Acumatica Cloud ERP 2021 Award Winner For Best ERP

Acumatica was founded in November 2008. It initially launched as an ERP. On-premise and SaaS versions were released the following year, and distribution software was launched in 2010.

John Howell, Mike Shchelkonogov, and Serg Bell are the three founders of Acumatica.

• Mike Shchelkonogov has over 15 years of experience with ERPs. He was the director of engineering for Parallels, a virtualization software company founded by Bell. Previously, he was the CTO of the SWsoft consulting division, which implemented custom ERP solutions. He is now the Chief Technology Officer at Acumatica.
• Serg Bell was with Acumatica for 11 years. He acted as the chairman of the board and advisor. Before Acumatica, he founded Solomon Software in Singapore, where he re-engineered projects for Microsoft and Pervasive software, both of which still exist.
• Before Acumatica, John Howell worked with Solomon Software with Serg Bell and Mike Shchelkonogov for 20 years. He acted as Channel Architect and software developer.

EQT Partners owns Acumatica. They acquired the company in 2019. EQT Partners is a privately held, global investment firm that invests in technology and innovation-driven companies. They work with their portfolio companies to help them grow sustainably, operate well, and become market leaders. EQT Partners was founded in 1994. They have offices in Stockholm, New York City, London, and Shanghai. The purchase allied Acumatica with IFS, a global enterprise applications company. They currently manage 45 billion dollars of assets. They have portfolio companies in Europe, Asia, and the US and approximately 127,000 employees.

Acumatica was founded initially in Moscow but currently has no ties to Russia. In 2013, the company moved its headquarters to Kirkland, Washington, in the Seattle metropolitan area. They now have development centers in Canada, Europe, and Asia. They do not have customers or partners in Russia. EQT Partners owns Acumatica. They are a Swedish company with offices in Amsterdam, Helsinki, Munich, Shanghai, Milan, Frankfurt, London, Copenhagen, Singapore, Zurich, New York City, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Madrid, Oslo, and Stockholm.

Acumatica is dedicated to its customers' success. It has won awards for its usability and customer relationship among ERP companies. To continue and maintain that quality of service, Acumatica has published a “Customer bill of rights." It details precisely what businesses can expect when they work with them and includes highlights like:
1. An easy-to-read and stable SaaS EULA.
2. 24/7 customer service.
3. Implementation without hidden fees.
4. Stable pricing that guarantees no more than a 3 percent annual increase.
To prove that it's not just talk, customers consistently report receiving great and painless support from Acumatica.

As of 2022, Acumatica has over 8,000 customers in 50+ countries. And that number is growing exponentially all the time. Acumatica has been the fastest-growing Cloud ERP company for six years and counting. In 2019, Acumatica’s customer count had grown by 25%, and its revenues rose by 72%. Continuing the trend, in 2020, Acumatica had a growth rate of 20%. This growth rate is explainable for a few reasons:

• The customer bill of rights ensures that customers have a great experience and are more likely to recommend the ERP to others.
• Acumatica spends 74 percent of its revenue on research and development to ensure the product continually improves and stays on the cutting edge of innovation.
• The company’s flexible and future-proof cloud solution is attractive to customers looking for long-term solutions and a model that can grow with them.
• Acumatica’s dedication to its customer base consistently sets it apart from other companies and ensures its impressive growth rate will likely continue.

Acumatica caters to the needs of small and mid-sized businesses. In 2022, over 8,000 businesses in 50+ countries use Acumatica, which is growing yearly. It's been the fastest-growing ERP company for six years and counting. Acumatica has industry-specific solutions for different industries:

• Small and medium-sized manufacturing companies
• Retailers and wholesalers
• Construction firms
• Government agencies
• Nonprofit organizations
• Professional service providers (accountants, attorneys, consultants)
• Healthcare organizations

Acumatica can be customized to meet the unique needs of any company. Check out the Acumatica website for a list of customer success stories.

Acumatica is an accounting system designed to help small and medium-sized businesses. It is a cloud-based platform that can be accessed anywhere. It provides an end-to-end solution for business management, including accounting, inventory, CRM, and ERP. Acumatica has the following features:

• Accounting – it offers a complete set of accounting tools for managing the financials of a business.
• Inventory – it has inventory management tools that are easy to use.
• CRM – it provides customer relationship management tools.
• ERP – it has enterprise resource planning tools that are designed to help with all aspects of running a business.

Acumatica ERP pricing depends on your business's evolving needs. So instead of paying for software or functionality you don't need, you can choose what you do. This is especially great for growing companies that may need to add or adjust functionality over time. They've also made it so you can add casual users, customers, and suppliers with no additional licenses or costs. The other benefit of their pricing is that you don't need to be afraid of company growth since they charge based on functionality and not the number of users. So they don't penalize you when you make those necessary hires. ERP pricing depends on many factors that are individual to a company. So while there’s no one answer to that question, Acumatica has made it easy to get custom pricing.
You simply need to fill out a brief form with:

• Work email
• Your business’s needs
• Your industry
• Time frame
• And country

They will then send you detailed pricing that considers your business's needs.

Open-source software is software whose code is available to the public to use and modify. It is often developed by a community of volunteers. Acumatica ERP is not open source in the traditional sense. Unlike Odoo, Acumatica does not disclose its source code. It also doesn't permit project forks (changing the source code and distributing it commercially). While open-source software does have its pros, closed-source programs offer increased stability and safety. It becomes much more difficult to mess up the core functions of the ERP without access to the source code. Acumatica remains in control of that. However, Acumatica has created a happy medium between open source customization potential and the stability of closed source programs. Acumatica provides an open framework where you can inject custom code using Acumatica’s Customization Platform. This means you can customize the elements that aren't essential to the program's functionality.

The core reason behind Acumatica's flexibility is its Cloud xRP. While many closed-source programs also use proprietary code, Cloud ERP uses .NET and HTML 5, both industry standard codes. Any developer familiar with these languages will have no trouble creating add-ons that fit your company’s needs. So instead of hiring someone with application-specific knowledge, you can use your own programming team. Acumatica also hosts a marketplace for integrated solutions from 3rd party developers. So before taking the time to create custom programming, browse their existing library to see if there’s already a solution available.

Acumatica Software as a Service (SaaS) offers enterprise-class benefits without the high IT cost. With Acumatica SaaS, your system will be hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), which you can access from any internet-enabled device or web browser.

This answer has two parts since the subscription covers different things for the initial setup and the eventual maintenance. So initially, Acumatica will set up and provision your ERP. They also take care of creating an environment for you to access the program. After that initial setup is completed, the subscription covers system maintenance and administration. These include:

• Software updates
• Automatic scheduled backups
• System monitoring

These are all possible because of the cloud platform that permits them to take over the grunt work of system tuning.

Going more in-depth with these updates is the Always Current Program. Small businesses who subscribe to Acumatica's SaaS small business license are automatically enrolled in the program. These updates and upgrades that keep your system current ensure you always have the latest features. It also costs less to upgrade your system. Sometimes, even if an update or upgrade is necessary, it can be a huge disruption if it happens at the wrong time. So providing even more control is the Acumatica Flex program, where you can control the timing of your upgrades. Contact your Acumatica partner for more information on these programs.

Acumatica is dedicated to flexibility in all elements of its programming. Because of this, they offer two choices for licensing methods.

• SaaS is an annual subscription license that is hosted in a public cloud. It’s a set monthly payment. With the subscription, Acumatica essentially takes on the role of IT for your company’s ERP needs. They handle upgrades and other maintenance and troubleshooting tasks.
• Private Cloud Subscription (PCS) gives you the same ERP but changes the hosting option. Instead of a public cloud like Amazon Web Services, your business can choose the cloud and hosting provider.

Acumatica reports that the SaaS licensing is customers' most popular purchasing option. It’s a better option for smaller businesses that either doesn’t have an IT department or want their IT professionals to focus on different projects. The PCS licensing is the better option for those who want more control over the process. Beyond getting to choose your cloud and hosting provider, you also get to pick when updates happen.

Acumatica creates a custom URL for your business that gives you access to Acumatica ERP. This means you can get the ERP from any device, regardless of OS, that has access to the internet. This is a huge plus for businesses that don’t want to have to choose an OS or want to be able to access the ERP from mobile devices. You get two options for URLs. You can use a prefix of your choice in front of .acumatica.com or create a custom domain URL if you provide Acumatica with the SSL certificate.

For businesses that use Acumatica SaaS, the database is Microsoft SQL Server. Microsoft SQL Server is an enterprise-class relational database management system. SQL stands for Structured Query Language, the most commonly used language for interacting with databases.
SQL is server-based software that allows users to access data from any device with an internet connection.
It supports various types of storage, including:

• Filegroups and tablespaces store data files in the filesystem;
• Memory-optimized tables store data entirely in RAM;
• Clustered columnstore indexes store large amounts of sparsely populated data across multiple disks.

The engine also supports distributed queries across multiple instances of SQL Server to provide high availability for query execution.

You can always check your database usage within the application on the screen named Space Usage. T
For private cloud deployments, there are other options.

ODBC stands for Open Database Connectivity and is a standard that allows you to access data from a database in your application. It used to be possible to access Acumatica through ODBC, but Acumatica no longer supports it. This is because Acumatica’s development platform APIs provide the same features and have some advantages over ODBC. Namely, you don’t have to learn complex database structures or train anyone else. Another time and money saver is that transitioning your customizations costs less during upgrades because the APIs don’t often change, even if a database does. The other pro of using an API is increased security and stability. Because your reports and customizations can’t directly access the database, they must follow security configurations. In addition, it guards against human error that could seriously impact its performance.

Acumatica’s APIs also replace the need for stored procedures. This ensures the integrity of your data because your business logic processes all changes. Post-2021, Acumatica now provides a data access class (DAC) Schema Browser. It’s available from within Acumatica’s ERP. The company also has documentation of its own development platform APIs to help with customization. Acumatica ERP was designed for customization to continue to work even through database changes.

If you have several related companies with different information, you need one database. With that one database, you can track different financials for as many companies as you want. And this comes with the added security of being able to choose what information is available to each company. If you want to customize Acumatica in different ways for each company, know that it’s possible, but there is a caveat. If the customization in question affects the shared database, it will affect all your companies. The UI changes for one company will travel to the others.

Businesses with a more extensive IT department may wonder if the SaaS has advantages over using a private cloud and hosting it themselves. Acumatica SaaS has many benefits that come with a standard subscription that go beyond what a private cloud would offer. The benefits include:

• 24/7 access
• Monitoring
• Disaster recovery
• Backup services
• Software updates
• Application maintenance

Beyond those stated pros are other benefits for your business. You won't have to train your IT department in ERP maintenance and other mundane tasks. They can focus instead on personalizing your software. And because Acumatica doesn't use proprietary code, they can use their existing know-how. Please contact your Acumatica partner for a more detailed presentation of your options.

If your business subscribes to the SaaS licensing, Acumatica handles your system maintenance, including updates and upgrades.
Generally, maintenance will be scheduled and announced at least a week in advance. This will, for the most part, be less than half of an hour per week that occurs on weekends or during non-peak hours.
Unscheduled maintenance is sometimes necessary for security or emergency bug fixes, but Acumatica will try to contact you to let you know as soon as they know.
During maintenance, Acumatica SaaS is unavailable for use since they need to disable the program to change the programming.
Acumatica assures customers that they make every effort to minimize the duration and frequency of maintenance.

With cloud platforms, there is often a concern that an ERP will struggle to perform at a constant level during peak hours.
That is why Acumatica sells reserved resources to ensure that your ERP’s performance never dips. Your Acumatica partner will walk you through the process of choosing the correct level of dedicated resources to purchase with your SaaS.
Your level depends on how large your business is and how much you rely on your ERP. If this changes at any point, or you find yourself getting too close to the cap, you can upgrade your level whenever.

Acumatica uses automated monitoring tools that consistently track how your system performs. If the tools catch an issue where your system isn’t performing at the level it should be, they will automatically alert the engineers.
That's the first fail-safe. But if the tools haven't caught the issue, you can do a couple of other things.
If you’ve checked and made sure your system isn’t running slow because of insufficient resources, report the problem to your Acumatica partner. They will contact Acumatica as a representative of your business that knows your unique situation.
However, this is only regarding overall system slowness. If you’re experiencing connectivity issues with the system where you can’t log in or connect, you can report the problem here.

Since Acumatica doesn’t charge per user that accesses the system, they use a different gauge: resource usage.
You can only get an accurate estimate of how many resources you’ll need from your Acumatica Partner. But the way they judge your system resource load is by how much you require during peak usage times.
So while you may not use that many resources at night or on weekends, your resource level will depend on when you're processing the most transactions. This ensures you won't experience slowdowns when most of your business is happening
Transactions can include:

• Vendor payments
• Payments
• Purchase Receipts
• Shipments
• AR Invoices
• Purchase Orders
• Sales Orders
• AP Bills

The Acumatica ERP can be scaled from companies with a low number of transactions to companies with millions. It's built to be highly flexible, and while the focus may be on small to medium-sized businesses, Acumatica doesn't want to limit growth, so you and your partner can work together to find the resource levels you need.

The point of ERPs is to get all your information and data in one place, so you don't have to update different programs. Integration also helps in reducing manual errors and improves efficiency in business processes.
Acumatica provides its own CRM solution, but if you’re already on Salesforce, you may not want to make the switch because of the time it takes to migrate data.
If you're wondering if you can integrate the two, yes, it is possible. However, it's not a native solution. Only SAP and Oracle provide native integration solutions.

Luckily, because of how easy it is to develop programs that work with Acumatica, there is a 3rd party solution to the problem.
SYNC helps Acumatica integrate with Salesforce to provide a seamless experience for users. As the name suggests, SYNC automatically maps all the data from Acumatica to Salesforce and vice versa. It provides a single source of truth for data so that the user doesn't have to switch between multiple tools and applications.
Any field from Acumatica can be viewed in Salesforce and becomes part of its native database. This provides the added benefit that you can perform Salesforce’s CRM functions on your Acumatica data and use Salesforce’s third-party program offerings.

In software, sandboxes are essentially a copy of your system where you can change things and see how it would affect your system without making any changes. So if you wanted to try out a different configuration but wanted to test it out before going ahead, the sandbox is a perfect place for the test run.
However, be warned that you can’t push these changes into your existing system. Once you refresh, they’re gone forever. So make sure you document what you want and what you’ve done so you can replicate it on your ERP.
The sandbox is based on your backups. So it needs to be updated whenever you make significant system changes. This is a manual process that Acumatica does charge a fee for.

There are two methods for backing up your Acumatica system.

• Acumatica performs constant automated backups. You can request a backup for a one-time fee or subscribe to the access service annually. This happens during a 2-hour window every day, when you may experience slowdowns.
• The other method is database snapshots. These are copies of your entire database that you perform yourself on demand that you can use to restore your system to that exact moment. Be warned that since it's a complete snapshot, it's the same size as your database, which can eat into your storage. You can restore these yourself at any point.

The optional paid backup service Acumatica offers gives you complete access to seven days of rolling backups. This means you can use SFTP to download and store copies of your data. There may be fees applied if you need to restore your production environment. This benefit also includes all other standard backup procedures provided by Acumatica.

If a disaster occurs and a data center shuts down, Acumatica has a backup of your system in a different geographic zone. That way, they can quickly recover your data and put you back online using a different data center.
Acumatica can restore your system to an earlier state if you are subscribed to the data recovery service. However, if you are not, it’s doubtful they can restore your system since their backups are meant for global situations and not individual scenarios.

Your data is stored in a separate database from other Acumatica cloud subscribers. This means your data is in no way vulnerable to other users. Your data is also never stored on your personal computing devices beyond a brief moment when users input data on their devices.
All data transmitted to the cloud is secured and encrypted with SSL security. If you use the URL that Acumatica provides, it is automatically protected. If you use your own, you need to provide your own certificate.

Acumatica monitors your system continually with enterprise-grade anti-virus software. The software can prevent, detect, and eradicate malicious software that could infect your system.
They also have an intrusion detection system that works to find any attempt to breach your data's privacy or security. They immediately lock intruders out if the intrusion detection system detects someone trying to access the system. Acumatica then investigates the identity of the attacker. They can also restrict access to your company's specific IP addresses in the system.
You can also specify who can access different system elements by assigning security credentials. These credentials can either be based on the role of the user or very specific to an individual's login. You can also track an individual's activities.
If a security violation does occur, you can report it to their Incident Response Team here.

Acumatica uses Amazon Web Services because of its approach to guarding against both physical and environmental threats. They control physical access to the system at the perimeter and at every point where someone could access it with security staffing and video surveillance. Any visitor or contractor is also required to pass a security check and is never left unattended.
They also have extensive fire, power, climate, and temperature detection and regulation systems in place. This ensures that all physical threats are at a minimum. If anything does happen, Acumatica also has multiple data centers in different geographic locations to ensure your system never goes down.

If you don’t meet the monthly payment window, Acumatica suspends your account for 30 days. While you can’t access your ERP, your data is still intact and ready if you want to renew.
They also can provide a copy of your data to you within those 30 days. This way, even if you don’t choose to reactivate within that time, you can still return to Acumatica at any point without needing to migrate your data.

Yes, Acumatica SaaS is PCI compliant. It does not store credit card information or transfer credit card information between clients and Acumatica servers. Credit card information is exchanged directly with the client’s credit card processing provider after it is entered into the client’s browser.

Through Amazon Web Services (AWS) hosting, Acumatica can ensure that its infrastructure complies with all standards and regulations for different industries and governments. Clients with any compliance concerns can inquire about them directly through Acumatica.

The System and Organization Controls (SOC) audit ensures that a provider that maintains control of financial information (such as a SaaS company) is taking all available steps to control risks and manage the security of client information.

Yes, Acumatica passes SOC 1 and SOC 2 audits annually. The first year of completion was in 2016, and reviews from auditors take place every September.