Acumatica Commerce Edition: Why you should hit “add to cart”

Released at Summit 2017, Acumatica’s Commerce edition is one of the latest additions to Acumatica’s “multi-cloud” family.” This edition provides a number of exciting capabilities, such as order management, inventory, picking-packing-shipping, returns, customer support and accounting and integrates with Acumatica’s Financials, Sales, Inventory, CRM and Fulfillment systems. Perhaps the most exciting of these capabilities is the ability to manage eCommerce orders.

The Acumatica Commerce Edition enables users to harness the power of Acumatica in conjunction with Magento, a best-in-breed eCommerce platform. Consequently, users can link their online shops, storefronts and back offices, managing all aspects of the eCommerce value chain, from inventory right through to sales, returns and financials.

This linkage is extremely beneficial. Not only does it generate operational efficiencies and reduce costs, but it also improves customer experience – an important KPI for anyone operating in the retail space. For example, the automation of shipping and receiving workflows with lead to a more straightforward and efficient return/exchange process, while automated replenishment means that customers are not face with “out of stock” messages.

The connection works by providing a two-way data sync between Acumatica and Magento. Data such as products and product images, customers, pricing and inventory, orders (payments, discounts, shipping and taxes), order status and shipping information are accessible in both platforms. In other words, you data input into Acumatica automatically appears in Magneto (and vice versa).

Here at Catapult, we think this is a pretty exciting addition to the Acumatica family. This is a completely different approach to eCommerce. The majority of ERP systems have add-ons that are all supported or built by 3^rd party applications and are not sold as an end to end solution. Companies always need to take a piece meal approach; buying an ERP system, then selecting an eCommerce platform and then finally picking a connector, manually updating the site or building a connector in house.

By bypassing this process and creating a “one-stop-shop” scenario, Acumatica is achieving three important things. Firstly, they are improving the quality of the connection. Instead of picking a connector and hoping it does the job well, companies can be assured that the connection is solid because the ERP solution and the eCommerce platform are sold as a single product.

Secondly, they are reducing issues related to updates. It is often the case that with legacy systems such as Dynamics NAV, companies update their ERP system but must wait a couple of months for the ISV’s creating the connectors to catch up and apply updates. Again, because the ERP and eCommerce platforms are sold as a single product, they update at the same time.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, they are facilitating the “multi-cloud” approach to eCommerce. By housing everything under one roof Acumatica is enabling is customers to quickly and easily integrate their business processes. For example, Commerce functionality can be combined with Warehousing to ensure streamlined “picking-packing-shipping.” There are a number of great Acumatica webinars that speak to this.

Shoebacca, a U.S based online shoe retailer, was an early adopter of the Commerce edition and the eCommerce connector. They’ve harnessed Magento to build a pretty flash looking eCommerce site and with the flexibility of Acumatica and the eCommerce connector, have created a system that integrates all the facets of their business.  For more information, check out the Shoebacca case study.

Want to skip the shopping spree? With the Acumatica Commerce edition there’s just a single item in your cart!

Get in touch to learn how your organization can harness the power of Acumatica’s multi-cloud. Give us a call at +1 866 498 8430 or get in touch with us via email.