Acumatica ERP debuts new UI, industry-specific capabilities

Customer input critical for new functionality

Jeremy Larsen, vice president of product management at Acumatica, highlighted three themes for October's update.

The first is listening to customers detailing their biggest pain points and developing functionality to address these; second is embedding advanced technologies such as AI and machine learning (ML) throughout the applications; and third is engineering the platform to be adaptable for future changes in technology or user requirements, Larsen said during a press briefing.

"We want our customers to put their investment in a product that you can have for 30 years, not eight or 10 years like the normal cycle of ERP customers," Larsen said. "Because as new technology comes along, we can easily adopt it or remodel a component of our platform to put the new technology in."

Each of the Acumatica 2024 R2 industry applications has new capabilities designed to automate tasks and improve processes, according to the company.

The Construction Edition now includes streamlined project billing workflow for simplification of payments and on-demand pro forma invoice creation. The Manufacturing Edition includes a new estimate worksheet that allows manufacturers to estimate costs for multiple quantities in a single sheet. The Distribution Edition now includes Sales Order Margin Analysis Anomaly Detection that uses advanced AI algorithms to detect patterns and anomalies. The Retail Edition includes an embedded Shopify connector and now supports Amazon returns and refunds processes.

The new Acumatica UI, available for users to test in this release, will become generally available in an upcoming release. It enables users to personalize and simplify screen layouts or create role-based user experiences, Larsen said.

"We will probably have another release or two before it goes general availability," Larsen said. "The key purpose here is get our customers' hands on it so we can continue to work on the quality and iterate around it."

Acumatica also said its Professional Services Edition, which was unveiled at Acumatica Summit 2024 in February, would be available later in October. The Professional Services Edition is aimed at engineering firms, architects, consultancies and IT services funds, and includes functionality for project-based accounting, milestone billing, and project and resources management.

Industry specificity boosts Acumatica ERP

While Acumatica is listening to what customers want, only time will tell to see if the vendor delivered, according to Robert Kramer, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.

Industry specificity is a big deal, but the jury's going to be about whether the features and the functionality match what the requirements are for the consumers that are in those spaces.

"Industry specificity is a big deal, but [it remains to be seen] whether the features and the functionality match what the requirements are for the consumers that are in those spaces," Kramer said. "The goal when you are industry specific is to get away from customizations. The more people you have on a one-industry package allows it to become more robust because it has more processes that somebody else might do in a way that you have never heard of before."

The revamped UI should help Acumatica with the onboarding and training of users to 2024 R2, he said. Users will not be successful if an ERP application is hard to navigate and antiquated.

"Acumatica stepped it up for that and they did what was needed," Kramer said. "Most of these [ERP vendors], including Oracle NetSuite, which made a big deal about their Redwood UX, [have to improve the UX] because these systems are so complicated."

The new AI and ML functionality in the industry-specific editions is also valuable for Acumatica users and will help the vendor compete with others that focus on the SMB market, Kramer said.

"You have to have these features and functionalities to compete with the Oracle NetSuite and Microsoft because those are big companies and the competition is completely different there," he said. "The jury's out, because R2 just came out, but they did what was necessary to create this advantage."

It was important for Acumatica to improve the UI of 2024 R2 to keep pace with Oracle NetSuite and its new Redwood UX, as UX is important for ERP these days, agreed Predrag Jakovljevic, an industry analyst at Technology Evaluation Centers.

For functionality, Acumatica 2024 R2 is particularly strong with the Construction Edition, Jakovljevic said.

"They seem to be doing well there, with competition only from Sage [Intacct] and Trimble Viewpoint," he said, pointing specifically to the addition of pro forma payments as being a useful feature.

One of Acumatica's biggest advantages is its understanding of what SMBs in the industries they target need in the real world, said Joshua Greenbaum, principal at Enterprise Applications Consulting.

"One of the problems with the large enterprise software companies is that they have a 'one-size-fits-none' attitude," Greenbaum said. "Acumatica focuses specifically on a pragmatic view of what these businesses need."

For example, Acumatica's AI, which relies on machine learning, is focused on solving functional tasks such as sales order margin analysis, he said.

"The companies that Acumatica targets can't mess around with pie-in-the sky technology," Greenbaum said. "Acumatica moves the needle incrementally, they're not trying to jump out too far in front of the pragmatic needs of their customers."

The UI upgrade has also been done in a pragmatic way that enables customers to have more control over how they upgrade the software and roll it out to users, he said.

"For 2024 R2, you have a lot of flexibility as to what part of the company you upgrade or who you upgrade, and who you keep on the older version," Greenbaum said. "That's really important, because change management is a real pain for everybody, and it's particularly more difficult to swallow in smaller companies."

Jim O'Donnell is a senior news writer for TechTarget Editorial who covers ERP and other enterprise applications.