Product News from Acumatica Cloud ERP
We are thrilled to make three major product announcements in September 2017:
- Acumatica 2017 R2 Release
- Acumatica Manufacturing Edition
- More Integrations with Partners
Acumatica 2017 R2 Release
This fall release is the scheduled update to Acumatica 2017 R1 (previously known as 6.1), which was released in February 2017.
Acumatica 2017 R2 release was developed around the pillars of “Insights,” “Productivity,” and “Technology.” Here are descriptions of each pillar.
Insights
New User Interface
At the center of Acumatica 2017 R2 is a new, more flexible and personalized user interface. In addition to using workspaces that supplement the traditional suites and modules, you can tailor your navigation for preferred processes and individual tendencies. You now have greater control over personalized dashboards and can create role-defined views from preconfigured templates.
Based on your company’s specific business processes, you can flexibly configure navigation. Personalized navigation helps you easily access forms you use frequently. In the new user interface, suites and modules are replaced with workspaces. A workspace includes forms and reports consolidated for a specific function.
- Navigation pane with workspaces
- Links to forms
- Tiles (links with additional parameters to forms)
The Administrator can configure navigation in the new user interface, pin and unpin workspaces on the navigation pane, add and remove links to forms and reports in a workspace, and manage tiles in a workspace. Every user can personalize the user interface by adding forms to Favorites and configuring Quick Menu items.
Reporting Enhancements
You can create your own custom online reports using the Acumatica Generic Inquiries functionality. This query tool can display exactly the set of data you need, provided you have the appropriate level of security to view it. You can see tables and field names, easily join the data together, and then apply filtering, sorting, and grouping options. Acumatica also supports the Microsoft Power BI online analytics tool.
With this release, pivot tables can now aggregate data for very specific periods of time, such as one month. Administrators can set the default column configuration for all users or configure table layouts for a subset of users at any time. The Administrator configures the required table layout, including specific columns and order of columns to be displayed.
Productivity
Acumatica 2017 R2 release includes enhancements to almost every product suite, including Customer Management, Financial Management, Distribution Management, Project Accounting, and Field Service Edition. Here are highlights of the changes:
CRM:
The enhancements to Acumatica CRM focus on marketing. We’ve improved marketing lists and campaigns for greater user efficiency in marketing tracking and analysis. This includes improvements to List Building where generic inquiry forms work with contact records. We’ve also enhanced both dynamic and static marketing lists.
For Lead Tracking, the previous “statuses” have been enhanced to “stages” (prospect through deploy). You can now create activities associated with campaigns. The system will associate a new lead with its marketing campaign.
For companies that use Salesforce CRM as their primary CRM system, Acumatica has a tool to allow bi-directional real-time synchronization between Acumatica ERP and Salesforce CRM.
Learn more: https://www.acumatica.com/cloud-erp-software/customer-management/
Financial Management:
Acumatica 2017 R2 includes significant enhancements to Customer Statement Processing. Also, multiple branches that use the same Acumatica tenant can configure separate tax periods and close the periods independently of one another.
For Outgoing Cash Transactions, the approval process in Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable now lets you purchase goods or services from one vendor and pay for those going to a different vendor.
For companies that use Authorize.Net, a new API plug-in provides PCI DSS-compliant integration with Authorize.Net. Sensitive credit card information is not stored in the Acumatica ERP database.
Learn more: https://www.acumatica.com/cloud-erp-software/financial-management/
Distribution Management:
Acumatica Distribution Management includes changes in Unit of Measure and Pricing.
For the Item Class Hierarchy, Acumatica now supports item classes using a tree-like hierarchy with parent-child relationships. You can also define the default class for stock and non-stock items.
New Unit of Measure (UoM) functionality includes the new feature that while creating a sales order, the user can specify inventory items by their alternate IDs. If the default item’s UoM is different from the alternate item’s UoM, the alternate’s UoM will be used.
You can specify sales and purchasing prices by warehouse and alternate IDs. The Price Adjustment can now update prices for other units of measure automatically.
Learn more: https://www.acumatica.com/industries/wholesale-distribution/
Project Accounting:
Acumatica Project Accounting also features numerous enhancements, beginning with simplified budget structure and reporting.
We’ve enhanced project billing with Proforma invoices and Project-Specific Invoice Formats. We’ve also added progress billing on fixed amount and time and material contracts. Enhanced project rates allow you to bill a project by prices that are defined in the Accounts Receivable sales price lists, including foreign currency prices.
For project costing, the system will now track project comments through purchasing, sales, and external systems.
Learn more: https://www.acumatica.com/cloud-erp-software/project-accounting/
Field Service Edition:
Acumatica ERP 2017 R2 provides enhancements in the Equipment Management module that will help you track components and warranties. When a piece of equipment is a stock item sold to a customer, and preventive maintenance or warranty handling (or both) is performed, these services are tracked in the system. Also, you can track any component that’s a part of that equipment, including the component’s separate warranty information, serial number, and preventive maintenance.
The Scheduling feature now lets you clone an appointment multiple times. You can also specify a default salesperson for service orders that require certain services. With the new Contracts functionality, you can generate Service Order appointments with a defined frequency and schedule start time.
The web mapping service within Field Services is now provided by Microsoft Bing Maps. This will allow Acumatica to accommodate additional functionality in the future.
There is also a major enhancement in mobility. See “Mobile GPS Framework” in the technology section below.
Learn more: https://www.acumatica.com/cloud-erp-software/field-service-management/
