General Consultant Discussion

I have a client that is ready to move off of Sage 100 Premium. They are asking about X3 and Acumatica. What is the gossip pertaining to X3? Is it a good product? This company is a distributor with warehouse management automation needs. How does X3 compare to Acumatica in price? Is there an upgrade path (data conversion program) from Sage 100 ?

You can justify Acumatica over X3 if the only reason is to create some distance between you (and your customers) and Sage. UI is going to be a matter of the users' taste but for navigation and customization, Acumatica has the hand up. Acumatica doesn't calculate pricing based on user count so the customer can grow without additional licensing.

Thanks Brian.

How good is accumatica's wireless warehouse automation?

I don't know yet. I am still getting up to speed. I have passed financials 100 and almost done with 200. Then I will start the manufacturing. I will get Acumatica to help me with this one... demo, and cutover if they go with it. The client had heard some ""not-so-flattering"" comments about X3 and asked me if it was worth spending any time pursuing. I would lke to learn what others experiences have been.

Would be interesting to hear what they heard about x3

What's the reason for the move off 100? Functionality, or some other reason. If it was just Sage, I'm surprised they wanted to hear anything about X3.

FusionWMS, originally a 500 product, is the primary warehouse product for Acumatica. http://www.fusionrms.com/fusionwms-acumatica/ Mike Gill will be at MOTM, also showing the Fusion POS software.

@KevinWesley The move from 100 isn't a ""for sure"" yet. The main issue with 100 is the lack of order visibility. They drop the order (allocate bin locations) and then no one knows what happened to the order until it gets entered into shipping data entry. Some of the orders are 600 - 1000 lines. The order can be split between pickers. What time was the order assigned to a picker? Who is the picker? How many line items per hour/day/week/month does the picker average? Where / what stage is each order in at this moment? Is the order on the dock awaiting for someone to arrange shipping? They have looked at other WMS systems such as Accellos but for what they need it would cost $200K-$300K just to swap out the WMS. We are looking at beefing up 100 but not sure if we are band-aiding an amputated limb. They money may be better spent replacing the entire erp system. They aren't anti-Sage they just want a modern UI with timely information. Not too much to ask for $25K a year in maintenance.

I'm going to take a WAG and say that an Accellos is much more mature than anything presently bolting onto Acumatica and maybe even X3. I have an end user with Accellos / Sage 100 Advanced. And, yup. Get's expensive. Ain't no QB for WMS on the market so once you get up into that quadrant of need -- open the wallet. .02

I had lunch with an X3 strategic account manager and he told me the sweet spot for X3 are manufacturers who deal with lots with expiry dates. Food processors, drug manufacturers, etc.. Regular manufacturing and it's not a very good fit. Seems to be a big product with a narrow market focus.

Interesting about X3. xTuple has also found particular success in food manufacturing. Not relevant to Doug's challenge, though.

Just make sure the client realizes, the adage 'be careful what you wish for'. Tracking the location of every order in real time on the warehouse floor means a boatload of scanning and equipment. Often with very low paid, non-english speaking employees. There is a risk that it will make them actually less productive and profitable.

All great comments.