Kinetic Reviews

Exceptional ERP Software for Manufacturers

Comments: Over the course of nearly twenty years as an Epicor admin in manufacturing, my experience has been fantastic. The software is simply to use, extremely flexible, and the ways that the data can be extracted (reports, BAQ's, and Dashboards) make it a VERY powerful analysis tool when the time to enter data is done properly. The support team is also fantastic...and while maintenance and support is expensive, it's worth it and you get what you pay for.

Pros:

Epicor is extremely flexible right out of the box, and is exceptionally strong in the areas of managing and tracking Production Jobs, Bill of Materials, Scheduling, Labor, Inventory, Purchasing, and Order Entry. It also has the ability to have customized development, and things like the Epicor BAQ's, Dashboards, and Business Activity Manager features allow customizes information, exportable grids, and notifications to be setup by administrators and even end users as these modules are user-friendly and fairly intuitive! The Shop Floor Data Entry Module (MES) is also very intuitive and simple to use for the users on the production / manufacturing floor.

Cons:

Epicor ERP is expensive software, and since it's such a wide product that handles so many aspects of your business, setup really must be done according to Epicor's recommendations and completed thoroughly. Also, since it's so flexible, there is a lot of it that you won't use, so it's best to create clear work instructions for your team and/or hide fields and/or functions that you will not need to use.

Robust ERP System Ideal for Manufacturing

Comments: We’ve been pleasantly surprised at how it is turning out to meet our business needs, while knowing the amount of work necessary to get it set how we need.

Pros:

Easily mass upload and update data. Configurable modules to meet your business needs. Responsive, knowledgeable and helpful consultants.

Cons:

Some restrictions which are costly to customize and work around. Forms are not easily edited. Many modules are an extra added cost to subscribe every year.

Epicor Manufacturing, some parts are better than others

Comments: Epicor is a mid-market software for companies that are under 100 employees (roughly) and more than 50 who need an ERP. Version 10 is by far the cleanest version. Given the choices at this size of a company's growth, it is a viable choice. Just be careful that the VAR doesn't walk you down a road to heavy customizations that get in the way of future upgrades and cost you yearly in re-working them when you upgrade or patch the ERP. Stick to custom reports, custom user screens, and use the Business Objects provided to interface with and all should be well.

Pros:

Ease of use, E10 is cloud based, support (when in US) is good, Short learning curve, fairly flexible, highly customizable

Cons:

Highly customizable tends to get pushed to overly customized which = a mini-new ERP project with every upgrade to fix broken customizations, VAR network: some are great, some not, support for down-rev version falls off quickly, plan on extended cost of ownership, import/export functionality is limited unless add-on products are purchased, Field Service module is the weakest link in the product.

Workflow made easy

Comments: We used this to manage the company. We track time on projects. Keep inventory, and is used heavily in supply chain.

Pros:

This software handles all of your company needs. It does time management, inventory, project management, and more. This was very easy to roll out to end users.

Cons:

So far we have only used this for less then 6 mo. I don't have any down side at this point. There is still a learning curve that we need to over come.

Epicor ERP allows the analysis of data in real time.

Comments: Epicor is a solid and highly scalable option that generates a positive return on investment. It also has a real-time data analysis. I recommend Epicor ERP thanks to all the functions that allow employees to work more efficiently and quickly. Although Epicor needs to improve the support team a lot, I'm sure to recommend it.

Pros:

Epicor ERP creates purchase orders, senders and invoices that generate a high return on investment. In addition, we have been able to accurately track work activity. Epicor meets our accounting needs. Epicor ERP is ideal for companies that buy components from many different places, so there can be traceability. A large number of departments use the system (order entry, sales, IT, finance). In addition, Epicor has a user interface with the ability to export to Excel. Epicor allows real-time data analysis and financial reporting to help make decisions faster.

Cons:

Epicor does not take advantage of innovations in the development of queries, which would allow inexperienced users to generate their own results without the help of the IT department. In addition, the software support team still needs to improve greatly in order to achieve better efficiency.

Kinetic- It’s not for the weak

Pros:

Lots of different ways to do one thing.

Cons:

There is a lot of steps to do one process. -it’s bulky-it’s very unforgiving

Epicor Software

Pros:

it is a very complete software, it can really help you with you planning and manufacturing process, you can control your purchases and your inventory very easy

Cons:

it lack of controls, you have to customize in order to get more control of your process, the cost of customization it is very high, and the support you get for your maintenance fee is is very poor.

Epicor ERP

Pros:

I used this software for 6 years and so I really got to know the ins and outs of it. It's hard to say what I liked most because I didn't really like it that much. One positive is that it's a very robust product probably best suited to a much larger company than ours.

Cons:

As the out of the box product, there is zero ability to customize anything without paying another company to do it for you. It's possible to make changes if you have training or an additional module, neither of which I had. There are many security measures in place that makes it difficult to undo something or revise after you've done it.

We use Epicor to run our whole business.

Comments: The customizability of this software is the key advantage for this compared to other ERP systems. They approach the company has is "we can't make it perfect for everyone, so we will let you make the changes you need for you".

Pros:

We like that it's incredibly flexible. Epicor has put a lot of work into tools to help customize the product. Each tool has a different level of complexity, and some take more knowledge than others to use, but it will get as advanced as your skill set.

Cons:

Out of the box it's fairly clunky to use. One record at a time is usually how things are done. That makes initial acceptance from users a bit of a challenge. But if you have users that are creative and can convey what they want, you usually can find a way to make things easier for them. If they just whine, not so much.

Epicor for Order Entry and Financial Management

Comments: We currently uses Epicor ERP software to handle our supply chain and scheduling/manufacturing. We use it with Order entry by the sales team and for all of our financial management. Epicor gets the job done and it is easy to use and manage, however we suffer from performance issues all the time.

Pros:

Epicor is relatively easy to use and learn. Our whole organization rely on Epicor for order entry and accounting/ financial management. It is our main ERP software that we use 90% of the time.

Cons:

We have on premise Epicor and we struggle with some performance issues frequently. The communication between the app server and database server encounter a lot of issues from time to time and we end up having to reboot the systems to try to get us back working again.

ERP system that is easy to setup, easy to use, and has the features you need and want.

Comments: We rely heavily on a product configurator and Epicor had the best configurator we seen on the market. Epicor has continued to improve their product, adding new features, making it available while mobile. The third party software plug-ins are great and add many time saving functions that are easy to use.

Pros:

Like the fact that it had the features we needed, was easy to use, and see continued effort by Epicor to improve it by adding new abilities and features to it. We get great support and training is available in many different forms.

Cons:

Cost was a little higher than what we initially were thinking of in our budget. However, after looking a many ERP systems we quickly found that Epicor had what we wanted and felt that it was worth the investment. It has been 10 years now, and still believe we made the right decision to go with Epicor as our ERP system.

Overall great experience it in terms of scalability, customization, and providing business needs.

Comments: I learned how to create SSRS reports. I learned how to customize different menu items using the wide variety of customization tools. I learned how to query data and transform them in many different ways to present accurate reports. I learned how to use the many menu items and modify them to our business needs. I learned how to develop business process flows for our company to reference whether it's entering an order, tracking an order, creating a job, etc. I learned how to troubleshoot errors that arise. I learned how to identify what causes errors within the software. I learned how to map out what what each menu item is used for. Overall it is a great learning experience and there is much more to learn from this software and I am grateful for having to work with this software.

Pros:

I mostly like the ease of use of this software. Data entry and Data queries are easy to do with the many screens provided in this software. One thing to mention is the powerful search function to find different screens, displays their path within this software so that is also a big plus. Another positive is the overall navigation of this software with the different modules feels natural because of the 'tree view' option for the menu items. The different maintenance screens are set up pretty nicely and can be customized depending on what type of SaaS option you have so that is great as well. I also really like the security settings I can adjust to prevent users from accessing certain screens or hiding certain fields from them. One final mention for this section would have to be the SSRS integration. I design lots of reports and it is extremely easy to pull data into an SSRS report and present them how I want it.

Cons:

Of all the pros that I have listed in the previous section, there are some cons to mention as well. One mention that I like least about this software is the optimization of this software. Many screens take at least 2 minute to open and that is with the recommended hardware specs provided. Another mention is that the PDF reports take at least 2 minute or more to view. I know that the reports are server side and I don't know the process flow of it but it would be nice to click the print preview button and 3 seconds later, have the report show.

Powerful software, when it works.

Comments: As with any ERP - it was oversold in the beginning, and support has seemed to get more and more distant year by year. In the end, it's a great piece of software if you can support it yourself and don't upgrade too frequently.

Pros:

Epicor's service-oriented architecture is powerful - allows us to adapt their platform to our business use case and workflows when necessary. Recent versions hit at a somewhat modern UI which we're looking forward to, and the addition of the RESTful API has been a godsend.

Cons:

Lots of bugs introduced in each version - but the pace of releases is fast to keep up with them. Their support is rough when necessary. Can take literal days or weeks trying to get through to someone in the right country/right team who actually understands the failure mode and is willing to take the issue seriously.

Very Powerful

Comments: Over the years Epicor (and former Vantage product) has grown from a simple Job Shop system to a full blown ERP powerhouse that brings the flexibility to address most any manufacturing or distribution company.

Pros:

Built-in customization tools are very powerful - allowing detailed tailoring to company needs without direct coding. BPMs now allow excellent logic branching and very nice built in features such as email alerts. Publish & Subscribe dashboards are a great reporting option with drill down capability. Form customizations are also very easy. SQL Server DB is a big improvement over Progress and MUCH faster.

Cons:

Reliance on SSRS for reporting - although Crystal Reports still works. Does not handle really complex BoM/MoM situations well for jobs with thousands of assembly levels and hundreds of branches or indents. Projects module isn't quite robust enough to be used for complex jobs/orders.

Strong ERP for midmarket Make to Stock / Make to Order manufacturers

Comments: While sometimes ERP can feel like a necessary evil, Epicor Kinetic is mature, robust, extensible and proven. It should be a strong contender for any mid-market manufacturer considering a digital transformation.

Pros:

Epicor Kinetic is a robust, mature ERP system that is continuing to innovate. The core function and structure is sound, included modules are robust, and there is a strong and growing architecture for extensibility & customization.

Cons:

Many features have been added over the years, some via acquisition - not all are done well or at feature parity. The new UI still feels like it's in Beta, but all new features are developed for the new UI. Internal support is poor, but there is a strong consulting and user community that offsets that somewhat.

Great All Around Product

Comments: I've been using this system in some variation for 20 years. It has been great to see it develop into the great product we have today. Epicor seems to be committed to staying on the edge of emerging technology trends that can only help all of their customers.

Pros:

Quote to cash navigation using the Open With functionality throughout the software, BPM wizards that allow you to do simple If\Then type triggers with no custom programming, BAQ functionality with subqueries, Education Courses, much easier path for version and patch updates

Cons:

Application support desk for certain modules, debugging options for customization (compile) errors, training of some of support staff seems to be lacking. 50% of time I end up figuring out the issue myself and feeling like I'm teaching their staff.

Our company has used this for several years and had great success.

Pros:

User friendly: We upgraded to 10.2, and the new homepage provides all the data I need instantly. I was able to adjust the layout and information on my dashboards easily. I can drill into data and use sophisticated analytics tools, which have made me more informed and productive. Super flexible: It's been a scalable solution that has supported our growing business. Easy to update and integrate with other systems Accurate forecasting Secure cloud-based data management

Cons:

Epicor's customer support hasn't always been the most prompt, but they've made some changes this year to their customer support services, and we've already noticed improvement.

My opinion on Epicor ERP

Pros:

I have been using this software for 5 years and have learned to use it correctly. I liked the approach of the software despite the fact that it was necessary to take new benchmarks but that is the goal of a new software! This very versatile product would be more suitable for a larger company than mine where I worked as a team but since COVID19, I have become a freelance.

Cons:

This software package allowed me to personalize and optimize the management of my contacts. On the other hand, I was not able to make any changes easily because I had not taken the additional training module. Note that there are many security measures leaving the cancellation of certain aspects impossible for me.

Great ERP

Comments: It is easy to use and pick up, taught myself quite a bit.

Pros:

The ability to customize reports is outstanding. I also like that I can easily find the information I need when I need it.

Cons:

Modules. You have to purchase quite a few separate modules to be able to use everything which can cost

Epicor ERP - Inovative solution for running our manufacturing business into the future.

Comments: Have used Epicor since the start of 2010, been very reliable for us. The improvements is speed of the system over the last 8 years has been fantastic. Like the direction the software is moving and the abilities to get to the data and analysis easily and quickly with the software they provide. Great product.

Pros:

Easy to use, Get training available, Always working to improve their product, Great support. Epicor continues to improve there software adding new features that customers are looking for, adding third party solutions to plug into their software. They are adding features before we are even ready to use them, being able to go more mobile, improving communication between users at our company. Great Product configurator, best I have seen!

Cons:

Does cost a little more than we were hoping, but the ROI made it worthwhile doing. Moving away from crystal to SSRS was a little rough, but like the change once we were through it.

mostly pleased with the software.

Pros:

safer storage on the cloud. configurator for production. ability to modify pricing for each customer by adding individual price sheets.

Cons:

cloud based makes it a little slower than server based. cannot email orders direct from Epicor. cannot handle VIN numbers. inability to print invoices until after the order is closed. cannot modify orders after the order is marked shipped. in our old system we could modify until the month was closed. we write many more credits than before.

Everything in one package

Comments: Epicor buys up companies that can add value and functionality to the software, ever increasing the usefulness.

Pros:

The ease to customize multiple areas and still be able to update the software without losing everything you customized already!

Cons:

When you update the server, the client also use be updated. If the user doesn't have admin rights on the pc, this could be a problem. I've recently heard they fixed this in a future release of the software

EPICore EPR

Pros:

Unlike some software where the beginning of the text is used for searching this software allows the user to use any part of the text for which your are searching.

Cons:

Generated reports do not search the entire report unless starting again from page one. What this means is if the user finds the item searched for on page 520 the next search will start from page 520 unless the search box is closed and page one is clicked on to start the search.

Implementing Epicor

Comments: First, our company didn't have a ERP software and use Quickbooks for P.O.'s and supplier payment and Excel to create a demand plan. Second the company was a true start up and hadn't released any products to production. So the Erp tool wasn't replacing an existing software. Overall I found the
majority of the implementation very restrictive to customize to our wants.

Pros:

The purchase order placement was reasonable but really are Finance got more out of it than procurement.

Cons:

No easy method to automate revision those had to be manually added to P.O's and constant error message when doing so. With Quickbook you just had to click on vendor to get all P.O. history with Epicor multiple screens and buyer specific. For components purchased per manufacturers part number it didn't upload those so they have to be manually added. Creating jobs even when we hired a more experienced planning manager it takes way more resources to create them seemed we spent 100's of hours just to get simple jobs created at sub-assembly levels. While we were able imput receiving parts to stock deleting it after consumptions is consistently manual reduction to update the balance.

Incomplete Product

Comments: Data is missing in certain tables, but is there in the regular version. Overall there are many issues and it makes our jobs harder. Once everything starts running smoothly it could be a powerful tool.

Pros:

The potential to be a great product is there.

Cons:

It is still incomplete, we've filled out many help tickets since we switched to the kinetic interface