Epicor Eclipse is an end-to-end business system for wholesale distributors, as well as electrical, HVAC, plumbing and PVF businesses. Eclipse simplifies complex distribution processes found in today’s dynamic supply chains.
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Epicor Kinetic
Score 8.0 out of 10
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Epicor Kinetic is a customizable, scalable, product-centric cloud ERP designed specifically for manufacturers.
Most of my experience has been with Epicor's Prophet 21. For most distribution verticals, Prophet 21 is the only way to go. The comparison I've drawn is this: Prophet 21 is like a ferrari. Epicor Eclipse is like a reliable donkey. Both get you from point A to point B but …
There aren't any better industry specific ones, but I have looked at Dynamics 365, SAP, Odoo, and others to see if a more robust, configurable, ERP could be customized to suit our industry. Not yet, but the balance is tipping away from Eclipse.
The first company that I worked for in the wholesale industry had an in house ERP. This ERP, I thought at the time was really great. When I started using e-term, I realized that my first experience of an ERP was not as strong as it could have been.
Since we have been on Eclipse for 13 years, our only comparison to other business systems is when training new employees and ask those new users their opinions during training. In general, nearly all new users of Solar Eclipse are impressed by the ease of use, ease of …
Epicor Eclipse was here when I started 2 years ago. SAP and Great Plains were used at previous employers. Epicor Eclipse versus the others, I would say that Eclipse has the edge in terms of the learning curve for new employees because of how easy it is to use. However, it is …
Viewpoint is our current ERP provider, but they pushed all of their customers to the cloud (which we didn't want to do). They also pushed all customers to a single product with a corresponding significant increase in price, while not providing additional value to our company. …
It was much easier to customize the software to what we wanted and we had more freedom to make the software exactly what we needed it to be. They gave us a lot more tools for development. They didn't restrict certain data transfer between screens or between modules. The support …
Epicor Kinetic allowing us to have the option of on-premise OR in the cloud was a big reason why we chose Epicor Kinetic. We also found the ability to customize and enhance Epicor Kinetic's screens, business processes, BAQs, and other features much more user friendly for our …
Ease of use and the ability of the system to adapt to our manufacturing processes and make our lives easier while giving us an upgrade in the system throughout the business.
I wasn't the decider on the purchase but I have been told that it was vetted and chosen due to the robustness of the program and the ability to add in customizations.
Most of my histories with SAP directly. I didn't really have any negative experiences. The only thing I could say is that I always had to go to somebody else to solve the problem that I can solve first person now with Epicor Kinetic.
The capabilities, when combined with some of the integration offerings, make for a really nice platform. Coming from another company where we had several systems for processing inbound, outbound, e-commerce, sales, etc., it is nice to have everything contained in one system. makes communication within the company easier and teaching easier.
Epicor Kinetic has been a wonderful system of record that I can rely on for consistent tracking of our quote to cash transactions. I have complete confidence in the data that is being processed at the Core of the Epicor Kinetic system. Customizing Epicor Kinetic has been a true game changer for us to allow our team to maximize the unique needs of our customers, vendors and users.
In my opinion, Epicor seems to want to sell add-on products constantly. They don't provide pricing at the beginning, but then rely on sticker shock and hidden costs (e.g. APIs)
There are times when we cannot figure out where numbers are coming from, especially costs. It would be nice if there was a way to see, in plain English, where a cost is coming from.
It seems unconscionable that we are unable to print financial statements to a pdf file.
In our experience, Support, which had been going well for a while, has become much less reliable and not very timely.
In Application Studio, there are quite a few things that you just have to know in order to really get it to work right. Such as when you are updating a dataview you have to save them refresh and then go back to the wizard to get the added fields that you may have added from a BAQ.
When running MRP it has a tendency to stall or not finish on occasion. This is a problem as we do not get any PO Suggestions when this happens.
I use it every day and can't see a reason why I would stop unless I started a new job. If I were to leave my present position, the new job would be much more attractive if they were Eclipse users.
Epicor Eclipse has saved our organization from financial mismanagement, which could lead to operational inefficiencies. It has streamlined purchase orders and invoice processing, reducing instances of underpayment and overpayment. It has enhanced the segmentation of financial statements by store and by day, making it easier to track profitability.
There is always room for improvement! I've used Great Plains ERP/MS Dynamics and Epicor my entire career. both do some things really well. Both could learn from each other. The KInetic user interface is much better than the classic windows overall. Please keep adding more functionality to the core financials!!! You need the accountants to be on your side.
I haven't experienced any outages in the two years I have been using the system. It is always available as long as the computer is up. The only time I have seen it not be available was on occasions where we lost internet, or power and then we lost access to everything, not just Epicor Eclipse.
Everything in this system moves fairly quickly, that may be in part because we are a small company with only 21 users on the system at a time, or it may just be a the way the Epicor Eclipse works for any size company with any number of users. I can only speak for what I know and say that it is fast for our purposes.
The tier 1 support is trying, and sometimes they are successful. Sometimes they aren't. This topic isn't as black and white as the questions might suggest. Currently their Tier 1 support team is over seas, all items automatically go to Tier 1 and then when they can't help they either escalate it or tell me they need to check with someone else and they will get back to me. If they escalate me to Tier 2, then the issue comes back to the States and the support is usually at a higher knowledge/experience level and it can get resolved fairly quickly. If they don't escalate, then it might take weeks and multiple follow ups on my part before I either get a satisfactory resolution or finally get escalated.
If the answer to your problem is not readily available in an answer book, your response or solution will take months, if you get one at all. Problems need to be sent to support and duplicated by them before they try to fix it. This is extremely frustrating because you have to prove to Epicor that you are having an issue. If by some miracle you get by this barrier, your problem is submitted to development for review. You can't speak to them or communicate in any way directly. This group appears to be completely unconcerned about user issues or customer service. Our experiences have been negative across the board.
The training classes that I have attended have been top notch. The presenters are extremely knowledgeable on their subject matter, including real-world application of the system. They aren't just software techs training end users, they seem to be end users that have become experts in the over functionality and capabilities of the system.
The on-line training is very good, and it is taught by the same people that do the live in-person training sessions. The difficult part of it is, asking questions about your specific company's nuances or special circumstances. I don't remember if you can access the on-line training sessions after you have taken them for reminders purposes, but if so that is a great asset.
I don't really know about the implementation, it was back in 1998 and I didn't start here until 2016. By the time I started here they had been running it for a number of years and most of the people that were here when it was implemented are no longer here, and the ones that are don't really have much to say about how the implementation went either bad or good.
Most of my experience has been with Epicor's Prophet 21. For most distribution verticals, Prophet 21 is the only way to go. The comparison I've drawn is this: Prophet 21 is like a ferrari. Epicor Eclipse is like a reliable donkey. Both get you from point A to point B but Prophet 21 is going to get you there much quicker and with the kind of insight into your business that will help you thrive.
Viewpoint is our current ERP provider, but they pushed all of their customers to the cloud (which we didn't want to do). They also pushed all customers to a single product with a corresponding significant increase in price, while not providing additional value to our company. As a result, we considered some other options, but given that our sister company had been on Epicor for several years and we have shared IT resources, it made sense to all be on the same system.
I don't really know about the scalability. It's the same as it was when I started, I do know that you can buy more user licenses, but I think they come in packs of 5, which can be a problem if you only need 1 and will never use the other 4. But, again I'm not sure on that.
Using the word Scalability usually implies an increase of use, or adding the use of other features. Making the product put to good/proper use for small companies without the need for full-time support, whilst integrity is maintained it is an entirely different topic. In my view, the current company may have acquired a full truck with options, where initially a small pick-up may have been better suited.
Reporting features allow tracking items trending downward which can glut inventory space and dollars if not adjusted
GMROI reports help analyze turn ratios and adjusted dollar values and margins of product lines.
Suggested Purchase Order features allowed controlled inventory purchases which avoid lost sales while managing overall dollars invested in an acquired product with the lowest freight costs possible.
