Cetec ERP vs. Viewpoint Spectrum

For our business, Cetec ERP works very well because of all the capabilities it has with traceability, restrictions, and access, and having the data live for any user to see at the same time. The way the system is set up for order processing is more strict which is better for us since it helps with accuracy and traceability. For the production side, since our company is not a manufacturing site, it can be a little overwhelming since there are a lot of fields/data that we do not use, simply because it does not apply to us. Other than that module being a little too advanced for our company, all of the features included "out of the box" are well worth the affordable price that they have for this ERP system.

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

• Training and Implementation.
• Support is great.

• 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

• Role Descriptions: There are default roles that Cetec ERP has already created for you. However, these roles are not detailed as to what access each role has and it makes it difficult to assign these default roles.
• Reporting: While Cetec ERP's default reports are detailed, there is only minimal customization of reports allowed out of the box. They do have an add-on available for purchase where you can freely customize reports, but our company isn't at that point to purchase this add-on as we only need a small bit of customization beyond what comes out of the box.

• 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

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

Incentivized

Cetec ERP is useful and fairly intuitive, but if you have a difficult time adapting to a ever-changing user interface, it may cause slight discomfort with every major update.

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

Cetec ERP will answer support calls but depending on your level of service contract, it may cost you quick a bit per hour to solve the issues you have. E-mail support is always available and surprisingly responsive.

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

We had been a customer of Cetec on their Legacy system for 20+ years and were always satisfied with their product and support.

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

• Accuracy: Now that we can restrict access to approved users, our accuracy of inventory has improved.
• Financial Cleanup: Importing financials that were not yet balanced from previous system caused a ripple and we now have to clean up in this new system.

• [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!