M1 vs. Unit4 Enterprise Resource Planning

The M1 ERP is tailored for small to medium organizations, offering good features at least in the components utilized by my organization such as customizable workflows, user-friendly dashboards, ability to process orders, and track the entire orders lifecycle. It also has good customer interaction features in the CRM part. It provides robust data security, and offers scalable modules to grow with your business. Implementation is not challenging if you don't have so many customizations in the software.

Incentivized

Unit4 is good for small and mid-level companies where they need a single platform to manage their functionality.

• Allows for component parts to be scheduled independently through the plant
• Once parts are built, it is easy to duplicate/reuse parts across they quoting and ordering modules and customers
• If used properly and consistently, M1 will provide accurate job cost analysis to determine estimating, training, efficiency and other issues.

Incentivized

• Since the software is built with your needs in mind, it can be tailored to your specific needs.
• System security is also created with your specific needs in mind and can be extremely detailed for various roles within the organization.
• The various modules integrate well, if thought through system processes when building.

Incentivized

• Some of the functions are pretty detailed - and so they take a while to generate screens and pages in reports.
• We actually use it for 2 companies we own - and it would be nice if the inter company communication was a little smoother. It's hard to share some data, and not everything is possible to be shared.
• Customized reports need to backed up before any updates to M1 or they're lost. It seems M1 overwrites the report folders everytime you run an update - so you have to keep track of what you've changed in Crystal Reports and restore it.

Incentivized

• Their layout and limited web capabilities are a turn-off
• They lack basic functionality in their web [version]
• The implementation phase is bumpy since their guides and process documents are not step by step and are usually confusing

Incentivized

Because it would be helpful if ECI would provide better documentation, communication and workflows to understand how each field interacts within the system and how each of those touch other areas within M1. It would also be useful if ECI would provide prescheduled training for how to customize things with M1 through Design Studio

Incentivized

Unit4 is very easy to use. One can use it without much technical knowledge.

Support has been great and timely

Incentivized

Their consultant and support service is also very responsive.

M1 is light years ahead in overall cost and proficiency. It allows so much more control and flexibility as compared to its competitors. When choosing M1 we went through many demos and M1 was the only ERP that met our needs and still does. We also control our own data which is a big plus for us.

Incentivized

I have used Fund EZ and QuickBooks. Unit4 is for larger organizations and was needed for our scaling.

Incentivized

• Time savings having to only enter certain information once and have it follow through the entire order process from quote to cash

Incentivized

• Our business processes were in flux when the initial build of our system was taking place - this made lives very difficult. Make sure processes are set!
• Time - beyond what could have been imagined - this is a huge project, that needs proper resources assigned to it within a company when planning to install.

Incentivized