Detailed Honest Review
Overall Satisfaction with Epicor Prophet 21
We are a leader in the fluid power industry in which we design, sell and service equipment and parts along with manufacture custom hydraulic systems through distribution. We have 2 companies across 9 locations with 3 manufacturing divisions. Each location has a showroom for front counter Sales (point of sale) and a service department with a stocking warehouse. We perform central based purchasing and forecasting mainly with some location based purchasing where needed. We use Prophet 21 software in every aspect of our company across all locations, short of payroll and internal purchasing of our business consumables in a mostly dominant thin client environment.
With the vast amount of features in the system it allows it to be compatible with many different business models throughout several industries which can make it a little over complicated on what to do via data entry as not all companies use every single piece of functionality and you have to fill in the appropriate area for what your company is using as there are a lot of fields and tabs that you could have to update, so it can produce very detailed information if a lot of the fields are utilized. Speed is a huge concern with this software as it has multiple layers of programming on top of an outdated platform that makes the data entry workable but painfully slow once you get used to running the software.
Pros
- Scalability and the capability to mold to a lot of different companies' business models.
- The Purchasing/Forecasting functionality is top notch and very moldable to any purchasing model ranging from central purchasing down to individualized seasonal items. Once set up it will let you get away with a smaller procurement department as the system will tell you what you need to order.
- There are a ton of purchasable add-ons from the vendor along with even more third party add-ons that make this a wonderful software if you have the money and skilled personnel to support it.
- The vendor is good about fixing issues quickly but sometimes it's difficult to distinguish between an actual error and a company specific business process.
- Developers run a continuous improvement program with multiple releases a year so as they are designing new features at the same time they are cleaning errors and glitches rather than waiting a long time for advancements and a rock solid release. This could also be considered good and bad if you need an advancement, you don't have to wait!
Cons
- Scalability and the capability to mold to a lot of different companies' business models. Since this software can mold to a large variety of business models it can make training difficult and long due to the complexities of the software's advanced features. This also makes data entry cumbersome as you have to know what fields to enter depending on what functionality you are using.
- Slow to implement vendor driven Idea's Network from user ideas.
- The product feels extremely slow once you get used to running the system and is glitchy because of the method chosen to release updates and advancements in the continuous improvement method.
- Developers run a continuous improvement program with multiple releases a year so as they are designing new features at the same time they are cleaning errors and glitches rather than waiting a long time for advancements and a rock solid release. This could also be considered good and bad if you need an advancement, you don't have to wait!
- The company's move to have the first level of support go to India can lead to frustrations because of the communication barrier along with new support teams that are not yet very knowledgeable in this software and the level of experiences with the software is still being developed.
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