NetSuite Unveils New User Experience

NetSuite chief executive officer (CEO) Zach Nelson unveiled the new NetSuite user interface (UI) with a more intuitive and visually engaging work experience during his keynote address at the company’s SuiteWorld 2014 conference yesterday. Founder and chief technology officer (CTO) Evan Goldberg discussed and demonstrated the new capabilities more deeply in his SuiteWorld 2014 keynote presentation today. NetSuite plans to roll out the new UI with NetSuite's 2014.2 release, scheduled for Q3 2014.

As the pioneer in cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP), NetSuite has been at the forefront of UI design trends. Its first release in 1999 abandoned the Microsoft Windows desktop standard look and feel of the era and adopted the web metaphor. The company’s UI introduced role-based business intelligence (BI) dashboards, while its 2006 UI featured in-line editing in web-based applications (instead of just viewing) and incorporated Ajax technologies to develop dashboards and portlets that live natively in core business applications (see image depicting the development of NetSuite UI over the years).



NetSuite's 2014 UI

To again reinvent its business application UI, NetSuite conducted 3 years of deep usability research with its customers. It reportedly completed extensive research, user observations, and usability testing with users across various roles—from front-line sales, marketing, finance, e-commerce, human resources (HR) and services employees through to C-level executives. Leveraging and supporting HTML5 and based on principles of modern ‘flat design,’ which emphasizes crispness and clarity, the NetSuite UI exhibits easy-to-read fonts, attractively redesigned icons and graphics, increased whitespace, and greater aesthetic simplicity (see figure).

 


Overall, 2014 UI highlights include easy access to navigation and tools such as Global Search, Recent Records, Help, and Shortcuts, as well as a new global Quick Add feature that enables users to rapidly add tasks, events, contacts, and more from anywhere in the product. In addition, the ‘progressive disclosure’ feature conceals action prompts until mouseover for a “cleaner” experience, and there is also an improved experience on tablets through a responsive dashboard, larger menus and controls, and improved scrolling (see image).

 

Acumatica Targets Professional Service, Non-Profit and Multi-Location Businesses with the Release of Acumatica 3.0

The latest release of Acumatica’s award-winning financial software includes Project Accounting, Automated Inter-Company Transfers, and many more features.

Acumatica, a provider of Cloud ERP software, has announced general availability of Acumatica 3.0, the latest release of its award winning financial software. The release contains project accounting, automated inter-company transfers, and several features requested by hundreds of customers.  

“Acumatica 3.0 allows us to expand our market offerings both vertically and horizontally”, said Ezequiel Steiner, CEO at Acumatica.  “The project accounting features are a perfect fit for consulting, engineering, marketing, non-profits, and other professional services companies, while the inter-company features are designed for businesses with multiple offices, warehouses, subsidiaries, and complex reporting structures.”

Acumatica’s new Project Accounting suite delivers a complete software package for managing a project lifecycle including budgeting, managing timesheets, tracking materials, billing, accounting, and reporting. The software is delivered via the Cloud to organize projects with multiple locations, many partners, and remote workers.

“Acumatica’s project accounting capabilities are well suited to our consulting business,” said Carolyn Jasiulewicz, President at Progressive System Solutions. “Employees and external contractors can enter timesheets and link line items to specific projects using any device with a browser. This saves us money by keeping consultants at the customer site instead of requiring them to email their hours and expenses for someone else to enter.”

“We receive funding from multiple sources, which we then allocate to several different programs to support our mission in the fight against Cancer,” said David Castaneda Diaz, Director of Finance at the DC Cancer Consortium. “It takes considerable effort and resources to manage, track, monitor, and report the effectiveness of each program. Using Acumatica’s Project Accounting module, we can manage all phases of many different types of programs and easily get real-time reports regarding program effectiveness.”

Acumatica 3.0 automates inter-company accounting for organizations with multiple business entities that require separate financial reporting. The software allows organizations to establish branches and subsidiaries that rely upon centralized operations including purchasing and cash management. Complexities of inventory transfers between branches, allocated expenses, and inter-company transactions are handled automatically for financial and tax reporting.

Key Features in Acumatica 3.0:

·        Project Accounting: Manage billing and budgets for multiple projects involving several people, roles, billing rates, inventory, markups, and allocated costs.

·        Intercompany Accounting: Create multiple branches to centralize bill payment & cash management, allocate expenses, and create automated inventory transfer transactions.

·        Enhanced Dashboards: Users can select from role-based templates or create custom dashboards using an improved graphical interface with expanded chart and layout options.

·        Other features: Hundreds of additional features include additional electronic bank and credit card reconciliation, activity monitoring and notifications, plus Acumatica report writer enhancements.

Acumatica delivers the benefits of Cloud software without sacrificing growth and flexibility. For companies that require integration, Acumatica delivers an advanced application programming interface (API) has been used to connect best-in-breed solutions for ecommerce, payroll, supply chain and EDI, tax calculation, point of sale, as well as customer specific applications. Acumatica also delivers robust reporting tools, integration tools, and the option to switch between an on-premise deployment and a subscription service.

How to Purchase Acumatica 3.0:

Acumatica sells 100% of its software through a vast and knowledgeable network of value added resellers and software experts. Acumatica can be purchased as a license or as a subscription service (SaaS). For a list of resellers, visit www.acumatica.com/varpartners.  

About Acumatica

Acumatica is a leading cloud ERP software vendor that delivers the benefits of Cloud and SaaS without sacrificing customization, control, security, or speed.  Acumatica can be deployed on premise, hosted at a datacenter, or run on a Cloud computing platform.  Learn more about Acumatica’s Cloud ERP solution at www.acumatica.com.

Media Contact:

Douglas Johnson

703-873-7570

djohnson@acumatica.com

IBS Debuts New Cloud, Mobile, Distribution Intelligence Offerings at Global Customer Summit

Symphony Services Continues Investment in Accelerating Product Road Map

International Business Systems (IBS), a global leading integrated ERP and supply chain provider, announced the addition of cloud and mobile offerings to its flagship IBS Enterprise solution during its Global Customer Summit.

“The acquisition of IBS was a strategic move by Symphony Technologies to harness the power of the company’s technology, blue chip customer base and world-class people,” said Pallab Chatterjee, chairman of the board of IBS. “Now it is time for us to put the power of Symphony’s deep product and technology portfolio, strong financial position and history of success in repositioning software companies to make IBS’ customers successful.”

As a part of the rollout of the company’s strategic product roadmap for customers, IBS debuted IBS Cloud Solutions, which are designed to prove benefits such as lower IT cost, reduced business risk, faster time to value and greater flexibility combined with the advanced functionality of IBS Enterprise in the cloud. The offering is a subscription-based license model that leverages a shared, virtualized infrastructure for on-demand offerings and can also be extended to IBS’ mobility solution.
IBS Cloud Solutions include the latest versions of the IBS Enterprise modules for Distribution Intelligence; Distributions Financials; Supply Management; Logistics, Assembly and Services; Demand Management and Supply Chain Integration.

The launch of IBS Mobile solutions focuses on the trend of the increase in enterprise mobility in corporations and allows customers to use IBS Enterprise on mobile devices. This end-to-end solution will leverage existing technology investments in IBS solutions; accelerate customer ROI through automated, real-time and accurate mobile data collection and provide a flexible, integrated solution.
IBS also extended its focus on even more advanced capabilities for Distribution Intelligence by debuting Advanced Sales and Operations Planning and Rapid Performance Management from Symphony Technologies.

The company also launched IBS AppExchange, which provides customers the opportunity to take immediate advantage of commonly used solutions across multiple release levels as well as its Sales & Operations Planning offering designed to balance demand, production and inventory to deliver rapid insights, collaboration and data-driven results.

For more information, please contact:
Mark Illidge
VP IBS Field Operations & Corporate Marketing
IBS AB
+44 777 195 42 73
Mark.illidge@ibs.net

IBS in brief
Stockholm-based International Business Systems (IBS) is a leading global integrated ERP and supply chain provider. Thousands of customers in over 40 countries rely on IBS for world-class solutions to drive dramatic improvements in their operations. IBS operates Dynaman, an advanced warehouse management solution and Bookmaster, a leader in ERP technology for publishing. For more information, contact www.ibs.net.

Acumatica Releases Version 2.2 of its Cloud Accounting, ERP, and CRM Software

New features improve capabilities for wholesale distributors, manufacturers, multi-national companies, and service companies.

On August 17, 2011 Acumatica released the latest version of its Cloud ERP software that includes several customer driven enhancements such as automated bank reconciliation, inventory allocation by sales order, expanded replenishment algorithms, flexible payment remittance, and more. Cloud and on-premise customers can choose to install these updates at a time that is convenient to them.

“Acumatica responded quickly to our needs by delivering inventory allocation features that are critical to our distribution business,” said Ehren Dimitry, President at AME Corporation. “Even after my initial purchase, I was able to work closely with product experts who were able to configure the upgrade for my business.”

Acumatica 2.2 includes changes and updates to the financial, distribution, and customer management modules. Many features were implemented based on customer requests while others were built to expand the reach of Acumatica in the wholesale distribution, manufacturing, retail, and service industry verticals. The changes were built using the Acumatica web development platform to ensure compatibility with existing security settings, reporting capabilities, customizations, and third party modules.

“Our advanced platform design allows us to rapidly publish new releases without breaking customizations made by partners and customers,” said Ali Jani, Vice President of Product Management at Acumatica. “This is critical for our mid-sized customers who want to take advantage of Cloud technologies but require software that adapts to their unique business processes.”

Availability:
SaaS customers and license customers with up-to-date maintenance contracts can get the latest release by contacting their value added reseller (VAR) to schedule an upgrade. Details about the release can be downloaded from the Acumatica Cloud ERP website.

SAP and Microsoft Make App Development and Cloud Management Easier

Microsoft’s broad partner ecosystem is what powers increased value and solutions for customers and their evolving business needs.

One example of this is today’s announcement of SAP and Microsoft’s plans to focus on two key areas: first, to help .NET Framework developers more easily build applications connecting to SAP, and second, to help customers harness the power of the cloud.

As a result of this announcement, developers can expect much more support and integration between the development worlds of SAP and Microsoft. Business processes from SAP software can now be easily consumed and extended by .NET developers, simplifying the overall application development process. This level of access will immediately reduce the number of steps developers must take in order to ensure application integration, and also lead to shorter development cycles and lower costs.

Microsoft and SAP also plan to provide integration between SAP’s landscape management software, Microsoft System Center and Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V technology, bringing greater agility to cloud management and deployments.

This integration will instill enhanced flexibility, scalability and management in the cloud, all while reducing cost and risk. Through these connected offerings, SAP and Microsoft customers will be able to easily scale their deployments in their own data centers or through private clouds, for example, if they have a workload that needs on-demand scale periodically, such as a paycheck or employee performance review application.

Together, Microsoft and SAP are committed to driving greater levels of innovation and flexibility for application development and cloud deployment – from your datacenter to the public cloud, eventually enabling hybrid computing scenarios via Windows Azure for companies to embrace cloud computing on their terms.

This announcement was made at SAPPHIRE® NOW, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 15-18, 2011 where Microsoft was also named SAP Global Technology Partner of the Year.

Posted by Ted Kummert (http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2011/05/18/sap-and-microsoft-make-app-development-and-cloud-management-easier.aspx)
Senior Vice President, Business Platform Division, Microsoft

Real Time Inventory, Pricing, Sales and Service Data On a Web Browser

At last, wholesale distribution revenues are starting to climb! Many distributors are reporting increased sales that are now spanning several quarters.

If you are one of them, and you think the time is right to upgrade your ERP technology, Acumatica thinks it's time you consider the Cloud!

The power of the Cloud
Acumatica Distribution Management uses the power of the cloud to deliver enterprise-wide control of your distribution operations. Because Acumatica Cloud ERP provides real-time information for every phase of your distribution business, from sales to purchasing to order entry to inventory control and to financial accounting, and beyond, you get the information you need to better manage all your company's resources.

What is included?
Acumatica is a fully integrated system that provides order management, inventory management, purchasing management, financial management, customer relationship management, and more. The solution is priced for unlimited users and sold as a one-time perpetual license or as a recurring turnkey service, depending on your level of IT expertise.

Learn more in 2 minutes
Find out how the power of the Cloud can help you by:
• Watching some of our 2-minute videos
• Attending a free seminar

For additional information, contact Acumatica at 1-888-228-8300.

Acumatica, BSWC, & MDM Webinar: Cloud Computing: Reality vs. Theory

Cloud computing is creating a big buzz in consumer markets. But its value proposition for wholesale distribution companies is still a bit fuzzy for IT professionals and executives alike. Join well-known technology consultant Steve Epner in this 60-minute free Webcast sponsored by Acumatica to separate fact from fiction, and learn more about the business case for cloud computing for wholesale distribution businesses.

The discussion on April 7, 2011 will knock down the myths to review the growing number of options, opportunities for wholesale distributors to leverage cloud computing, and the business case for cloud deployment. All this with the help of Steve Epner’s many years of clearly explaining how to use technology to solve business problems!

Register at: https://cc.readytalk.com/cc/sc​hedule/display.​do?udc=5f013d4t​8z8f​