@JaneCavanaugh Our strong preference is to work within the system and look to ACSG for standard enhancements and custom changes. That has worked well for food distributors and production facilities. This depends on how distribution and production are performed. Some production is similar to any manufacturing, meaning there are specific operations and ""parts"" used or added. In these cases Work Order and Bill of Materials or even Sage Manufacturing (JobOps) work well. The critical requirement, of course, is tracking of lot numbers and expiration dates with the ability to quickly respond when recalls are required. That is where ACSG has been very helpful. Distribution is easier, but you still need to track lot numbers and expiration dates - standard enhancements from ACSG.
Grower accounting is a little more challenging in that you have to deal with the quality of product delivered from the growers and culls. This is the responsibility of the producer or distributor to analyze, and the farmers take their word for it. For straight distribution, the end buyer (markets, restaurants, etc.) many times determine what they will ultimately pay for the product. Because the actual sales prices and purchases are not immediately established, this functionality must be in the system to provide for the final amounts or adjustments. The industry does not like posting something and then entering a credit against the invoice, so an invoice must be created based on the ultimate price - this may be delayed for a month or more at times. The payment to farmers is typically at a gross amount less the classified issues, and they are accustomed to this. Another complexity when producers and distributors deal with farmers is they may provide seed and services which then need to offset what they are paid. The industry generally is not very sophisticated with their business transactions. Much of the above can be accomplished with ACSG customizations we have worked with in the past.
As for ICS, I would not recommend them. It all looks good on paper, but some of their code is non-framework, they hard code some items that are difficult to find and change, there are program issues, they do not readily respond to calls (we experienced WEEKS, not hours or days), and they don't have enough resources beyond Gary Willett. Of the customers we had using ICS programs, we have 2 remaining to convert over to ACSG/Scanco. One of those will be completed in the next 2 months and the other at the end of 2017 after the season is completed. We lost a $200 million grower/producer/distributor that is a CPA client - ICS did a ROR and convinced them they could service them better by doing everything. We also lost a very large JobOps manufacturer (not food) because of the ICS warehouse system that did not work well. I'm sure some of my consultants can add to this, since they had to deal with it day to day, but you get the idea.