It was another announcement-packed day at Acumatica Summit 2020. If you haven’t read up on day 1 yet, check out our previous blog before reading on into day 2.
Acumatica continues to put its R&D staff (over 70% of their workforce) to work on meaningful projects, and they specifically highlighted advances with their industry-specific solutions. We all know the traditional big industry-specific ERP players in manufacturing, distribution, eCommerce, and even construction. These big players are often one of only two or three options a company in one of these verticals can realistically consider, which leads to limitations on product development and pricing. Acumatica has aimed their platform and resources directly at these verticals and continues to gain market share in these customer segments.
One of the specific industry verticals is manufacturing. With the JAAS acquisition announcement, Acumatica brings an already close relationship (JAAS having built the module now known as Acumatica Manufacturing) even closer and allows Acumatica to do what they do best- focus on development – to allow them drive even deeper into the manufacturing segment.
The day started with a keynote highlighting changes coming to Acumatica in their first major release of 2020 (2020R1). Presenters showed off new features in Acumatica’s expense reports that allow users to capture receipts with their cell phone camera and have it flow into Acumatica, populating necessary expense fields. As a field sales rep, I can say I was paying close attention to this particular demo.
They went on to demonstrate advances in their connected workflow by showing a series of transactions that start with a lead through sales opportunity and end with building the customer account and billing. All of this was done simply and using multiple “roles” in the system to illustrate how different employees from sales to accounting interact with Acumatica in standard business processes. This may not sound terribly interesting, but my millennial senses were looking for any lag or frustrating data double entry that you may grow used to, and I’m impressed to say that I take that simplicity for granted as we use Acumatica in our own firm.
For more details on 2020R1, check out Acumatica’s official press release.
The day 2 keynote ended with a live demonstration of how powerful the xRP platform that Acumatica is built on can be. Using a small industrial robot and robotic arm, they were able to pick up a product, transport it to a bin, pick an additional item, and deliver them to a “packaging station” — all through Acumatica — and each step automated after the “order” was initiated as a shipment. Though we shouldn’t all go buy stock in the next automated warehouse IPO based on this demo, it certainly demonstrates the capabilities of Acumatica and the direction the industry is looking.
From exciting customer and partner growth announcements to recapping awards won in 2019, this summit had numerous points to celebrate as one of those growing partners. We’ve sold accounting and ERP software for 20+ years and have over a hundred years of combined experience in this field, and even we had cause to celebrate and share great news from Acumatica.
We have our work cut out for us as we meet with our clients this year to discuss what features in 2020R1 will best suit their needs, and we look forward to more details on news hinted at during the Summit. Stay tuned and check out more of our insights here.
