Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP Traverse Edition vs. M1

I honestly think that it's extremely outdated and don't understand why anyone would still use it. Especially in a non-profit setting. In our field we have to be able to track revenue and expenses by funds, and with the way those funding streams tend to cross an agency or company's fiscal year, the fact that it is virtually impossible to pull the information in that manner restricts a finance department more than anything.

Incentivized

The M1 ERP is tailored for small to medium organizations, offering good features at least in the components utilized by my organization such as customizable workflows, user-friendly dashboards, ability to process orders, and track the entire orders lifecycle. It also has good customer interaction features in the CRM part. It provides robust data security, and offers scalable modules to grow with your business. Implementation is not challenging if you don't have so many customizations in the software.

Incentivized

• No confusing reporting.
• Easy to follow interface.
• Simplified experience.

Incentivized

• Allows for component parts to be scheduled independently through the plant
• Once parts are built, it is easy to duplicate/reuse parts across they quoting and ordering modules and customers
• If used properly and consistently, M1 will provide accurate job cost analysis to determine estimating, training, efficiency and other issues.

Incentivized

• Not user-friendly or intuitive in the least. Even with the instruction manual, it's like part of it is missing or you are expected to know certain items before even looking.
• Reporting is very basic and impossible to customize on the user's end. You must have tech support build them for you. Also, no cross fiscal year reporting.
• Can't cut only one check if you have other invoices already entered in the batch.
• The chart of account codes are not independent. You must build your whole GL for each fund source or program, which leaves you with an unwieldy chart of accounts.

Incentivized

• Some of the functions are pretty detailed - and so they take a while to generate screens and pages in reports.
• We actually use it for 2 companies we own - and it would be nice if the inter company communication was a little smoother. It's hard to share some data, and not everything is possible to be shared.
• Customized reports need to backed up before any updates to M1 or they're lost. It seems M1 overwrites the report folders everytime you run an update - so you have to keep track of what you've changed in Crystal Reports and restore it.

Incentivized

Because it would be helpful if ECI would provide better documentation, communication and workflows to understand how each field interacts within the system and how each of those touch other areas within M1. It would also be useful if ECI would provide prescheduled training for how to customize things with M1 through Design Studio

Incentivized

Support has been great and timely

Incentivized

If you've used CYMA, you'll be familiar with the way OSAS builds the GL, however CYMA is light years ahead of OSAS. If you've used anything like Abila MIP, you'll understand the comparison when I say "Abila is like using power tools to build your bookcase, CYMA is like using a hand saw and hammer, and OSAS is using a chisel to carve one out of wood." They all will get the job done and at the end of the day, you have a book case. But depending on which tools you use will either be ready for a library or a couple of small tomes. I didn't select OSAS, and never would it have been given consideration to be used as my accounting software

Incentivized

M1 is light years ahead in overall cost and proficiency. It allows so much more control and flexibility as compared to its competitors. When choosing M1 we went through many demos and M1 was the only ERP that met our needs and still does. We also control our own data which is a big plus for us.

Incentivized

• We have to do so much tracking of expenses by hand, that using OSAS doesn't save us any money in that respect.
• I believe my predecessor used OSAS for over 15 years so she obviously felt comfortable with it. I can make do with it and at least track my bottom line.
• No real reporting other than basic balance sheets.

Incentivized

• Time savings having to only enter certain information once and have it follow through the entire order process from quote to cash

Incentivized