Epicor ERP Reviews

The primary use cases are always in manufacturing, although it's pretty extensive. We use it in a couple of trading and distribution situations, however, its core strength has always been in manufacturing.

Typical tier 2 products are focused on discrete manufacturing.  Although Epicor out of the box is built for discrete manufacturing, certain partners have managed to configure  Epicor to handle process manufacturing requirements using Epicor built in tools.  There are some unique features especially in the production process control involving the use of a manufacturing order or job.  Using the base to achieve the tracking of material and labor/overheads consumption and usage,  the manner of entering this information is handled differently using custom screens and in some instance using IoT to obtain the information from the production floor. Some of the industries that it managed to handle are glove manufacturing ,  codom and plastic films manufacturing processes.  

In terms of manufacturing and in terms of the configuring of the product to meet a variety of different types of manufacturing requirements, the product works well. It's fairly configurable and fairly powerful. 

There's good flexibility within the inbuilt tools such as alerts, business process management,  dashboards, and screen customization. You can really get pretty, pretty extensive, and really tweak the product to make it work for process industries.

We have done implementations that tweak the software to actually meet process manufacturing use cases. This this is possible due to the strength of the tools that come along with Epicor, all the inbuilt tools.

If you're going to a cloud solution, you need to actually have a workable, practical web UI. Epicor doesn't really have a proper solution there, although they claim they do. However, it's not really popular. In practical terms, very few customers use it. Epicor is very flexible, so customization can get quite extensive. Yet, when you do something like that, on the cloud, it doesn't work well. Perhaps that is the reason many clients who had done those heavy customization can ever move to proper SAAS model.

Right now, it doesn't really have a good cloud story. That said, Epicor 11 is coming out and they claim it's fully web UI. If I were to base it on Epicor 10,  it doesn't really have a proper cloud solution. Also once you go fully cloud, the customization capability drops significantly.  

Secondly, base on my involvement for 15 years with Epicor, experiencing all major releases.   The number of releases has dwindled. Almost nothing really sticks out if I look at the last two releases of Epicor - and my personal opinion is that they're not putting enough investment into R&D.

It's got an inbuilt APS, however, to be honest, I've not seen anyone implement it. It does work. That said, in practical terms, when you have multiple constraints (labor, machines, tools, et cetera.), if you've got these kinds of constraints and you need all three to work harmoniously, then Epicor's scheduler cannot do the job. It looks very nice when you're doing a demonstration, however, it's not practical if you actually try to implement it.

I've had been an Epicor using the solution for 15 years as a partner to Epicor, implementing about 20, 25 sites under different roles either as a functional or technical project manager. We acquired quite a number of clients over the 15 years. We started with Epicor 9, then we went to Epicor 10. I have very good experience and knowledge of the product.

I've been through the whole journey with Epicor 9, and then Epicor 10, and now into 11. Epicor 9 was really unstable. Customers cannot get over the fact that they keep on putting a lot of power on the hardware, and just cannot solve the performance issues on Epicor 9.

There's a combination of Progress and Microsoft Stack going on inside there, and that was causing a lot of performance issues. It looks like a very innovative solution at that point in time, yet there are a massive amount of performance issues. When we went to Epicor 10, we moved to a full Microsoft Stack. Still, lots of the stability issues in the early versions of 10 only improved after 10.2.

Version 10.2 seems quite okay. They sort of stabilized everything. I really don't know about other ERP systems, however, when we talk about Epicor's, every time they launch a new release, its tendency is to be quite unstable.

The solution is quite scalable due to the fact that its app servers are scalable. You can scale out pretty well without any issues. 

As a partner, I know a little bit more than a client would know. Epicor's support, if I were to rate between one and ten, I would give them probably five. 

Sometimes we have problems where we can see, for example, performance problems where the customer has been running for a couple of months and years, and suddenly there is performance degradation. It's a gray area, indirectly Epicor flexible tools causes this problem with badly designed queries which hits the database very badly. No one knows if it is a product issue or if there is something else going on in there. However, Epicor tends to push everything to the customer. It's for the partner to go and solve, and then we have to get a DBA, and then, when we go and dig inside, we actually find some view or store procedure from Epicor is running incorrectly. 

They tend to not admit there's a problem with it. Due to that, sometimes the problem just drags on and on and on for months, until you prove to them that their stock procedure is running and causing the problems. The answer at that point is to upgrade to the newer version. It's very frustrating as a former partner and I do emphatize with our client. 

Neutral

Epicor's setup is complex. If you are new to it, there's an 80% chance of you failing without having somebody who's experienced to guide you, as there are a lot of tools. Even your mindset to approach how to implement the solution is important. If you have the wrong mindset, such as, you think everything can be customized, and you don't manage it carefully, and that leads to a very high chance of failure. 

Scope creep and extension of the project, budget, and time and all those sorts of problems appear. Having someone with experience in implementing Epicor will definitely help a new partner who signs on, however, if you attempt to do it yourself, you will really struggle for the first year and to do a decent implementation.

The deployment process takes six to nine months.

Generally, customers do see some returns, however, they are not very massive in that sense. For example, they achieve a couple of things in terms of having statutory reporting done in a timely manner every month, doing day-to-day operations. 

To me, there are some significant items. I just focus on the manufacturing side, and things like production planning, advance planning, and scheduling, don't achieve ROI. 

In terms of pricing, they run on a concurrent model that is attractive. In our region, people are very price-sensitive and when they offer flexibility, people are pleased. For example, If they have a 20-person license, and I have 50 people, they say that some people can use it occasionally. Other products and solutions may not allow for that. 

In terms of new acquisitions, as I'm coming from a partner ecosystem, I find that Epicor can be quite aggressive and will price to win deals. However, be aware that this is a double edge sword,  the partner tends to take the risk of quoting low and then hit problems of project overrun and budget overrun.  This is where either the partner or client will tend to lose out. 

Epicor doesn't have a good story to tell when it comes to the cloud in this region. I am in Malaysia, and, in South East Asia, Epicor still pushes the on-prem solution rather than the cloud solution. That's mainly due also to the fact that it's still very client server-based, rather than web interface or web UI-based.

When considering using and implementing the solution with clients, we help extend a typical ERP with things like robotic process automation or putting a low-code/no-code platform to fully digitize the whole process. In the ERP system, there's still a paper trail going on in most companies, and we don't ever really fully digitize. To me, it's important to look at tools that can extend the whole digital footprint, rather than to just look at a bare ERP system, due to the fact that that's enough. That would be something a new user should keep in mind.

They need to use AI and machine learning in an ERP product in order to enhance it. I don't see very much going on in Epicor. However, I've seen Microsoft do a lot of stuff with their product. Another way to say this is you need to look around and see what other vendors out there can offer and if that is more than what you are getting out of your ERP system. This may not suit everyone's needs.

I'd rate the solution at a six out of ten.

The solution is great for production planning because everything is out of the box. It smoothly handles the process from engineering to ERP, including version management and subcontracting. These features aren't in NetSuite. 

The main challenge with implementing Epicor ERP is finding the right partners, especially in Europe.

Technical support depends on getting the right people. NetSuite ERP has better documentation.

Neutral

Pricing isn't a big problem for the solution - I haven't seen them lose deals because of it.

NetSuite ERP is better than Epicor ERP in terms of complex finance functionality. However, Epicor ERP's newer Kinetic version is much better for discrete and project manufacturing. It's about ten years ahead of NetSuite ERP in that area. It depends on what you need. One of my customers is considering using NetSuite ERP for international finance across 23 legal entities in seven countries but Epicor ERP for two or three production sites.

I don't think Epicor ERP's real-time analytics are better than those of other systems. It is good for certain types of manufacturing but isn't as broad as SAP or Microsoft Dynamics.

I'd rate the tool eight and a half to nine out of ten for production functionality. Their finance functionality is limited compared to Microsoft, NetSuite, or SAP. Their document management is outdated and not user-friendly.

I help customers choose the best solution but don't sell licenses. All these systems are about the same for integration for cloud-based solutions, but NetSuite ERP's documentation is better than Epicor ERP's.

We use Epicor ERP we use it for our financials and our project organization.

The most valuable features of Epicor ERP are ease of use, powerful API, and comprehensive integration. It is a one-vendor solution, where other vendors need other software systems from multiple vendors.

There's a new version of the solution that has some bugginess. They're cleaning that up. The user interface is an area that needs improvement and they're improving.

I have been using Epicor ERP for approximately 15 years.

Epicor ERP is highly stable.

I did not have any concerns with the scalability of Epicor ERP. It typically has a lot more capability than most companies need, and it's just a matter of understanding how much of it you want to use at the different stages of your growth.

We have approximately 60 staff that interact with this solution for everything from enhanced customer service, to project service delivery and sales CRM.

We have dealt with the support and it they are good.

ERP is a complex topic. The implementation is involved as it requires commitment from the organization. I've worked with many ERP systems, there needs to be an understanding of what that commitment level needs to be for the organization. It's a transformative technology. People look at it as only an accounting system, it's much more than that.

We bought an on-premise version of the solution. The cloud version is different. I've looked into it, but it's very competitive on the low end of the market.

I rate the price of Epicor ERP a five out of five.

The solution is maintained by the users. There are no system admin-specific needs that I'm aware of.

The largest element of the success of any project similar to this is change management related to executives supporting the team that has to implement it. If the executive team isn't supporting them, it's going to be difficult. It doesn't matter which system you choose.

I rate Epicor ERP a nine out of ten.

The ability to deploy through a generic implementation with proper configuration.

I would like to see a better reporting tool. It is hard to use right now because it has a lot of customizations, and I believe the partner has assigned them. It looks like it has not been customized properly because we are having issues pulling the reports. 

I have been using Epicor ERP for the past several months.

It is stable in English. I would like to see the stability also in Spanish when it comes available.

I am not seeing any issues with scalability.

Technical support needs improvement.

Individuals need to review their processes and match them with the proper tool. I believe that is the key to a good implementation in any ERP tool. I would rate Epicor ERP a ten out of ten.

We do the customization part in Epicor ERP for our clients.

Epicor ERP is very technical friendly, if you want to do any customization, it's very easy.

In the newer version of Epicor ERP, it's very difficult to find out that tracing.

I have used Epicor ERP within the last 12 months.

The stability is very good.

The scalability is perfect, Epicor ERP can integrate well.

The solution is ideal for large enterprise environments. 

I have contacted technical support and we receive a quick response. Overall it is very good.

The initial setup is straightforward, I did not have any problems.

When comparing Epicor ERP to the other related products, the pricing, additional enhancements, as well as implementation, are better.

They have recently updated some features.

I rate Epicor ERP an eight out of ten.

I am currently a customer and have been in the past.  I have also provided consulting services for nearly a decade and have worked with many customers using Vantage/Vista 8, Epicor ERP 9.x, Epicor ERP 10.x, and Epicor Express.

The product is designed to work with discrete manufactures and it does this very well.   It will work with process manufacturing to some extent (if you can manage it as discrete units).  Epicor often sells the financial modules to Service companies. Some of the other operational modules are equally applicable to other service businesses.

The software is highly capable, but the improvements companies get from Epicor varies from organization to organization.   It really depends on how the organization embraces the new system (you get what you put into it).  Companies get results with ERP's do so because they put the work in to configure the software to align with how they do business (both in breadth and depth).   Part of this work involves examining/changing business processes to fit how the software works best.   It is worth noting that ERP is a continuous process - it has to be updated as your business evolves.

The biggest differentiator that determines how successful an organization is with ERP tends to be how an organization prepares for ERP - and it is also one of the most important factors in determining how much the project will ultimately cost.  If the company has a decent project manager, team members who are reasonably current in their fields (to be managed by the ERP), and the team members have some experience with ERP implementations, the results are often fantastic.   If the company goes into the project with the idea that the software is going to automagically solve all their problems, it usually does not go all that well.   The challenge is that it is very easy to fall into this trap - most companies I have worked with had varying degrees of unrealistic expectations.   

• It's flexible enough to address most issues a discrete manufacturer would have.  
• 360-degree reporting: If the data is in the system, there are many ways to report it.   Epicor has a number of different tools/modules for reporting.
• The system can be highly modified without changes to the code - this means your changes survive upgrades.
• The core ERP modules work well and have been tested by many customers.   
• The company is constantly trying to improve the product and its offerings. There are a lot of modules and functionality available beyond the core.
• The product configurator is a powerful tool.

I would like to see improvements in financial tools for international companies. DSPanel, an Epicor partner, created such a toolset (for Epicor), but Epicor never fully embraced it and did not produce a better solution. Many firms often end up getting a separate consolidation tool.

Epicor has never really figured out what they want to do with CRM. It is possible to build out a full-blown CRM solution with the CRM module, but I always found it better to use SFDC and connect it to Epicor. To be fair, what they have in CRM tends to work for most customers.

Epicor is very stable today.   The company has done a lot of work in recent years to substantially improve performance and the difference is noticeable.   

Epicor scales very well.  It is a tier 2 solution, so you do not tend to see it in multi-billion dollar companies.   It is common to see it in firms ranging from $25M to $500M.  They do have a few accounts in the $1B space.   All that being said, it is not really the revenue that drives the choice.  It is the user count and what the users need the system for that often matters.   

The other factor is how well the ERP vendor matches with the firm in terms of its support.  Tier 1 providers such as SAP and Oracle have organizations built to work with companies that have a substantial number of personnel.   For example, there is an expectation that you have a DBA or two on staff in addition to other various specialists in your IT department and that these people will work with equivalents in their organizations.   Epicor can benefit from working with companies of this scale, but their organization is not built this way.   

I have had extensive experience with Epicor's support.  Epicor's customer service and technical support do what they are supposed to, but most customers tend to mistake their technical support services for a substitute for consulting and this often drives comments suggesting the service is poor.   This is unfortunate because service takes it on the chin for things beyond their control.  That being said, I do think there is room for improvement.   Epicor's system for measuring the performance of their support organization is fundamentally flawed (it does not ask the type of questions that would encourage the organization to make the type of changes that would truly elevate the organization.   There is a clear bias in the questions to encourage the customer to provide positive feedback).  

You can submit a case online, but if you want an answer quickly, calling is your best option.  If you have an in scope issue that can be solved in a single call, it works pretty well.  In fact, you can often reach an Epicor rep fairly quickly most of the time after you make it through all the menu selections.   Where things can break down a bit is when the issue is more complex.   There does not appear to be a standard for case documentation and case management is not as customer oriented as it should be.   Epicor does follow their protocols, but their protocols sometimes result in cases being closed to quickly because they tend to assume if the customer is not available during the random times they call, it is closeable.   It works much better through email, but not all the techs use email for communications.   Customers can re-open cases and they have the option to escalate when their are not satisfied.   Taken all together, what you get is a middle of the road customer experience that will lead to the resolution of your in scope issue.

Customer service varies depending on who your customer account manager (CAM) is.   Epicor does not appear to have established a clear standard as to how their account managers should interact with their customers and consequently, your experience will vary.  Epicor does provide customers with access to many top management staff, so this provides some mitigation when needed.   It is worth noting that unless things are going awry, there is not much that a customer would need to interact with their CAM.  It is just that the better ones take an interest in your success and can provide some useful information to help.   In a lot cases, the primary interaction with CAMs occurs when the customer needs to acquire more licenses.  

The most common product switched from is either a Sage product or an older version of Epicor.   It is not unusual for companies to acquire Epicor as their first "real" ERP.   

The switch almost always comes about because management needs information to run the business and needs it on a timely basis.   For example, it is not uncommon for companies to report that it takes weeks to close books or that they are unable to determine profitability for a particular line of business.

This will very depending on the experience of the people involved and how well prepared the company is for the project.    

The experience will vary depending on the firms own preparedness and expectations.  Epicor and their top partners are all capable of routinely delivering good service, but they do not always get it perfect either.   Sometimes there is a question of fit between the consultant(s) and the firm.    

There are exceptions, but in-house self-installs do not have a good track record.   

Implementations are largely about knowledge transfer (consultant to client).   As they progress, the client should gain enough knowledge and confidence to drive the efforts.  

Varies by organization.   See my notes about preparation.     

Most companies tend to purchase Epicor when they have hit the wall with their current system so it is often more of a case of necessity.  

Part of that challenge with figuring out ROI for ERPs is that you have be able to measure where you are before implementing the ERP and many companies do not have that capability until they implement the ERP.   

I have seen companies triple their business using Epicor in just a few years.  Those were the ones that entered the project well prepared.   

Licensing/Pricing varies by the nature of deployment and is competitive.  Make sure you look at costs over at least a few years and negotiate accordingly.   If you buy direct from Epicor, pay attention to quarter/yearend sales cycle closes as they tend to offer the best deals then.  Epicor tends to offer the best deals with initial purchases.

Things that can impact pricing that you need to pay close attention to

-the number of users (and how much they will use the system)

-the number of sites/legal entities

-customizations (the kind that requires changing the code)

-the countries you do business in (Epicor has varying degrees of support for different places)  

Setup/implementation costs are mostly impacted by how prepared the company is going into the project.  If the firm does not have the right resources in place up front, costs tend to be high and are often quite a bit higher than estimates.    The vast majority of companies tend to over-estimate their capabilities-some by gigantic margins.  Self-installs tend to go poorly, but companies who have ERP team members who are very experienced with recent ERPs can do this effectively (this is probably not you).    

Epicor and its top partners usually do a good job estimating costs for getting the system live with the core modules.  If you plan to purchase a lot of advanced functionality or third party functionality, the implementation will take longer and cost more.

Pay very close attention to the methodology for implementation.   Make sure if matches up with what you are seeking.   As a customer, you are free to chose who you want to work with to install the software, but strongly consider either Epicor or an Epicor partner.   There are some awesome independents as well, but vet them before you hire.   

Have Epicor or an Epicor partner install the software if you go with an onpremise solution

Please note that it takes a team of consultants to set up an ERP these days.   The software is too big for one person to provide expert advice across all functions.   

Epicor consultants do 1 thing - they train your team on how to use the software.   They do not teach your people how to do their jobs.   They do not tell your company how to run its business.    This is not exclusive to Epicor and should not be taken as something to differentiate which software to acquire.    

There are rare exceptions, but in general, it is best to consider how the software will work for you out of the box before investing in customizations.   If you think going in that you are going to need to invest in a lot of customizations, consider hiring a top vendor neutral firm to select your ERP software.   

Most companies tend to undergo some kind of selection process.   The vendors very, but it is not uncommon to see products from Infor (most typically Syteline), Syspro, MS Dynamics (Navision, AX, 365), NetSuite, Plex, Sage and any number of other tier 2 or 3 products.    Typically, at least one of the products mentioned is part of the shortlist.

Epicor is an excellent ERP.  The software is very flexible, but always remember that just because you can do it, does not mean you should.   

There are a lot of different tools for reporting.   Understand what information you want to system to report upfront and use that to help you chose what you need.

Try to lock in pricing for the first couple of years.   It is really difficult for companies to determine everything they need upfront.   This is especially important if you intend to go live on the basics first and then expand to other functionality.  Epicor does not allow you to return software.

Do not forget to include in your budget any new employees you will need to hire to support your new ERP.   It is very common for companies to hire someone the write reports.  Many firms also hire business analysts and support personnel.

Used Epicor 9.05 as a full suite ERP, although the CRM is not as robust as required. Extensive customization was done to suite the business. We have multi-sites users who function well.

Real-time results make for faster decision making, but not as fast as we want due to internal processes.

Dashboards and Business Activity Query are very useful, even though not all users have access to them.

A number of bugs in 9.05 were only fixed in 10.

We previously used Gas Business System, and changed to Epicor 9, which provides real-time reporting.

User support could be improved as well, as the consultant charges are very high.

• Easy to use
• Great functionality
• Everyone can track all the KPIs online

The solution allowed us to fulfill most of the SME market needs, especially when we were looking for discrete manufacturing.

There needs to be a better POS. Epicor offers a third-party POS which is expensive. It is very slow to handle in terms of a medium volume of transactions. None of the great tools and characteristics that Epicor has for customization can be used in this POS.

I have used the Epicor solution for around seven years and the Epicor SaaS software for two years.

There were no issues with the stability.

There were no issues with the scalability.

The technical support is average compared to other vendors.

The reason we switched solutions is because our previous solution was an old technology.

The initial setup was complex because we needed to learn everything about the application.

Only purchase the modules that you are going to use in the short term. There is no benefit in buying modules that require usage for more than six to ten months after the initial implementation.

We evaluated SAP, NetSuite, and the Oracle Cloud solution.

Be careful with the definition of "measure units". Always make a backup of the company with a full data set and no transactions before you start the pilot phase.