Small business computing solutions
We are a 2 year old company who designs, produces and distributes consumer goods products (cases and bags for CD storage, laptop, iPod, etc) and have 2 locations. We sell both online and to retailers in the USA and importers around the world. Over the past 6 months we have been looking to move from a manual based office to a system, shifting our Accounting, inventory, sales, crm and e-commerce to one supplier. From what we have found, there is so little to choose from out there, unless you want to (a) spend US $50,000 or more or (b) use multiple softwares that integrate together to get to an end solution. We have looked into AccPac, netsuite, iCode, Quickbooks, Simply Accounting, Mocrosoft and Sage. It's incredible how overlooked this segment is by the vendors (at least in my opinion).
Is there any other solution that we may have missed that could adequately handle our end to end operations?
Any thoughts would be helpful
Thanks
Everest failure, new try at Prophet 21
Be careful before you consider Everest. We have experienced VERY costly Accware (iCodes previous solution) and Everest project disasters. From their fine print travel costs from Virginia, to their hardly understandable overseas tech support to their cost gouging and horrific software failures, at least for us in wholesale distribution. We spent well beyond the $20,000 originally quoted, perhaps 10 fold when considering VARs who don't know what they're doing (not that there aren't some out there that do!) who have to call tech support on our YSM dime just to try to figure out a solution which we were told must be customized each update (more exhorbitant costs). After a few years of promises that iCode is changing their ways and going in a new direction, we finally realized it is time to dump them entirely, take our losses and move on to something new.
We have gotten great personal in house attention BEFORE SIGNING from a company called Prophet 21, who cater solely to distributors. It is an SQL based package, so it is fairly flexible. We must admit, the quote, including implementation, still hovers around the $60k mark, but they are up front in the beginning about the costs. This price is including an 8 user Commerce Center license as well as the eCommerce B2B Advanced package and implementation in house from a fairly local team, and CBTs & WBTs for us to play with in house on our own time. Granted we have only begun this new venture, however looking at the functionality compared to Everest Advanced, P21 seems to exceed in their out of the box functionality, at least for us in distribution. Just a couple major factors included 3+ decimal pricing for items, able to be pulled forward to the web site, Unit of Measure (UM) breaks and UPC per UM within one item # in P21 and more. Also no hidden travel fees that they wouldn't sign to up front (iCode sticks fine print of $75/hr door to door until the reach your office then it's their $195/hr or whatever it was while on site + hotels etc.). We just couldn't commit to someone who wouldn't commit to us a total in writing. P21 also seems to be open to negotiation should you have other quotes to match. Granted their windows set up looks a little basic compared to iCodes Everest, however the functionality and ability to connect us with very knowledgeable technicians BEFORE buying has put a personal touch on P21 that iCode NEVER had in the 5+ years we have experienced iCode. If anyone has Prophet 21 experience out there, do share.
Just my opinion, but if you've seen the forum posts, you'll be able to judge for yourself.
Ernie
lvsales.com
Prophet21 (Activant) User
Our company has been using Prophet21 products for almost as long as the have been in business. We are currently using there Acclaim product and are considering moving to the CommerceCenter product in the near future.
This is a very professional company with a focus on distribution. Be assured when software or hardware errors or flaws are discovered, and as with any software, they will be, the act promplty to repair or patch as needed.
Though their products are initially expensive, the completeness of the product offering may actually make the overall cost of ownership very reasonable.
A one year update on Netsuite
We started using Netsuite about a year ago (June '05) and here are some findings;
1) the system is ok for supporting e-commerce but not great:
Key shortfalls:
--limited number of ways to set up sales promotions (IE cannot do tiered sales)
--administration panel locks up in customer records with Firefox
--PayPal intergration issue since their V. 11
--check out pages are not streamlined, 20+% of customers complain about it
--we've been trying for a year to implement Crystal reports and cannot get it operating correctly and they want $2000 to come over and do it for us. one of the things I truly despise about software companies.
2) their pricing is getting too expensive. $400 per seat per month is insane no matter how you slice it
3) there are too many areas where the built-in customer support has no information
The Good
a) the dashboards
b) one interface makes it easy for your employees
c) the accounting capabilities are adequate
d) security and uptime
All in all it's a solid solution but for a company who is truly small (under $5mil) I believe you could achieve the same results at half the cost. This is an expensive long term software platform. We're now looking for another solution to migrate to when our second year is up (June '07)
Hope this helps