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M1

M1

Overview

What is M1?

M1, from ECI Software Solutions headquartered in Ft. Worth, is an all-in-one manufacturing ERP software solution, built for small and medium-sized discrete manufacturers.

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Recent Reviews

M1 ERP System Review

8 out of 10
March 26, 2024
Incentivized
We use M1 as our ERP system to run our company. We use it for accounting and finance, quotes, sales orders, production jobs, bills of …
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M1 Software Review

8 out of 10
February 26, 2024
Incentivized
We use M1 as our full enterprise planning resource business system. It is critical in every aspect of our business from Sales, Purchasing, …
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M1 for Machinery

8 out of 10
November 06, 2023
Incentivized
I use M1 to monitor all users and activity. I utilize the KPIs and Reports in M1 to do this. Costing has been an issue for us, but we have …
Continue reading
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Popular Features

View all 58 features
  • Role-based user permissions (13)
    8.9
    89%
  • Dashboards (12)
    7.9
    79%
  • Custom reports (12)
    7.6
    76%
  • Standard reports (13)
    7.2
    72%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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N/A
Unavailable

What is M1?

M1, from ECI Software Solutions headquartered in Ft. Worth, is an all-in-one manufacturing ERP software solution, built for small and medium-sized discrete manufacturers.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Product Demos

Uncover Hidden Manufacturing Costs and Boost Profitability with M1 Job Costing

YouTube
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Features

Payroll Management

Provides for pay calculation and benefit plan administration, in addition to managing direct deposit, salary revisions and payroll tracking.

9.3
Avg 7.2

Customization

This addresses a company’s ability to configure the software to fit its specific use case and workflow.

8.6
Avg 7.3

Security

This component helps a company minimize the security risks by controlling access to the software and its data, and encouraging best practices among users.

9.2
Avg 8.1

Reporting & Analytics

Users can report on and analyze usage, performance, ROI, and/or other metrics of success.

7.6
Avg 7.0

General Ledger and Configurable Accounting

Financial management solution, including capabilities for general ledger and configurable accounting

8
Avg 7.6

Inventory Management

The ability to track and manage the flow of goods or materials into and out of an inventory.

7.9
Avg 7.9

Order Management

The ability to process orders, and track them from quote to cash.

8.2
Avg 7.8

Subledger and Financial Process

Revenue management solution including capabilities for subledgers and financial processes

7.8
Avg 7.4

Project Execution Management

Project execution management solution including capabilities for project scheduling, resource management, and team member task management.

6.9
Avg 6.8

Procurement

Procurement management solution with capabilities for sourcing, contracting, procure-to-pay and supplier management

8.3
Avg 7.0

Risk Management

Risk management solution with capabilities for managing controls, assessing control effectiveness, certifying controls, and addressing deficiencies

10
Avg 6.5

Logistics

Logistics solution with capabilities for transportation planning, transportation execution, trade compliance, customs management, warehouse management and warehouse workforce management.

8.6
Avg 6.9

Manufacturing

Manufacturing solution for managing manufacturing processes and costs.

7.5
Avg 7.5

Supply Chain

Supply Chain Planning solution with capabilities for planning, performance monitoring, change responses and execution.

6.8
Avg 7.2

Product Lifecycle Management

Product Lifecycle Management solution with capabilities for innovation management, product development

8.1
Avg 7.3
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Product Details

What is M1?

Specifically built for small and medium-sized discrete manufacturers, M1® software is designed to bring critical business processes together within a single ERP system. From quoting to shipping and everything in between, M1 offers real-time visibility into every facet of the business to help streamline processes to reduce costs and boost profitability.

M1 Screenshots

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M1 Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

M1, from ECI Software Solutions headquartered in Ft. Worth, is an all-in-one manufacturing ERP software solution, built for small and medium-sized discrete manufacturers.

Acumatica, Global Shop Solutions ERP Software, and Epicor CMS are common alternatives for M1.

Reviewers rate Single sign-on capability highest, with a score of 9.4.

The most common users of M1 are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(21)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-13 of 13)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
March 26, 2024

M1 ERP System Review

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use M1 as our ERP system to run our company. We use it for accounting and finance, quotes, sales orders, production jobs, bills of materials, inventory and quality. It has help to eliminate various other systems and tools as well as breaking down silos of information between departments.
  • Ease of use
  • Low IT burden
  • Most company information in one system
  • User interface
  • Performance
Well suited for smaller companies, not suited for large companies with complex processes
March 01, 2024

ECI M1 System Review.

Eric A. Brown | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use M1 to handle all in-house documentation and project tracking. Traditionally, we used very manual and handwritten processes to keep track of all business documentation, and this was becoming very cumbersome as the business grew. M1 allowed us to automate a significant portion of the day-to-day tasks that office staff were required to do and opened up more time for us to concentrate on less mundane tasks.
  • Automate documentation processes.
  • Keep all related documents together in an easy-to-find format.
  • Better inventory management.
  • A more modern user interface.
  • A change to the user training setup online is glitchy.
  • Less clustered layouts with easier scrolling on screens.
M1 is a very good ERP solution if a company needs something in place. I don't recommend switching systems if an ERP is already in place as it's an extremely big undertaking.
Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As a consultant to a $36M manufacturing and printing company, we selected M1 as an MRP solution to replace the existing MIS system which lacked scheduling and customizable features that were needed. We looked at several options and went with ECI/M1 as an established company with many years of supporting manufacturing. They were also extremely confident their software could accommodate our customized production requirements.
  • 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.
  • M1 is not designed for short run/custom manufacturing. It is difficult to "change sizes" of parts used in production because you have to re-generate the part and recalculate the Unit of Measure
  • Configured parts (auto calculations to address the above point) are not easily understood and need to be custom coded by consultants. This can become costly very quickly and requires the client to create all of the calculations and possible variations before any coding can be completed.
  • My experience with their implementation left much to be desired. Despite claims of there being a "highly structured onboarding process", my project was 18 months past due, there was no onboarding tool or "what to expect from the implementation" session, the project manager assigned (and billed to my client) was not qualified/non-value add, the project plan was a generic task list template and included modules we had not purchased and did not account for various adaptations we required. There were no "best practices" implemented for our industry/custom manufacturing application. There were no project risk assessments or business requirements development sessions conducted despite multiple requests to do these exercises.
  • Escalation through ECI's customer experience office and to various Directors/SVPs yielded more meeting attendees with little to contribute. Little leadership/accountability/drive to resolution was demonstrated on the part of ECI. My client had to push for credit for 6 months of hosting services to cover some of the schedule overruns.
  • Several customizations/adaptations that were addressed repeatedly in the sales cycle were not effectively communicated to the implementation team. Even after these needs were clarified, numerous delays and resource reassignments (5 different outsourced contract developers were assigned during a 12 month period to address the one customization needed for M1 to communicate with our legacy MIS system), the implementation missed the (4th) GO LIVE target date. The customization was not completed for Go Live and may mean manually closing the division's Feb and March month ends.
Implementation is by far the weakest link in the ECI/M1 process. Although the tool is powerful, the client is expected to drive the process of learning the tool, planning the meetings with consultants, identifying risks and making mitigation plans, etc. without any samples, guidance or assistance on the part of ECI. The tool is best suited to high volume, standard product manufacturers who build to inventory or to order without much variation. The shop floor routing and time tracking are straightforward if you can master the convoluted Unit Of Measure calculations. The tool is either hosted locally or accessed through Remote Desktop. Shop floor is web enabled but the main desktop for M1 is still a relay which makes connectivity a potential issue. Moving this platform to a truly web hosted environment would substantially improve connectivity and eliminate compatibility issues with Apple products.
February 27, 2024

M1 works

Ted Bill | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
M1 is our primary ERP for our organization. We run all of our quotes, sales, manufacturing planning, purchasing, manufacturing execution, shipping, and all the associated accounting through M1. We do not use if for payroll, and we use a separate QMS and maintenance tracking system.
  • Open access DB makes it easy to customize the on-prem solution
  • Lots of built in data analysis and data retrieval that the average user can access
  • We use the 'lot tracking' ability for detailed material traceability
  • No alternate materials or operations concepts
  • Plant scheduling is hard to achieve in a dynamic manufacturing environment
  • There is no built in maintenance or quality systems
It is a good solution for businesses that are no ready to afford a larger scale application. For those looking to take their first step into a full-scale ERP M1 is simple enough to grasp quickly and has enough sophistication to grow with your business to an extent.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use M1 for inventory, quotes, sales orders, invoicing and financials and so much more I love the "where used" function and the ability to drill down to a specific record on reports. Having the ability to customize just about anything in the software is very beneficial to use. We have customized the entry screens as we do not use every field, we have customized the grids to only show the field we need. We have also modified quite a few reports to make them our own versus using the standard reports that are provided with M1. I would recommend the M1 software to anyone who is looking to have an easy to use platform.
  • Ability to customize entry screens
  • Ability to review all transactions on any given item id
  • Ability to customize reports
  • When an address is deactivated, it should not show up under the entry screen when searching for an address to add to an order
Customer support is top notch. Some of the tech support staff I have worked with are very knowledgeable and will work with you until a resolution is found. They are also very patient and explain issues very well. As far as the software, there are many areas our small company does not use, but is not a problem as we just customize the entry screen to move the fields we do not use out of the way.
February 26, 2024

M1 Software Review

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use M1 as our full enterprise planning resource business system. It is critical in every aspect of our business from Sales, Purchasing, Bill of Materials, Inventory, HR and payroll, Quality Control, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, General Ledger and Fixed Asset Management. It is most helpful in maintaining and ordering appropriate stock levels based on Sales Order demand.
  • Inventory Management
  • Bill of Materials
  • Financial Accounting
  • Easier to create custom reports
  • More flexible when performing physical inventory counts
  • More user friendly scheduling function
In our case, as a small custom manufacturing company, M1 has been a very good solution to managing our day to day business. It is robust enough to serve as a complete ERP solution without being cost prohibitive. I'm not sure how appropriate it would be for larger size businesses. Also, it's very customizable out of the box. But it takes some time to figure out what works best for your particular business.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use M1 daily to quote products to customers, create sales orders, and invoice customers when the sale is completed. We use it for purchase orders to buy from our suppliers. I review the aging report to collect money owed from customers. It helps streamline our business everyday.
  • Quoting products for us to sell.
  • Tracking our production hours and jobs costs.
  • Collects and stores data to refer back to repeat sales.
  • Gives us an accurate aging report to determine who is behind on invoice payments
  • It’s difficult to undo an error made. Once an invoice is posted you can’t undo it.
  • We receive errors or glitches in sales orders or invoices.
  • When researching “how to” do something on the tech support page it isn’t as straightforward as I’d like for it to be.
It is well suited for any manufacturer that wants to track hours on a particular job, the cost of materials used, it’s great for invoicing, and amazing for data storing of current customers quotes, sales, invoices, packing slips.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use M1 to handle our entire process from Sales, to Job Management, to Inventory and Shipping. It works pretty well for the most part - being built on Microsoft SQL Server, and using Crystal Reports - it gives us the flexibility to customize it to fit out needs. It does a good job of managing the workflow for our orders, and keeping track of inventory supply for the orders (both our purchase parts and in-house assemblies). It does a great job of keeping up on open invoices both for our customers and our vendors - so it not only helps us track the money coming in, but getting our vendors paid as well.
  • Manages inventory parts and assemblies very well.
  • Tracks the orders from inception thru the build process and shipping.
  • Manages our payments to vendors.
  • Manages our outstanding invoices.
  • 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.
It seems pretty well suited to our industry where we have some pretty complex assemblies we build for customers. It has the capability to manage our internal documents well with our orders, and help keep things on track.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The product is our first foray into an ERM. For us the learning curve is quite steep, as we ran on excel and Quickbooks before M1. The online learning resources are very good, and our live team training sessions are absolutely amazing. The greatest strength of M1 is also it's greatest weakness. The program is so powerful and customizable that there are more than one way to accomplish an action. Plus the ability to modify much of the program data screens is quite powerful. We have yet to go live (combing soon) but the support and training has been awesome so far. (Shout out to Rob!). My suggestion as the lead user at my site, is patience, practice, training, and practice.
  • Customization
  • Workflow Capture
  • Inventory
  • Hover Help. (Mouse over a field with automatic help or units display)
  • Easier Automatic Image Display on Parts Page
  • Much Longer Titles. Some are limited to 6 characters.
We are still in initial install phase
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use M1 for managing projects, inventory, jobs, controlling costs, and labor. Although we are still facing some issues due to the learning curve, implementation, M1 itself, and customizations needed, M1 has been very helpful on inventory counts, shipping, controlling projects, and project/jobs costs. There are still several problems that we have been facing, especially on inventory unit costs (if set up as average), some errors caused by reversals, and some discrepancies in accounting. However, we are still investigating if the source of these is human error, conflicting customizations, or M1 itself. However, M1 is being great, and I am a heavy user of it.
  • Manage inventory counts. Good precision on quantities in and out, through shipping, MI, MR, and receipts.
  • Job costing shows great details on labor, operations, and materials to be used. I wished that would do better in outside operations that would return, but we still think it is great.
  • Ability to track changes (changelog), showing all changes that had in a particular place. Such as where, when, and by whom a line item unit price was changed in a PO.
  • Link, traceability, keeping history. If done correctly, it is amazing to keep the history of a part/lot.
  • The amount of user rights/customization is unbelievable. It can be hard to set up in the beginning, but it is great that you can give some very specific access to a user, and it is not (in general) as a package.
  • Inventory item specifications. It would be great to have more options and/or fields to add particularities of an item. Not needing to make different part IDs.
  • The lot selection screen should be customizable. This is a huge flaw of the system, causing several man-hours loss.
  • Although Crystal Reports is great, it would be great to see a 'report generator/editor' incorporated into M1.
  • Although SQL is not very complicated, some of the grid customizations should be easier for a regular user.
  • Inventory unit cost is not done correctly, not sure if it is our fault or if it is M1.
  • Backflush material in a job should work better. It not only with time cards associated with it, but should also work with a lot of trackable items.
  • Possibility to default decimal cases per item. Some have to be integer only, whereas others could be with several.
  • On Jobs and assemblies, could be better to specify the quantity needed. Quantity per assembly is not the best way always. Several times it will not work and/or will have a conflict with decimal cases.
  • Editing text fields is pretty annoying and comes with several errors.
We are with M1 for almost 2 years and we have several customizations made. The improvements comparing to the past system are amazing. The biggest selling point to us was how customizable it is, and so far is doing good. In these 2 years in, I cannot think in a scenario that M1 wouldn't work somehow. The great thing is that even though we are very specific, we can always face the application in one way or another in the system. I believe that a lot of procedures would be out-of-the-box, but it is great that on M1 we can adjust for the specifics of the industry.
November 06, 2023

M1 for Machinery

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use M1 to monitor all users and activity. I utilize the KPIs and Reports in M1 to do this. Costing has been an issue for us, but we have been able to work with the team at ECI to resolve our issues. This has been done through customizations and support calls.
  • M1 does a great job in setting up securities as the permissions are not just blanket wide. You are able to give permissions down to the individual field which helps when duties blend between departments.
  • The general ledger tracking and setup work well.
  • The system does not appear to be able to be easily manipulated, helping prevent opportunities for fraud.
  • When going to v9 the purchasing manager was replaced by the purchase planner which has given us many issues. The time needed to purchase has increased significantly.
  • The email integration does not always work in my opinion.
  • The part allocation numbers are not always accurate between modules in my experience.
I believe M1 has great use for short term production. If you are working on long term projects, the costing can provide issues as well as the job setup. The finance and production teams will find the software use easy whereas the purchasing and inventory teams will have more struggles.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
M1 is currently a work in progress in our machine shop. The staff and customer support are very kind & helpful. They make sure you understand fully the ERP system before you go live on the shop floor. Everything on the software is interactive and makes transactions go over smoothly. The program even works well on my Macbook computer. Highly recommend to any company in search of a simple & flexible ERP system
  • Organize Data
  • Simplifies Company Transactions
  • Helps Monitor the Shop Floor
  • Fix Bugs in Software
  • Add Error Codes to Help Resolve Technical Difficulties
  • Inform Customers About Packages
+ M1 Helps organize the shop floor.
+Assists in scheduling jobs and making sure things are done on time.
+ Helps keep track of material and hardware.

- Lengthy start up time.
- Can be very buggy at times.
- Unknown errors can really slow down processes.
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use M1 daily to perform accounting functions, such as running reports on inventory, sales, AP/AR aging, and job analysis.M1 is a user-friendly software that simplifies job estimating, planning, and inventory management. However, it lacks the reporting tools necessary for management to make informed financial decisions that are crucial for running a business.
  • Job planning and estimating.
  • Inventory purchasing.
  • Inventory managements.
  • Labor tracking.
  • Cost of sales.
  • Accounts payable.
  • Accounts receivable.
  • General ledger.
  • Simplified reports in Excel.
  • Easy to build reports and filters.
  • Data pool to build reports within M1.
  • User friendly format to upload entries.
M1 is an ideal software solution for small to medium-sized companies that do not require extensive reporting functionality. However, it may not be suitable for mid-size companies that are expanding and require ratios, built-in reports, or filters that can be run on the fly without much knowledge of grids or M1 crystal reports.
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