Epicor Eclipse is an end-to-end business system for wholesale distributors, as well as electrical, HVAC, plumbing and PVF businesses.
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SAP Business ByDesign
Score 7.4 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
SAP Business ByDesign is SAP's cloud ERP suite offering, launched in 2007, designed for the SMB market. The product includes a broad range of capabilities including financials, human resources, sales, procurement, customer service, and supply chain.
Business ByDesign is a new platform, delivered entirely through a SaaS model, with functionality that overlaps somewhat with BusinessOne, which is also an SMB product, although not a true SaaS product.
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Pricing
Epicor Eclipse
SAP Business ByDesign
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Epicor Eclipse
SAP Business ByDesign
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Optional
Additional Details
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SAP Business ByDesign is available for a monthly software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscription, based on a base package, user types, and number of users.
Eclipse is well suited for quick order entry where the source is a formal purchase order document or a phone call with a known customer. In these scenarios the order entry process is quick, and order processing is smooth even if the customer has a lot of "special" requests like shipping part today and holding the rest or shipping some of the order to other addresses. Eclipse also works well if you have a good database of products, especially in searching for products where only partial information is known or finding existing orders where all you know for sure is the customer. It is not particularly well suited for Point of Sale where a walk-in customer who doesn't have an account wants products for which part numbers are not known, due to the requirements to release an order for a customer with no credit.
Sales Order tracking, even returns are strengths of Epicor Eclipse. It can be set up to match returns to previous orders so that the correct credits are applied. It is capable of setting up contract pricing as well as matrix level pricing according to sales velocity or individual customer buyer programs.
Purchasing can be set up to work by full line buys or short buys while still maintaining a balanced inventory level of vendor line product.
Vendor Invoices and purchase orders are easily matched up for payment and the diverse reporting features are able to provide multi-faceted views of Product Sales, Items with No Sales, or Sales or Purchasing trends, just to name a few.
It is also tracking warehouse operation in both RF and non-RF environments, or a combination of the two.
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.
SAP BYD work centers are consistent and easy to navigate once you understand one work center. The document flow tab that is in each window allows one to see all related transactions. Document flow is important because one is able to see the flow of transactions and can therefore reverse transactions by following the document flow in reverse. It is possible to group items in each overview screen to see what items are open. The system is working as hoped.
This is very easy to use for someone that hasn't ever used the system before. Despite any preconceived notions about how a system should function they can learn this and become efficient with really not a lot of effort. I have used many systems and this is probably one of the easiest I have ever had to learn to navigate and use.
Because SAP Business ByDesign allows us to improve our work, reduce the operational steps, implement audit controls, allows us found standard reports or it allows us to create new ones if you need more than the exists are enough for your work or your needs. Overall, SAP Business ByDesign allows us to standardize our operations, enhance our work, improve our skills, work over a web environment or mobile interface.
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.
The Business ByDesign support is stablished since you contract the service with SAP. SAP resolves according to the service level agreement. Currently, we continue with the service and we are using the support channels available. We are receiving the support. The SAP support gets an incident and after that, they contact us to resolve the incident, if necessary, they set the meeting to understand it or we explain the incident
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.
I recommend implementing all workshops during the ERP selection that you need to know very well about the ERP software. It allows us to gather information to accurate the plan of the project implementation. Additionally, we must reach the high-level commitment to achieve the main goals, to define the RACI matrix and communicate to all project stakeholders.
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.
ByDesign stacks up well against the competition. Companies that do multiple things are usually the best fit (manufacturing, distribution, and service). The more 'modules' used, the fewer competitors will be able to meet the company's needs. It is not inexpensive, but if the needs of the company have the complexity from either a global perspective and need localizations and foreign currency, or a volume perspective and need resources greater than what can be easily housed on-premise, ByDesign should be a top consideration.
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.
One of the main positive ROI impacts has been the constant upgrading and adding of new features to keep the software user friendly, relative, and robust.
Our credit manager has said it has made their job easier with daily reports to catch pricing discrepancies and straighten out before they go to invoice makes us look better.
With the addition of sale analytics it has given our sales force tools and new approaches to our customer base which has raised profitability.
Positive - Access to the real-time reporting allowing for faster decision making especially when fixed price projects are heading into an over budget position.
Positive - Complex KPI can now be tracked and as a consequence intensive plans can be made to capitalise on this level of reporting. Staff also have clear visibility over their own performance.
Negative - We are a bit on the small side at 30 employees for a ByD solution so it was relatively expensive for us. It would be a much better value preposition above 50 employees.
