Infor VISUAL vs. Sage 500 ERP

I struggle to identify a scenario where VISUAL is an appropriate solution. We used VISUAL because it was a legacy system and the cost/complexity of changeover seemed daunting. The user interface is poor as is the interconnectedness of the various screens and menus. This might be an acceptable piece of software for a continuous manufacturing environment with little variation of basic design, but we have had to write multiple add-on macros in order to get VISUAL to work effectively for us.

Incentivized

Sage 500 ERP is great for companies with core accounting needs, distributors, and discrete manufacturers. Some areas, such as process manufacturing, would require a companion product from an ISV for the software to be truly functional. Some areas, such as construction or retail apparel, may simply not be well-served.

Incentivized

• Infor Visual has a standard way of addressing business operations: sales orders, invoicing, reporting. It is easy to train operators used to using a manual or other ERP system.
• Material control is easy for production runs, R&D material lists and repairs. The process of receiving, issuing and returning material to inventory is facilitated by standard interfaces that are easily learned by material control operators.
• Engineering changes to bills of material are facilitated by the "engineering Master" flexible editing capability. The version control for the BOM's can be as detailed or vague as the process designed dictates. One item of a BOM or the entire BOM can be changed quickly and approved for production that day.

Incentivized

• Sage is the one-stop-shop for all of our needs. We're able to control contracts, subcontracts, and field reports from the program.
• Another strength is the ability to database all the information and export it to excel. This makes data-based investigations a breeze.
• The ability for Timberscan to be imported to Sage is a huge help with invoice management. Prior to this it all had to be done manually and slowed the process to an essential halt as there are thousands of invoices per month.

Incentivized

• VTA has been extremely unreliable. I would not recommend it. It is not customizable at all. There is no logical way to handle shift differentials which is a huge issue with a company that runs 24/7.
• If you do not have a schedule set up, they cannot clock in. This poses a problem for anyone that gets called in on a shift they don't normally work on.

Incentivized

• The biggest concern/complaint of Sage 500 users is speed. Some of the screen take a while to load.
• The user interface needs some refreshing. Screens need to be updated to take advantage of shortcuts and to be more intuitive.

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.

It's too pricey for our size of company.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

The online training courses are not up to date. We experienced technical issues with two of the classes.

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

Keep your database and application in different servers.
Install Microsoft Office on your application server so you can use some of the data analysis tools in Sage.

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

500 seems much smoother at handling some of the basic accounting tasks, for example both issuing and later reconciling checks in Dynamics AX seems a little tedious.

Incentivized

• I cannot comment on business impact.

Incentivized

• Positive: The program allows for a lot of data entry and splitting of information. It has the capability of replacing multiple programs and therefore saving cost.
• Negative: The modules are cumbersome and not user friendly at all. As a result not many user are comfortable using it. This means that the program is not being used to its capacity.
• Negative: Although the program has the capacity to be great, the user interface destroys that potential. Sage needs to seriously work on their program to simplify it. It's as if it still uses Command-line entries from 1995. Needs to be updated ASAP.

Incentivized