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ERP Software that does everything we ask of it
September 02, 2016

ERP Software that does everything we ask of it

Izzy Raskin | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Brightpearl

I wasn't central to the implementation, but was integral to the data component. There is a pretty steep learning curve to the software, and it takes a while until it becomes second nature. Once it does, it becomes invaluable.

We were given an implementation specialist who was there for the whole process, and that was necessary. Getting our products properly uploaded took a lot of background work, but not very much effort once it was formatted and consolidated properly.

I can't speak for the initial set up of banking, warehouses, channels, or software connections, but maintaining and adding to them is very easy.

We pay for the ability to call customer service when needed, and it's the best money we can spend. Each agent (and I know them all by voice at this point) is patient, competent, asks good questions, and instructs me on the fix or takes care of it themself.
Brightpearl is used by our whole organization, and manages inventory, purchase orders, sales, profit analysis, costs of goods, FIFO price accuracy, and landed costs. It assigns a price to each product, which follows it through its life cycle, from purchase, to transfer, to draft, to sale price. It helps us know the exact value of all of our products in all of our physical warehouses.
  • Assigning a cost to each product. We purchase at different costs, and each sale gets allocated a cost from the purchase order.
  • Audit trail - Each product has a full audit trail with references. Each addition comes with a linked purchase order, each subtraction comes with a linked sales order, and each transfer has the costs of goods associated.
  • Sales channel aggregation - we sell on multiple sales channels, and the products are in multiple physical warehouses. The sales come through from a variety of reporting methods. Brightpearl assigns each channel its own data, and displays all sales in a central dashboard.
  • Filtering - All products and sales can be filtered by sales channel, location, type, category, warehouse and many others. It provides an invaluable real- time snapshot of inventory allocations.
  • Customer support - In my role as power user and troubleshooter, I am in contact with a support agent on average 3 times a week, and each time they are knowledgeable, responsive, and competent. All questions are answered, and issues are fixed immediately.
  • Warehouse workflow - Sales are consolidated into goods notes, allowing the warehouse to print a consolidated pick list organized by bay, and then print all the packing lists, on which the order items are clearly displayed.
  • Purchasing - POs are made within the system and emailed from the system. They can then be received and allocated from within.
  • Product Organization - Each product can be made with all of its important information, and similar items can be sorted by option value. It's clean and elegant.
  • Transfers - Brightpearl is aware of this limitation and is working on it for its next release. The process is extra long, requiring unnecessary steps.
  • Bundles - We sell products in multiple package sizes, and anything requiring bundling needs too much physical work. Allocation, transfers, and reporting needs to be automated.
  • Search - The search function requires exact spelling and there is no universal search. You need to decide what you are searching for (e.g. products, customers, sales, vendors etc.) before searching. Additionally, it isn't easy to search for an option value within a product when making bundles or transfers. You must search for the parent item and then look around until your item is found.
  • Sale Creation - to make a sale from scratch takes a lot of time and effort. It is better for recording sales than making them.
  • We pay a nice amount for the software, but unlike many companies, it doesn't charge as a percentage of sales. You pay for users and service level. Without it, we would have no idea of our costs of goods, warehouse allocations, or sales tracking.
It is perfectly suited for a mid-size company which sells in multiple places and on multiple platforms. It takes care of managing inventory, making purchases, recording the sales and booking all payments.

Smaller companies may not require its functions, and larger companies may use more software which is project specific. This does all things for all people very well, and I am very happy with it.