Epicor Eclipse vs. Infor VISUAL

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.

Incentivized

The original version of Visual Manufacturing (Lilly Software) was intended for mechanical manufacturing. It was adapted at our facility (we were not the first) to accomodate electronic manufacturing. For electronic manufacturing process control it is not ideal when referencing in-line or custom processes used to build product. For material control it is excellent unless a modification to a standard product is required (and we did this on 60% of product going out the door). The co-product feature that removes material from an assembly requires the creator of the work order to calculate the percentage of cost the removed items are from the completed product. On the business operations side regional tax reports were difficult to extract and an external module to go into the data base and extract that had to be created. The system itself was stable for the most part. Occasional "data collisions" corrupted transactions at times. The accounting procedures in place found them by the end of the month .where they were corrected. For a small business with less formal processes Infor Visual can be used with little training for the operators. If the processes need a higher level of accountability and control the processes can be formalized with workflow scripts to ensure that higher level of control.

Incentivized

• Great for retail sales and it works well with ipads, scanners, credit card machines and was easy to implement.
• Initial support, setting up Eclipse and ensuring that everything works correctly was a huge benefit. We were off running from the start.
• Epicor has continuing education on its products and offers alternatives for things they cant do.

Incentivized

• Part/BOM libraries
• Traceability from customer order to work order
• Job status representation

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• At times a "shadow part" is necessary in the manufacturing process. This shadow part does not require an inventory transaction but is made a as a separate process - sometimes out of sequence to the general process flow. Infor Visual ver 6.3.5 does not have that capability.
• When generating forms for business and manufacturing operations Infor Visual ver 6.3.5 has a limited number of options. To change or add forms requires an unsupported editor. When the stock and custom options are depleted an outside programming module is required as well as programmers to develop the forms.
• While free software upgrades to the main operations modules have been part of the maintenance agreement. One upgrade required database and hardware support not justifiable for the current business model. The system was frozen at the current version at that time.
• There is no easy way to differentiate between engineering documentation and production documentation.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Good Technical and Customer Support during and after implementation tasks. Good Project Plan and Management support for implementation and post implementation. Financial functionality could be more comprehensive particularly with Budgeting and Cash Management. Inventory Management capability was adequate but could be more comprehensive as well. "Out of the Box" functionality was adequate but requested add-ons and enhancements seemed to be a bit pricey.

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.

Incentivized

Because of use cases and easy implementation and the vertical and horizontal scaling.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

As we have seen the live environment and the use cases where we implement.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Could have used more hands-on approach. There are multiple webinars and information sessions but until you actually use the system, these are not very helpful.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

We unfortunately did not evaluate any other ERP software. VISUAL was a legacy system and we determined that changing systems would be too difficult, and not cost effective. We reached out to our local VISUAL rep who knew how the software functioned, but not how to apply it more appropriately to our business model, so we continued on with what we had rather than looking elsewhere.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Good Billing provided
• Easy to implement and use
• scales vertical and horizontal

Incentivized