Acumatica has unveiled details of the latest version of its ERP software, Acumatica 2021 R1. The update includes both and common new features across its different industry editions. Jon Roskill, CEO of Acumatica, noted: “Acumatica delivers award-winning usability unrivaled in the industry. Acumatica consistently ranks highest in usability in the industry due to our modern UI and flexible workflows. As a 100% browser-based cloud ERP, users can access their data from any location using an internet-connected device. We value customer feedback, which is why many of the improvements in this release came from community suggestions on the Acumatica Feedback Site.”
The release also includes new capabilities around AI/ML. It includes a feature that provides mobile image recognition for business cards. Perhaps ironically when there is less opportunity to exchange them. There are new KPI tracking capabilities in dashboards and enhancements to the workflow engine. In terms of localisation, Acumatica has also added French-Canadian language support.
2020 R1 enhancements
Common enhancements
Besides the platform enhancements mentioned above, Acumatica has also introduced several common enhancements across its editions. These include the ability to navigate to external URLs from General Inquiry results. There are also new financial dashboards. These will help both accounts receivable and accounts payable teams to manage invoices and vendors, respectively.
For CRM, the new business card app can extract contact information from an image and allow the user to map different text fields on a contact, saving time. Acumatica is providing notifications where contacts are duplicated and will assist with deduplication.
For Payroll, there are enhancements to the Payroll Batch Process, including the ability to import time into payroll batches.
Distribution and Commerce Edition Highlights:
One key addition in this release is better support for dropshipping. New workflow enables businesses to schedule dropship orders better. The workflows also support dropshipping returns enabling customers to send returns directly back to the vendor. Cross company sales, first launched in 2020 R2, is further enhanced with automatic document creation.
There are enhancements to the integrations with third-party eCommerce platforms. The Shopify integration now supports Shopify POS Pro for customers that have both clicks and bricks stores. Shopify can also flag at-risk orders to Acumatica. It can then place them on hold for review where credit card payments have been identified as potentially fraudulent.
The integration to BigCommerce is enhanced with better support for refunds and returns. Customers can now decide whether to process refunds in BigCommerce or Acumatica. The functionality includes support for cancelled orders, partial refunds, complete refunds, and refunds without returns.
Manufacturing Highlights:
First announced in 2019, Acumatica has deepened the integration with the Arena Product Lifecycle management solution. Enhancements to the advanced planning and scheduling features will also enable manufacturers to provide customers with more accurate delivery commitments. Details on how it achieves this were not available.
Construction and Field Service Highlights:
For construction firms, Acumatica has improved the integration with Procore. It is also possible to filter and pay accounts payable bills by project. Improvements to cost tracking mean that it is possible to link AP bills to the appropriate field service appointment, enabling better profitability measurement for service engagements.
Enterprise times: What does this mean
This is a rapid round-up of 2021 R1 from the information available. As ever, Acumatica has provided a host of new features and update in its bi-annual update. For customers looking for more information on the release, Acumatica has already delivered four webinars for its key industries. These are available to view (registration required) for Construction, Manufacturing, Distribution, and Retail/Commerce.
