Likelihood to Recommend Epicor is an excellent system for most manufacturing customers and offers several features previously only offered on the very large (e.g. Oracle,
PeopleSoft , etc) level platforms. Yet the pricing is mid-level, and the expandability through additional modules provides a great opportunity for future business growth. The architecture is easily scalable, fast, and offers great options for both on premise and hosted systems. Epicor is flexible, and large enough that regular updates and enhancements continue to be adopted to improve functionality and effectiveness. It is however, not for everyone. Competition in this sector is very good, with several mid-level systems being available at a similar price point. If you are considering adopting a new ERP system and are in the plastics space, you also owe it to yourself and your team to consider IQMS, which is becoming a de-facto standard in this segment. Also, for specific medical sectors, you will find that Epicor software validation for CFR Part 11 compliance can be quite costly-- although the software is capable of supporting this with modification. Overall, Epicor is a solid choice. Ultimately, it will be up to your team to determine what works best for your needs. You won't be disappointed with Epicor if you do the due diligence and take the time needed to properly review and demo the product. Remember though, demos are typically "best case" staged, so be sure to throw several curveballs at your vendor and bring out the unique requirements of your business.
Read full review SAP Business One would be more useful if it contained tools to acommodate the growing need of online sales. A more complete shipping module which handles tracking numbers with the common couriers would be great. A built in warehouse management system would be great designed to be used with barcode scanners
Read full review Pros Epicor has the best product configurator that I have seen on the market. This was one of the main reasons we went with Epicor, and have not been disappointed at all. Epicor is also one of the easiest ERP system to learn, and has many ways for users to get training. Epicor University, on-line courses, or class room settings, also user conference every year, and user support groups. The Enterprise search ability in Epicor is great, can find parts, customers, suppliers, etc. so easily. And if you can't remember where a report or task that you want to do is on the menu, you can search for that also. Read full review SAP Business One is more suitable for small and medium scale enterprises SAP Business One is : analytics, mobile technologies, cloud technologies SAP Business One has exceptional performance in handling business functions such as purchasing and operations and customer relationship management An important key features of SAP Business One is Reporting and Analytics. Read full review Cons Consultants should be very well trained to make sure program integrity is maintained during challenging implementations. There should be an improvement on answering questions raised, especially upon migration issues. When is Epicor aware of improper/incorrect implementation they might proactively offer improvement support? Read full review Following a bench mark process - this seems contradicting to flexibility however we have wished we could follow more of an industry benchmark. Our challenge as a small company has been knowing how to properly use the system. We have discovered that we have set up the system wrong based and are using it improperly which has cause a lot work to correct. Better live reporting options - current we are on prem SQL. Yes SAP is moving to HANA however smaller companies like ourselves are not ready for that. We need to be able to maintain our existing SQL DB. We also have a demand for live BI Reporting. It has been difficult to do this with our current set up. Error handling - have found it very difficult to troubleshoot. Errors are not always clear and answers are hard to find. Read full review Likelihood to Renew As I said before, it is a first level tool, well developed, and with very strong development support, although the learning curve, its implementation, the cost-benefit ratio, the price and the user experience is not the most suitable for small and medium-sized companies. It is a company with extensive experience, market positioning, technical support and expanded use
Read full review Usability It is a good service to have people update and collaborate with I also like the ease of it. It keeps the stock of materials accountable
Read full review I would like to give 8 out of 10 rating for SAP Business One because SAP Business One is a good choice for the mostly used business management solutions for the small and medium-sized companies. SAP Business One can help in optimizing the existing business process and enables streamline business processes for the daily activities for all users across the entire organization. The importance realization of SAP Business One implementation is based on the selection of the good reputation partner and its approach for the entire implementation. SAP Business One is a user-friendly and easy to use Enterprise system that the organization can benefit its features and functionalities by utilizing it.
Read full review Reliability and Availability The SAP Business One software is up and running every time you need it as it was planned. In more than 6 years that we have been using the product, it has never been unavailable and if it ever was, it was because of a planned maintenance window scheduled in the company.
Read full review Performance SAP Business One performance depends mostly on the speed of your internal servers, should you have the solution on premise as we do. Sometimes the system tends to be a little slower for some users when others are executing really big reports of performing some batch loads, but generally, the performance is acceptable to all the users.
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review I rate my experience with SAP Business One's support team as excellent (10). They are easy to contact and effortless to work with on any issue or concern. I like the support SAP provides for any of their products. SAP has a great backing and I would recommend them to any of my colleagues.
Read full review In-Person Training The training I get was a consultant level training, so it's basically a 6 weeks training covering every aspect and every module of the system. It covered most common use cases and exercise training so you can get along with the software, as well as examples so there culd be a better understanding.
Read full review Online Training Over the past two years SAP has added a great deal of new SAP Business One on-line training for version 9.0 and 9.1. Most of the training is very strong, but some is difficult to understand and follow. Additionally, SAP still has a few holes in their on-line training around Production, Bill-of-Materials, MRP and Service.
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Read full review Implementation Rating These implementations are not easy. Even a standard implementation can be difficult. With a never-been-done-before implementation, the implementation team and the user team need to be thorough with planning, make a decision on key points, and stick to them before any design happens. Our biggest challenge was not from StellarOne, rather it was from the mid-implementation decisions from our internal team. StellarOne did a great job warning us, implementing our decision, and then helping us adjust our SAP to handle the new direction we took.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Everyone at our organization really appreciated "made 2 manage" because of all of the quick access and some of the capabilities in accounting. So far, Epicor is much more advanced but the two can stand side by side. These two programs cannot really be compared just because it's just not fair to compare an on-site server ERP system to a cloud-based one.
Read full review SAP provides the most robust solution, with modules available for all department managers and even options for customization according to the company's special needs. We especially used the Crystal reports options to provide reports for each module. Overall, even if it's not the least expensive option, it has the best value for money.
Read full review Scalability The software is pretty easy to use. Things are pretty clear on how to do them and if you don't know how to do something they have instructions on how to do them or you get an error code telling you exactly what to do. I have been satisfied with my overall experience.
Read full review For most small businesses, the only way you outgrow SAP Business One is if the nature of your business changes radically. Going from 1 to 50 users is quite easy with SAP B1. Going beyond 50 may require moving to the Hana SAP B1 platform to maintain or improve performance, but the path is there. Add-ons to SAP B1 can also be added as specific needs are encountered that are not closely met by the standard product. These may be required early in the product life because of the nature of your business, or as you expand the use of SAP B1.
Read full review Return on Investment The ROI can be hard to quantify. We spend more time setting up and entering information up front, but we spend less time than before trying to track project costs so that evens out. Purchasing the system and implementing it was very expensive, but the benefit is the the better information can save money on projects as we know where best to spend our time and identify potential problems earlier on a project. We believe it will have a positive impact, but I'd say it will take a few years (3-4) to be worth it. Read full review Employee efficiency has definitely increased with SAP Business One. This is attributed in a lot of ways to information visibility. Our employees are able to gather the data they need, quickly, and effectively. Identifying inconsistencies in pricing has also been accomplished through use of reporting off individual tables. Previously, we weren't able to access our data in such a way as to enable us to write custom reports in-house. We have also benefited greatly from having a single source of all business information. We utilize SAP Business One exclusively in-house. All documentation is attached to specific orders and Business Partners, as well as serialized equipment that has been sold. Read full review ScreenShots