PeopleSoft - Still the best ERP for very large enterprises!
May 20, 2021

PeopleSoft - Still the best ERP for very large enterprises!

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with PeopleSoft Financials

PeopleSoft Financials is being used across our entire organization in many facets. It is used to solve numerous problems and facilitate most of our processes in some regard and to some degree. We use PeopleSoft for HR, Financials, CRM, Contracts & Grants, Capitalized Asset Management - you name it - PeopleSoft plays a role in every process and procedure. The biggest problem the system solves is bringing all of our locations together on a single chart of accounts and platform, therefore tearing down silos that exist previously, and standardizing all data entry and sharing of information.
  • Integrating with other systems
  • Providing a consistent user interface
  • Automating workflow
  • Standardizing added and updated modules
  • Updating old modules with newer UI and features
  • Adding more in-application help
  • Efficiency and integration saves us dollars
  • PeopleSoft is expensive to customize, however
  • A larger learning curve costs us more up-front, as PeopleSoft is not easy to use and understand
  • We manage our grants with much higher efficiency, allowing us to get more grants at higher dollars
We selected PeopleSoft Financials because it addresses every business need of our very large entity with separate offices over a relatively large geographical area. Most alternatives (with the exception of Oracle Cloud ERP and SAP) did not allow us to easily integrate and validate data sharing from our homegrown systems, of which we have a lot, and that was a huge factor as well. The most difficult part of transitioning to any ERP includes the cost of implementation and customization. If there is any downside to ERPs, it's the insane price tag on creating customized modules (and this is especially costly for PeopleSoft, SAP, and Oracle). Depending on the customization, this is usually in the 1+ million dollar range for a large enterprise. PeopleSoft can be customized to accomplish just about every single business need we've ever had, and that was a huge factor in the decision to use it. For smaller entities, there are many ERP solutions that you could use which will save you money and headaches in the long run. PeopleSoft is expensive, and it requires a lot of skill to implement, but when it is stable and customized to your process, there is nothing better out there for large to extra-large enterprises! Bottom line: If you have a big enterprise with a lot of moving parts, PeopleSoft could definitely be the right ERP for you. It's tried and true and has been since it appeared on the market.
Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365), dbForge SQL Tools
You really need a big enterprise to take advantage of PeopleSoft. It is not entirely user-friendly, and it often requires massive amounts of customization to make it work for layers if you will. Business experts can figure it out, but if you are expecting someone to easily learn how to use the timekeeping modules without heavy customization, it's really not for you. You need to know going in, that this is not for a small business at all, and not even a medium-sized enterprise. It's geared to massive organizations that need to integrate business processes over geographic areas and multiple departments.

Oracle PeopleSoft ERP Feature Ratings

Accounts payable
9
Accounts receivable
9
Global Financial Support
9
Primary and Secondary Ledgers
10
Journals and Reconciliations
10
Configurable Accounting
10
Standardized Processes
9
Billing Management
10
Cash and Asset Management
10
Travel & Expense Management
6
Budgetary Control & Encumbrance Accounting
10
Period Close
9
Inventory tracking
Not Rated
Automatic reordering
Not Rated
Location management
10
Pricing
Not Rated
Order entry
Not Rated
Credit card processing
9
Cost of goods sold
Not Rated
Order Orchestration
Not Rated
Pay calculation
Not Rated
Benefit plan administration
Not Rated
Direct deposit files
Not Rated
Dashboards
Not Rated
Standard reports
9
Custom reports
10
Not Rated
API for custom integration
Not Rated
Plug-ins
Not Rated
Role-based user permissions
10
Single sign-on capability
10
Award Lifecycle Management
10
Budgeting and Forecasting
7
Project Costing
8
Cost Capture
8
Capital Project Management
10
Customer Contract Compliance
10
Project Revenue Recognition
10
Project Planning and Scheduling
9
Task Insight for Project Managers
9
Project Mobile Functionality
9
Definable Resource Pools
9
Not Rated
Bids Analyzed and Compared
Not Rated
Contract Authoring
Not Rated
Contract Repository
Not Rated
Requisitions-to-Purchase Orders Integrated
Not Rated
Supplier Management
Not Rated
Risk Repository
Not Rated
Control Management
Not Rated
Control Efficiency Assessments
Not Rated
Issue Detection
Not Rated
Remediation and Certification
Not Rated
Not Rated
Transportation Planning and Optimization
Not Rated
Transportation Execution Management
Not Rated
Trade and Customs Management
Not Rated
Fulfillment Management
Not Rated
Warehouse Workforce Management
Not Rated
Not Rated
Production Process Design
Not Rated
Production Management
Not Rated
Configuration Management
Not Rated
Work Execution
Not Rated
Manufacturing Costs
Not Rated
Forecasting
8
Inventory Planning
9
Performance Monitoring
10
Proposal Management
Not Rated
Product Master Data Management
Not Rated

Using PeopleSoft Financials

We use PeopleSoft for general accounting, contracts & grants, capital asset management, HR, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and so much more. Just about all of our tasks reach some data point in our PeopleSoft instance. It is integral to our success.
50 - You really need technical people to help you with PeopleSoft. Our group of talented functional and technical analysts is there to help when something goes wrong, and things do go wrong. It helps that our team is focused and rooted deeply in great customer service.
  • General Ledger/General Accounting
  • Consistent Chart of Accounts across all entities
  • Managing a new Capital Asset from purchase to end of life surplus
  • Offering an employee self-service for the top HR functions
  • Customized pages for award and grant management
  • To provide data to a host of other information and reporting systems
  • Providing more self-service features
  • Helping to automate certain processes
It is at the heart of doing business for us. It's a decision that will need to be in place for our life as a business entity. At least, certainly, my life as a career employee.

Evaluating PeopleSoft Financials and Competitors

Yes - We replaced a homegrown system that we outgrew. It worked well before we became very large and segmented in different locations, but PeopleSoft was needed to bring us to the next level and continue our growth and integration.
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
PeopleSoft is tried and true in our industry. We considered Oracle Financials, but PeopleSoft took the edge over it because it's been offering our industry the best solutions for decades. The ability to integrate all of our systems in one place, customize to our needs, and grow for the future sealed the deal.
I do not think we could have done any better.

PeopleSoft Financials Implementation

I recommend that everyone pay special attention to developing a solid testing and training plan if you are even thinking of implementing PeopleSoft. Be ready to obtain good trainers and developers, otherwise, your journey can be unnecessarily painful and much more expensive. Try to stay with an implementation partner who really has your needs at heart, and actually takes the time to understand your organization!
Change management was a major issue with the implementation - As I mentioned before, PeopleSoft is not intuitive. People have a hard time learning how to properly enter data and use the system throughout almost all facets of the implementation. Change management is always a huge ordeal with PeopleSoft, and I have been a part of the CM team on more than 10 implementations in my career. If I have to say lessons learned, it is to train early and often. Do roadshows to help people understand the differences, and show them the product. You cannot, and I repeat - cannot - just throw people into PeopleSoft and expect them to succeed.
  • Custom modules not working with stock modules properly
  • Data input not functioning properly
  • Tables not built correctly and needing updates
  • Testing not thorough enough

PeopleSoft Financials Support

I can't give them a perfect rating because it does often take a long time and usually more [expensive] to resolve trying issues that cannot be solved by our in-house team. PeopleSoft is complicated, and the mix and match of user-created and stock modules cause problems very often. These usually require more customization to completely fix, requiring more money spent with
ProsCons
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Kept well informed
Support cares about my success
Difficult to get immediate help
We have an in-house group of PeopleSoft experts we carefully curated and recruited, so we do not subscribe to any premium support through Oracle.
If you are looking for exceptional support, then Oracle products are not for you. Oracle is profit-driven, and most things end up requiring more expenditures. Unfortunately, in 25+ years of experience working with Oracle Financials and PeopleSoft, I cannot ever recall receiving exceptional support for any issue. I truly wish this was not the case but has always been my biggest sticking point with Oracle products other than the extremely high cost of ownership and operation.

Using PeopleSoft Financials

PeopleSoft is HARD to use, period. Everything except for the most rudimentary functionality requires a massive amount of training and ongoing support. There is nothing intuitive about it, and that is where it leaves a lot to be desired. However, due to the way it integrates so many things, there is little in the marketplace to challenge it when it comes to large enterprises.
ProsCons
None
Do not like to use
Unnecessarily complex
Difficult to use
Requires technical support
Not well integrated
Inconsistent
Slow to learn
Cumbersome
Lots to learn
  • Employee self-service
  • Time and Expense
  • General Ledger
  • Cost transfers and funding entry
  • Contracts and Grants
  • Capital Asset Management