Standing Up for Customers: Acumatica’s Updated “Customer Bill of Rights”

In 2019, Acumatica released a “Customer Bill of Rights” based on the belief that customers deserve better cloud ERP vendor practices. In setting forth these principles, we codified our approach to the businesses we serve, but we also challenged other cloud ERP software vendors to follow our lead.

Today, we are not only recommitting ourselves to these core principles but also updating and expanding them to reflect the current business environment and the evolving organizational needs of today’s companies.

Our updated Customer Bill of Rights publicly sets forth the basic rights that customers should expect from their ERP vendor.

At Acumatica, we are focused on delivering value to our customers in everything we do. We believe all customers deserve a level of service and assurance that puts their interests first. They deserve clear guardrails to prevent overcharging and eliminate hidden costs. And they deserve a vendor that recognizes that their technology investments should focus on results and address pain points, not burden them with features they don’t need or costs they don’t want.

We take our obligations to uphold these principles very seriously. They are foundational in all of Acumatica’s relationships with our customers and in all the engagements of our partner ecosystem.

For many organizations, selecting the right business management application is a major decision, and, often, they end up suffering through complex agreements, hidden costs, inflexible solutions, and substandard support.

Acumatica is different. We believe in protecting customers from practices designed more to drain their wallets than to solve their problems. We are dedicated to keeping our customers’ needs and wants at the forefront of our product roadmap. Their satisfaction combined with our focus on innovation is vital to their success and ours.

We firmly believe that all businesses have core rights in their dealings with technology vendors. Beyond just talking about it, today we are announcing our commitment to these promises.

Acumatica’s Customer Bill of Rights

As an Acumatica customer, you have the right to:

1. A software and services proposal with clear fee structures, and no surprises.
2. Unlimited user access without having to purchase user licenses.
3. Fully adapt and customize the solution to meet your evolving business requirements.
4. Transparent, fair pricing and agreements without long-term commitments.
5. Deploy the solution on a public or private cloud.
6. An open platform with robust APIs to rapidly integrate your other systems.
7. A complete security model that covers your application access, data, reports, and devices.
8. Own and access your data, now and always—in full, usable data formats.
9. Take advantage of all knowledge and resources developed across a broad community of employees, partners, and customers.
10. Professional online training that is free and comprehensive.

Diving Deeper

Let me elaborate a bit on each of these Rights and share with you how Acumatica is delivering for customers in these areas.

A software and services proposal with clear fee structures, and no surprises

• Customers should expect clear fee structures with no hidden or surprise fees after implementation. Too often, ERP proposals avoid or hide expected occurrences, or they include complex provisions that create added and unexpected charges. Speaking on behalf of the entire Acumatica ecosystem, we are strongly committed to clear fee structures and making sure customers don’t feel deceived.

Unlimited user access without having to purchase user licenses

• Implementing an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system is about making sure all employees have access to all the data and insights in the business—so they are empowered to do their best work. Our unique pricing structure is consumption-based, meaning that you are charged for the computing resources you use, not the number of users permitted into the system. Customers have a right to unlimited users.

Fully adapt and customize the solution to meet your evolving business requirements

• Customers should have the flexibility to adapt or configure the solution to fit their business needs. This must include the ability to alter workflows, business logic, reporting, and integrations while allowing them to stay on the most recent version of the product. Many systems are restrictive and don’t allow opportunities to fully alter existing capabilities, so customers have to change their businesses to fit what the product does.

Transparent, fair pricing and agreements without long-term commitments

• Customers have a right to know their pricing now and in the future. Their contracts or agreements should be easy to understand. They should never have to trade long-term commitments for fair and transparent pricing. When their initial commitment expires, customers shouldn’t have to worry about dramatic and unexpected price increases.

Deploy the solution on a public or private cloud

• Customers have the right to choose where to deploy their systems now and in the future. Acumatica is the only ERP vendor that not only offers flexible options between public and private cloud but also allows you to switch as business needs evolve. Customers should not be locked into one deployment decision forever.

An open platform with robust APIs to rapidly integrate your other systems

• Acumatica provides complete and dynamic APIs across the entire application, including your customizations. Acumatica remains committed to providing our customers with a fully integrated, innovative, and constantly improving solution on an open, flexible, and powerful platform that allows you to integrate with other systems.

A complete security model that covers your application access, data, reports, and devices

• Security is a foundational right for all customers. Most systems only cover application security. Acumatica has a complete security model for all aspects of the applications, data, reports, and devices.

Own and access your data, now and always—in full, usable data formats

• Acumatica strongly believes that you own your data, and you should be able to retrieve it in a relational format you can easily use and access. While many vendors provide customers access to their data, they do not provide it in a usable format.

Take advantage of all knowledge and resources developed across a broad community of employees, partners, and customers

• Customers should have easy access to the knowledge, practices, and innovations produced by a broad and active community of customers, partners, and developers. They also have the right to freely participate in that community, have their voices heard, and influence change. The Acumatica Community shapes our product roadmap. We encourage customers to vote on new product features and to participate in the processes and programs available to help shape the solution.

Professional online training that is free and comprehensive

• Self-directed training should always be available without cost. Customers should have access to comprehensive training. Open University is a free, dynamic learning environment for anyone who wants to learn about Acumatica’s cloud ERP software. It’s user-friendly with easily accessible documentation.

Building the Future

The Customer Bill of Rights is a manifestation of Acumatica’s charge to work with creators, partners, and customers to redefine business software for everyone. Upholding these customer Rights is core to who we are as a company and what we stand for as a Community.

We encourage our customers, partners, end-users, and developers to continue to share their thoughts and feedback on these Rights and on the evolution of our product and our Community as we BUILD THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS, TOGETHER.

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