S2K Enterprise vs. Sage 500 ERP

This ERP is suited for products that do not require customizations or personalization. Ideally, if you are selling a product as is, then S2K will fit your needs. Make sure to have all of the requirements for each piece laid out. For instance, with products - know all of your attributes and functionality for product pages ahead of time. Include this in the presentation for ERP selection. Ask what functionality is out of the box, and what is a customization. Ask for quotes ahead of time. This may increase the overall cost of the ERP as well as the time it takes to launch. Example: Product reviews, cross sells, remarketing, abandoned cart integration, etc

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

• Customization for various businesses.
• One-stop shop for managing a website, real time inventory, order processing, accounting, and shipping.
• The platform is easy to use. Whether it is used by a customer service member, designer, or developer.

• 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

• There will most likely be customizations made for a particular niche site to integrate with their system.
• Product reviews, up sells, and cross sells are not built into the website functionality. Customization to the offerings would be needed.
• Very little documentation or open source resources on instructions or development in regards to the website design and integration with the ERP.

• 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

S2K is easy to use, has room for growth, and serves the company's needs as a whole

It's too pricey for our size of company.

Incentivized

The platform is easy to use, customize, and fit an organization's needs.

Great support. The staff is very knowledgeable about the platform and the capabilities within the IBM framework

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

Incentivized

If this is someone's first ERP implementation, I strongly suggest you ask for services to help implement. Ask for training on every aspect of the implementation. Make sure this is put into the overall ERP quote

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

S2K offered a system that could be used by various departments. There were modules for accounting, customer service, order entry, and web development. The ability to customize the website integration was a plus. S2K allows the option to have products in different warehouse locations. This allowed us to better manage inventory and see in real time what the stock status was

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

• Reduced shipping time - shipments are now heading to customers 2 days sooner than before.
• Ability to search by attributes.
• In stock status - real time inventory tracking tells customers if a product is available without the wait.
• Order tracking - the ability to track every shipment associated with their order.

• 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