Red Falcon vs. Epicor Prophet 21

We like the fact that we are able to offer our customers a professional online presence so that we can compete with the big box stores and the Amazon's of the Office Supply world. I like being able to log into the back office to see our respective pricing from both SP Richards and Essendant.

Incentivized

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.)

Incentivized

• There is good training and support to help learn the product
• Makes it easy for staff to manage inventory and see what we have in stock for hardware and computers.
• Integrates with many of the Wholesalers we use right out of the box.

Incentivized

• 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, ....

Incentivized

• Would like to be able to print only unprinted orders in packing slips.
• More reporting options within Red Falcon.
• Would like to be able to search by order number under customer order history.
• Be able to do recurring orders on the back end for MISC items.

Incentivized

• 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.

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.

Incentivized

I feel there is a lot of clicking around to get what you need.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Support is great at taking care of our questions and issues.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

The instructors were patient and kind but the overall implementation seemed cumbersome and lengthy.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

We did a quick review of other companies but went with Red Falcon as we knew someone else who used and was happy with their service offerings Red Falcon does seem to be expensive but it was a little hard to compare as we did not compare all the specific pricing for other competitors Again, we mainly went with Red Falcon through word of mouth

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• Red Falcon's integration with e-auto is a tremendous time and money saver on the admin side of things!
• The overall cost of Red Falcon is a bit pricey so the ROI really depends on how much e-commerce business that can be ran thru it.

Incentivized

• 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.