Acumatica Summit 2023

Acumatica History

Although I have followed Acumatica since shortly after its founding in 2008, I had never attended an official conference. The company started with developers that were working with Microsoft on Parallels’ Business Automation, a telecom business solution for the cloud. Originally available on-premise or hosted in a single tenant format, the leadership of Acumatica had cloud ERP deployment as a goal from it s inception. Acumatica was able to develop quickly with offshore development, with a focus on meeting North American business requirements.

The original leadership team recruited leaders, trainers, channel managers and others from leading software publishers to quickly build a partner community. The new Acumatica team had aggressive growth objectives. In addition to signing up new customers, Acumatica also encouraged and acquired third party developers to broaden its capabilities. Through this approach, Acumatica recruited top partners like:

• PC Bennett – A former leading Microsoft partner that now provide the Acumatica Automotive edition
• Blytheco, SWK and Net@Work – All top Sage partners and, like PC Bennett, members of the Information Technology Alliance which have thriving Acumatica practices
• Mindover Software and the Mayer Group who won Acumatica’s Excellence Award in Small to Medium Partners

There are also a good number of boutique partners who provide a high touch experience compared to the templated approach of many Cloud ERP providers. The I-BN System Matching Service is designed to find you the right partner based upon your corporate culture and preferences.

Acumatica – Modern Cloud ERP

Mikhail (Mike) Shchelkonogov, Chief Technology Officer discussed the Modern ERP and what differentiates it from “Legacy” software. He discussed how modern ERP is not about the technology, but the expectations of the modern business management system.

1. Users who Access ERP – It is not just accounting and management, but the entire organization.
2. The Way Business Operates – Interconnected with other systems and services, the software must be open and accessible.
3. User Expectations – Customers not only expect real time online access to data, but recommendations, automations and similar artificial intelligence.

To meet these expectations, Acumatica Cloud ERP keeps focus in three areas:

• Industry Editions – Packages by horizontal industry such as distribution and manufacturing
• Development Tools and APIs for community – Without being open source, being open to the community to develop specific industry and customer specific solutions.
• Focus on End User capabilities – Empowering employees to contribute to digital transformation as citizen developers.

The customer usability is an area where cloud based technology has improved drastically. Mike demonstrated the ease of customizing screens in the latest user interface. These personalization of the customer experience was formerly only available with traditional on-premise software. Additional examples of automation of AP functionality with document recognition and machine learning was one of the highlights of the day 2 keynote.

Acumatica Competitive Summary

Acumatica with its private equity owners, experienced management team, and impressive channel and community has caught up with the traditional powerhouses of SAP, Oracle NetSuite, Microsoft and Sage. You should expect Acumatica to be competitive in features and functions in each of its six industry editions (Construction, Distribution, Manufacturing, Retail-Commerce and Services). Depending upon your unique business requirements we do see differentiators in each of the leading ERP products and suggest you engage us with a free System Selection Exploration call.

Acumatica Pricing

An area of key differentiation is pricing. Where many software providers have moved to simplify pricing, Acumatica has gone the other direction. Acumatica Cloud ERP pricing will be custom calculated for each customer based upon:

1. Functionality – Which edition do you need? There is also a general edition and there are some modules that are priced separately.
2. Transaction Volume – Acumatica has tiered pricing based upon transaction volume, integrations, etc. Customers with high dollar, low volume transactions can save considerably in this model. We should also note that this model is significantly different than the most common named user subscription model. Customers with shift work and job sharing can also benefit from this model.
3. Licensing Model – Acumatica provides flexibility with subscription, private cloud and perpetual license models.

Cusotmer Bill of Rights

Another unique advantage of Acumatica is their Customer Bill of Rights. This list of principles includes:

• Transparent, fair pricing and agreements , with no long term commitments.
• Own and access your data, now and always – in full, usable data formats
• Free professional online training
• Deployment on public or private clouds (on-premise too, but not listed).

Acumatica Critical Mass

Crossing the 10,000 customer mark is a significant milestone. Acumatica is clearly now in the category of a leading software provider. Recurring revenue from a large customer base provides stability during economic cycles while Acumatica retains its entrepreneurial spirit. However, the behemoth competition still have more customers with Microsoft Business Central over 15,000, Oracle NetSuite with over 30,000 and SAP Business One with over 70,000 global customers.

Acumatica Cloud ERP’s Bright Future

Acumatica’s clear and cognizant roadmap with a focus by major industry groups. Financials are the core of business management software. Acumatica focuses on the customer, improving usability of advanced technology for “Building the Future of Business Together.”

Resellers bridge the gap between software and customer requirements. Day 2’s keynote featured several customer/partner success stories showing how the line is becoming blurred between Wholesale Distribution and Retail-Commerce. This blurring of lines also impacts manufacturers who utilize Direct to Consumer (D2C) sales (read 5 Trends Disrupting Wholesale Distribution).

Great new features demonstrated include:

• Matrix inventory capabilities including templates and item generation
• Omni-channel features, such as bypassing tax calculations in the ERP previously performed online or in-store, have been needed in ERP for a long time!

Acumatica is also leading the way through other experimental and control release features that help advance “Modern Cloud” ERP.

• Learn more about how to make Modern Cloud ERP work for you, sign up for a free System Selection Explore call
• Maximize your cloud experience, schedule a Cloud Optimization Consultation with one of our executives.