P21 for Distribution Growth
August 30, 2017
P21 for Distribution Growth
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Epicor Prophet 21
Prophet 21 is used across our organization, by almost all departments. It allows us to keep track of our inventory across 4 warehouses and fulfill orders to customers nationwide. We utilize the order entry, accounting, sales, inventory, and purchasing modules. We utilized a separate warehouse management system that syncs with P21.
- SQL based database recording all transactions. This allows us to use common SQL tools for data reporting. We have had to rely on Crystal Reports and other BI tools such as Sisense to supplement the reporting offered from the P21 application.
- Demand Forecast is measured across all our warehouses and allows us to stock the correct inventory levels for each location. It is captured at time of purchase and recorded against a customer's default warehouse location regardless of where the item ships from.
- Complex pricing can be setup with Sales Pricing Maintenance to charge different prices based on suppliers, discount groups, individual items, and certain customers.
- Not very flexible. For example you cannot change which fields get exported when sending an EDI Invoice to a customer.
- Difficult to update records. The Fast Edit functionality leaves a lot of filtering features to be desired. I've seen good things with their 2017 version, but we have not yet implemented that upgrade.
- Search functionality is pretty bad when looking up an item, order, customer record etc. It is very slow and cannot be filtered to only look for specific fields.
- P21 has kept up with our organization as it continues to grow. It allows multiple inventory warehouse locations to fulfill customer orders across the United States.
- It works well with our 3rd party warehouse automation software allowing us to utilize features that were not available with core P21 functionality.
Not sure how other Distribution focused ERPs stack up. It is a lot less expensive than SAP the industry gold standard, but is probably missing some key functionality provided from other ERP systems. For the price it does a great job recording the individual transactions that go on in our day to day business.