Epicor Prophet 21 is an ERP for distributors, allowing companies to manage their supply chain with one ERP, with industry-specific functionality, cloud-based applications to modernize operations, connected ecosystems to ensure visibility across the organization and AI-infused solutions to drive efficiencies.
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SYSPRO
Score 6.5 out of 10
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SYSPRO
is a highly scalable, industry-built Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
software solution that can be deployed in the cloud, on-premise, or accessed
via any mobile device. SYSPRO is designed to simplify business complexity for
manufacturers and distributors by providing actionable insight that supports
effective decision-making, strong cost control, streamlined processes and
improved productivity.
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.)
Almost, since day one Syspro has been saving us time and making us more productive as a whole. We have been able to grow our revenue exponentially with keeping our personnel needs at nearly the same level. Syspro is a great system for an organization that has multiple needs like Distribution and Manufacturing and/or multiple locations.
If you are a small or medium business, SYSPRO is a great fit due to its flexible design. If you perform warehousing and inventory management Syspro performs these functions very well.
SYSPRO has been around since 1978 and it shows in its development and support. I have been through several re-sellers for our support function, however we have now moved to SYSPRO corporate for our technical support and development/customizations. SYSPRO corporate supports their customers VERY well.
The SYSPRO interface is highly customizable and nicely laid out. Even with the basic implementation, you can still get off the ground and run without performing too many modifications.
SYSPRO forms and reporting templates are easy to customize/modify.
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.
We have been using 6.0 and the security is not so good.
The program is a bit difficult to learn for rollout
The Learning Channel could be improved - downloadable mp4's would be nice to include in the program vs moving back and forth to the learning channel. Since the program is difficult to learn, it would be nice to be able to utilize the learning channel within the program. Also, the learning channel is pretty complicated to use.
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.
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.
I've heard many reports from our users stating how difficult Syspro is to use and navigate. From an average standpoint, the Syspro Administrator has to invest a lot of time in setting up the user for success. Once the groundwork is applied, SYSPRO's overall usability becomes fair easier to the average user.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
We evaluated 8 of the top vendors 16 years ago before we selected Syspro and frankly, none of them came close to meeting all of our needs at a reasonable price point. We still look back at that process and think it was one of the best decisions we have ever made.
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.
Significant returns regarding our ability to quickly process orders - both direct entry, EDI and web orders.
Significant returns through giving us the ability to serve configurable products to our customers - We used the product configurator to accomplish this.
Simplifies the shipping process and makes it easy for us to process shipments.
Significant returns in terms of automation and cutting down on expense.
