytics is nowhere near as robust as Power BI or Tableau.

Incentivized

Until someone shows me something more efficient or has features that are more streamlined and time is saved by all then I am all ears and ready to listen to that presentation. I wouldn't care at this point if I had to abandon QB if the system had it's own integrated accounting system otherwise it has to be able to do all and more of the features of QB and the CRM side also has to have/do more than AccuLynx features.

Incentivized

The product is working for us and the cost to implement a new system does not warrant the expense.

Incentivized

Very versatile and allows for other people to complete things and someone else to still look at and approve if needed. Great communication ability internally and with customers and with that being the case is a tremendous asset with documentation also. Really a well rounded tool that allows you to do everything needed for a job in one place and have the records to show what was done by whom and when.

Incentivized

There's a little bit of a learning curve, but once you've been working in the system for a while, it becomes second nature. I would say that out of all of the other software that I've personally used, Spectrum has been the easiest one to pick up and learn quickly

Incentivized

I've never seen Spectrum down

For the most part the product is very reliable. Since we are hosted we sometimes have connectivity issues but I would say that is more our ISP than Spectrum.

Incentivized

They can always improve and we are very successful when calling support. I would suggest they keep their support technicians available later for the west coast contractors who need help at the end of the day. We've come to know many of the techs because we call to offer suggestions but there's a process for us to follow for that.

Incentivized

The support has recently changed. Last year, you could call in and get an immediate response. Now that doesn't seem possible unless you have an urgent situation with access to the software, payroll or payables. I have found that using chat or e-mail works nicely for the most part, but sometimes I feel it would be easier if someone from support would jump on our site and take a first-hand look rather than going back and forth

Incentivized

Our trainer was excellent and navigated the time zone differences expertly. She gave us test assignments to complete and was available for questions at any time.

Incentivized

My only insight would be to take time in your implementation and training process; ours was six weeks from start to finish.

Incentivized

AccuLynx has met our needs more than our previous CRM program. ALX is user-friendly which is super nice when training new employees, compared to our previous program which then seemed very outdated.

Incentivized

I have previously used Sage Masterbuilder, another construction industry software. This has been a number of years ago. The company I am working for already had Spectrum and have been using it for as long as it has been around when it was known as Forefront. Based on conversations I've had with the personnel that were here at the time of purchase, Spectrum clicked off all the boxes they were looking for.

Incentivized

You can grant user specific access which is nice. Project managers do not need all the same modules as Accounting. But Accounting does need access to PM modules as well

• I am have had a hard time justifying AccuLynx since I am a small business. I hate all the add ons. I do not appreciate that all the good tools cost extra money on top of my monthly payment.

Incentivized

• [In my opinion,] it takes at LEAST twice as long to do our jobs now.
• [I feel like] we are paranoid about something not being printed correctly because of [what I believe are] buggy text fields.
• [In my experience,] we still have to refer to a physical file cabinet with paper, even though a main point of switching was to go paperless.
• [In our experience,] screens can now be "locked", so we can't see something if our coworker is also looking at it.
• [I believe that] the financial hit our company took from this switch was astronomical. [In my opinion:] Beware!