Epicor Prophet 21 vs. Infor CloudSuite ERP vs. Megaventory

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

We have had great success with inventory management and production planning/execution. Also, data and system integrity have been key to our overall solution satisfaction. We struggle when it comes to reporting and analytics. The base product leaves room for improvement as much of the core reporting is not easily configurable and lacks the ability to scale forcing us to build a reporting model outside the solution

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

• Very stable product. Some of its weaknesses are also its strengths. The lack of web services seems to actually increase stability.
• No software vendor in this space is perfect. Lawson does perform as advertised.
• Again, a weakness of this (limited functionality) is a hidden strength as well. In software there is a complexity/feature tradeoff. Where Lawson lacks in features, it does give you a more simple setup for your organization.

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.

• Trying to locate forms that you haven't used before is not very user friendly
• overall view and navigation is very old style and could use an update
• Reports are built in and not very customizable, could also use an easy report reference guide.

Incentivized

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

Other than the inherent pain of a new implementation, it's a great platform and Infor is a great partner to work with. Every system has problems, our are no worse than any other platform. Maybe even a little better, nothing to make us want to change platforms any time in the near future

Incentivized

I don't believe there is much you can't do in Epicor Prophet 21. Some of the processes, though, are fairly rigid with customizations and would either need to be tailored for another approach or the internal process would need to be changed to match how Epicor Prophet 21 is designed.

Incentivized

Industry fit: Infor M3 is designed for specific industries, such as manufacturing, distribution, and food and beverage. If your organization operates in one of these industries, Infor M3 may be a good fit.Functionality: Consider the specific features and functionality that your organization requires from an ERP system, such as financial management, supply chain management, manufacturing, and sales and marketing. Review Infor M3's capabilities in these areas to determine if it meets your needs.

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

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 overall support of Inform M3 is simply the best! There isn't a single flaw that I can detect or think of about this software! I can't possibly express the greatness of the availability and all of the possibilities achieved. The ease of use and a lot of functionalities such as flexibility [allows in] configuration to add new functionalities fast.

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 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

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

One of the products I have used is an Oracle accounting product. I feel that Infor stands up well when comparing to the Oracle product especially for the accounting functions. In comparing it to Microsoft Dynamics I feel that Infor is easier to use in some accounting tasks. The one thing the Dynamics has going for it is the ease of use with other Microsoft Products.

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

• 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.

• we have a much better inventory tracking therefore able to meet the requirements coming fmor o2c
• order handling is smoother since we have almost visual control over it
• the different GAAPs can be included - like US. and locals (great for statutory reporting)

Incentivized