For businesses looking to grow and scale their operations, choosing from the many ERP systems on the market can be difficult. And it becomes even more difficult if companies believe all ERP systems and ERP vendors are the same. That way of thinking may result in choosing a system that doesn’t fit your business and a partner that can’t support your organizational needs.

There are important differences among all vendors in the ERP market, and knowing these differences is the best way to be sure you’re making technology decisions that will continue to serve your company well—no matter what the changing market may throw at it.

Acumatica differs from other ERP vendors in many ways, including our unlimited-user licensing model and our commitment to giving users the ability to configure the system to suit their unique requirements. In this blog, the third in our series on the Acumatica Difference, we’ll highlight the importance of a powerful, open platform and show you why that openness is critical for today’s thriving, growing businesses.

A Robust, Unique Platform

Our industry-leading business management solution is built on a modern cloud platform for developers and business users alike, providing growing companies with the most cost-effective and flexible platform to deliver amazing capabilities. Acumatica’s ERP platform is also grounded in the world’s best cloud and mobile technology, empowering users to thrive in today’s fast-paced digital workplace.

While most ERP vendors claim their platform is “unique,” Acumatica is truly built to put you in control of your own future. How? Well, it all starts with three major features: open APIs, a low-code/no-code framework, and advanced mobility.

Open APIs

“API” stands for “Application Programming Interface,” which is a fancy way of saying it’s the touchpoint through which different applications communicate with each other. Fundamentally, an application uses an API to communicate with another application. However, not all APIs are open and accessible to any application. With closed APIs, an application can only communicate with a specific set of pre-authorized applications.

Acumatica is known throughout the industry and in the developer community for providing open APIs, which are important because they allow you to link other add-on applications to the Acumatica system—moving beyond the powerful, out-of-the-box features to truly configure the system to your needs. This can include adding applications your company already uses, like custom shipping modules or tailor-made design software. But it can also include any of the 139 (and counting) applications found on the Acumatica Marketplace. This pushes the envelope of what is possible with ERP systems.

Low-Code/No-Code Framework

But open APIs and add-ons are just the tip of the configurability iceberg. Acumatica’s low-code/no-code framework means that you don’t have to be a developer to configure the system to do what you need it to do.

This moves the ERP power beyond just IT developers and places it in the hands of your business process experts—who actually know how your business runs and what it needs to succeed. You won’t need an entire IT department dedicated to keeping the ERP system running and updated. You won’t need to hire external developers to make minor changes. You won’t need specialized knowledge or have to deploy extensive (and expensive) coding training. The Acumatica ERP platform is purposely designed to let you handle most configurations entirely on your own.

Mobility and Collaboration

Today’s businesses are always on-the-go, so flexibility and agility are critically important for every growing company. Employees need to be able to work from the office, from home, from the field, or on the road. That kind of mobility isn’t possible if your ERP system can’t go wherever your employees are.

That’s why Acumatica has created a powerful mobile app designed for companies on the move. Your data will be accessible 24/7—anytime, from anywhere. And we’re not talking about outdated data that populates once every few days or weeks. We’re talking about real-time, instant information that can be used to make grounded, data-driven decisions—whether you’re in the office, in your kitchen, or in a fast-food drive-thru. As long as you have an internet connection, you have your business at your fingertips.  This is critical to ensure all parts of an organization are on the same page, making communication and collaboration an easy and natural way to get things done.

Preparing for the Future

These features—open APIs, a low-code/no-code framework, and advanced mobility—are just a few of the many capabilities the right ERP platform should offer your business. You should also find advanced, role-based security, multi-language and multi-currency features, built-in artificial intelligence and machine learning, and powerful reporting and analytics. Having a platform that empowers you with these capabilities—enabling your business to stay grounded while reaching for new successes—is critical for preparing your organization for what lies ahead. That is what it means to “future-proof” your business. You need a system, like Acumatica, that can prepare you for any eventuality, so the surprises of the future can be stepping-stones, not stumbling blocks.

What Do Other Customers Have to Say?

Acumatica’s customers appreciate the power and flexibility our ERP platform provides and have a lot to say about the system’s openness, configurability, and mobility. Here are just a few examples:

Aaron Gabrielson, CTO of Redmond, Inc.—a varied company involved in salt mining and milling, farming, food retail, and consumer beauty and food product manufacturing:

“Acumatica’s architecture was one of the main deciding factors from the IP side. It has well-established APIs, well-built cloud infrastructure, and real solid accounting. It was built for mid-sized businesses to help them grow in the long run. We don’t want to switch accounting systems very often. NetSuite was too expensive, and its architecture is out of date. Most of the other solutions had bolted-on cloud solutions; they just took their existing solution and slapped them into the cloud. Acumatica was built from the ground up to be a cloud solution.”

Devin Samayamanthri, Chief of Staff of Design Studio—a Sri Lankan producer and exporter of fashion-forward women’s apparel:

“Unlike the other ERP applications out there, Acumatica is super intuitive and user-centric, meaning you don’t need a mammoth team of ERP experts in-house to get the job done.”

Ryan Brown, CEO of xByte Technologies, which sells new and refurbished computer servers and network switches:

“I was at dinner with a customer recently who asked if we had any quantities available of a certain part. With Acumatica, I was able to pull up our inventory on my phone, see exactly what we had, and let them know. It’s very nice to have that web capability, but it’s also been extremely nice to have it on-premises.”

Bruce Young, President and Co-Founder of Curran Young Construction—a contractor offering general contracting, owner representation, pre-design, and design build services:

“It was a logical choice—with Acumatica we can communicate and integrate with other tools easily, which is a big plus as we use tools like Procore, Excel, ProEst, and Building Connected.”

Conclusion

Acumatica believes that you have the right to an open, easy-to-use, flexible platform that can take you wherever your business needs to go and give you peace of mind, knowing that you are in control of your future.

To learn more about what Acumatica’s unique platform can do for you, contact our experts today. And the next article in our series on the Acumatica Difference will be coming soon!