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How Does Epicor ERP Work?

Epicor® is the most popular enterprise resource planning software available, available in 30 languages and used in more than 150 countries across the world. The system is available in several versions, each consisting of several modules from which companies can choose. The result is a customizable, yet easy-to-use interface that is effective for any company in any industry. So how exactly does this modular system work?

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How Does Epicor ERP Work?

The Epicor® ERP software is modular in nature, meaning that each group of functions is separated into a different piece of the software. These modules include everything a business might need, from customer relationship and sales management to supply chain and manufacturing operations management. The most important factor to consider with these modules is that the user doesn’t need to use all of them if they don’t need them. The user just chooses the best combination of highly developed modules to suit their business’ needs, then customizes each module’s functions to suit the company’s purposes further.

The result of this modular ERP system is a highly flexible and scalable program that grows with your company. Since each of the Epicor® modular components is designed to work as a cohesive whole with any other module in any combination, you can add and remove modules as needed. For example, if your company adds a new department to your operations, you can add a new module to your ERP package to support the new operations segment.

Each of these modules provides a full suite of functions to support your business needs. To help you decide which modules will best suit your business purposes, we’ve outlined and described each of the Epicor® modules and what they can do for your organization.

Supply Chain Management

The primary purpose for the existence of any supply chain is to satisfy customer needs and business profits. Supply chain activities help you satisfy your customers’ needs, beginning with a customer order and ending with a product purchase. Everything involved in that process is supply chain management. The goal of supply chain management is to add value to the inputs of the supply chain process, but due to inefficient systems, not all supply chain activities accomplish this. This is where the impact of ERP on supply chain management is important.

So what is ERP in supply chain management? In the Epicor® software, this is the Supply Chain Management (SCM) software module. This software helps identify steps in the supply chain process that may not add value to the end product through a variety of supply chain management solutions. These solutions include enterprise capabilities like customer relationship management (CRM), supplier relationship management (SRM), supply chain execution (SCE), distribution management and production management functions. The Epicor® SCM is designed to handle all these functions as a cohesive whole, so you can simultaneously manage and analyze your supply chain without sacrificing time. Even better, the Epicor® SCM is completely scalable, so whether you need to simply track a few transactions or manage an entire warehouse or system of warehouses across the country, Epicor® SCM can help.

The benefits of using ERP in supply chain management are incredible. By using SCM functions in the Epicor® system, businesses can trim down non-value-added functions and activities, saving themselves time and money. Additionally, improved customer and supplier relationship management mean improved customer and supplier satisfaction, higher product quality and competitive advantages in the market. Delivery management functions included in the software can also help streamline processes by enhancing routing and route scheduling. The overall result for your company is a faster supply chain, producing lower-cost, higher-quality products that place your business at a competitive advantage over less efficient competitors.

Production Management

The Epicor® production management software is another module designed to make processes easier for manufacturing companies by producing any combination of make-to-order, configure-to-order, engineer-to-order and make-to-stock products. Regardless of what your company produces, this manufacturing management software features the tools you need to maintain product quality within a single platform. These include a full range of supply chain management, supply chain execution and distribution functions, such as work order management material requirements planning, lean manufacturing, manufacturing execution system and master data management programs.

The Epicor® production manager further aids your company’s production systems with product quality management, product lifecycle management and business intelligence solutions. These help organizations comply with international quality standards while reducing quality issues and managing product lifecycle considerations. Using intelligence and communications solutions within the software, businesses can also benefit from improved connectivity and collaboration throughout their organization and supply chain.

This highly configurable and flexible solution allows your company to do everything necessary to manage and analyze your production process, all within a single platform. Not only does this help your business improve product quality, but it also saves you time and money. Epicor’s cloud-based ERP helps you analyze your production processes to find new solutions or potential areas of improvement so you can streamline your business. This means faster delivery times, lower costs and improved quality, all with a single ERP module.

Planning and Scheduling

No matter what your business involves, whether it provides services, products or a combination of these, you need to be able to plan and schedule your business operations. A planning and scheduling software can accomplish just that. Epicor® uniquely understands the planning and scheduling needs of both small and large businesses, and provides planning and scheduling software to help.

With the Epicor® advanced planning and scheduling software, you can forecast your production needs for both long and short terms. This is even further improved with material requirements planning software, which monitors supply and demand in real time using customer orders and forecasts your future needs so you can implement changes appropriately. Combined with project management and production planning software, the Epicor® ERP scheduling software allows corporations to optimize their resources.

When it comes to ordering materials and forecasting your needs, the Epicor® planning and scheduling system is the best choice to help your manufacturing company.

Project Management

Insuring the success of a project is critical to your profitability, but doing so is still difficult. Many businesses struggle with their project budgets, which is why comprehensive project management is so important. The Epicor® project management software is one of the most important modules of Epicor® ERP, embedded with all the capabilities needed to plan, manage and bill your projects so you can easily keep an eye on everything and maximize project success.

The Epicor® ERP Project Management module uses detailed logistics to manage projects from the ground up. Using Epicor’s detailed estimation, planning, scheduling, costing and supply chain logistics, the system helps project managers analyze and take control of their project. Project management from Epicor includes project planning, resource management and billing and revenue management systems to help follow contract and accounting requirements.

Epicor’s goal is to make your project management process easier and more accurate, resulting in lower costs and shorter project completion times. This makes your company more attractive to potential clients and gives you a serious edge up on the competition.

Product Data Management

Product data management, also known as PDM software, is functionally a repository for information about a product and its history. Everything about a product, from its lifecycle and configuration to its costs and engineering concerns, is all tracked and saved within this Epicor® ERP module. The main purpose of this software is to promote integration within a company, allowing business users at all levels to communicate about and interact with their products, understanding them from the ground up.

The product management software solutions provided by Epicor® help to manage product data in a more accessible way. Data usually contained in engineering documents, plant floor routings, sales orders, bills of materials (BOMs) and quality documentation is broken down and distributed for easy access at all pertinent levels of your business, with automatic communication options to alert personnel of pertinent changes. The system even includes user-friendly engineering workflow and product lifecycle management systems, as well as simple configuration options to help customize the module for your organization.

Service Management

Improved field service management helps you get control of your contractual obligations, agreements and warranties, benefiting businesses of all types. Service management software is one of the best ways to get on top of your business’ field service management, helping you coordinate all your service center processes and securing your resources.

Field services, contracts, and maintenance services each have a place in the Epicor® ERP software, making for a fully functional field service management software. The Epicor® service management software helps support and visualize your organization through preventive maintenance scheduling and case management, on top of communications tools to keep your field service workers connected to your home base. You can more easily spot and visualize risks and inefficiencies in your processes so you can change them. With Epicor®, you can work toward developing a more lean and efficient business, managing your people and resources more effectively through a single module.

Human Capital Management

As resource competition in the modern world gets more intense, companies expect more from their HR department, especially when it comes to human resource management. The Epicor® Human Capital Management system provides help with this and more, enabling you to manage your workforce and human resource processes more easily.

Epicor HCM automates all your HR processes, managing the entire employee lifecycle from application to retirement. The HCM from Epicor® offers recruitment, benefits and absence management tools, giving you more ability to track, manage and analyze your employee data. It also provides a great way to manage the training of new employees and assess the performance of existing ones.

These paperless workflows help improve efficiency for both employees and managers, regulating operations and helping the company focus more on business objectives than on staffing concerns. This, in turn, enhances employee satisfaction, improving employee retention while also improving overall business efficiency and cost savings.

Sales Management

The primary goal of a business is to grow profitability through sales. Strong sales management is the best way to do this, and with sales force automation, you can more easily convert your prospects to customers. Epicor® sales management software is the best way to improve your sales team’s efficiency and effectiveness by managing opportunities and automating certain administrative tasks so your team can focus more on selling.

Epicor® ERP’s sales management software manages everything from quotes to orders and sales, enabling your sales team to more easily coordinate with your warehouses, shipping and accounting teams. The system facilitates more efficient account management, as well as management of shipping, invoicing and commission. This streamlining of the sales process helps orders be processed more efficiently. Combined with sophisticated supply chain management software and warehouse management systems, Epicor’s sales management module can improve efficiency even more from the ground up.

The sales management software provides product configuration tools that make it possible for you to produce more accurate estimates, streamline your sales cycles, calculate more accurate estimates and improve overall customer service. Improved efficiency also makes it more possible for your business to take advantage of more opportunities, improving sales productivity and accuracy. In total, the Epicor sales management solution can help you perfect the sales process and improve your and your customers’ experiences.

Customer Relationship Management

Proper customer relationship management is more important to modern businesses than ever. That’s where the Epicor® customer relationship management module comes into play. With the Epicor CRM module, you can track your leads and contacts more easily than ever, so you never have to worry about losing a hot lead ever again.

Epicor® CRM software solutions help businesses stay ahead of the sales curve, managing customers throughout the lifecycle from prospect to client. The system provides a complete view of your business relationships, including those with customers, suppliers and business partners, maximizing your customer information and broadening the scope of your information. This complete management module helps improve your business’ effectiveness and efficiency, improving overall growth.

The Epicor ERP solution allows businesses to more easily support a mobile sales force, automating many basic marketing and messaging activities and allowing sales members access to customer information in the field. This way, your sales team is more readily equipped to handle customer interactions, improving responsiveness and customer retention.

Financial Management

Between global competition and regulatory compliance concerns, proper financial management can be one of the most important aspects for a business’ profitability. With Epicor® accounting and financial management software, your business can achieve sounder financial management, using the system’s general ledger, fiscal reporting and performance management capabilities.

The Epicor® accounting and financial management module brings a new level of automation to your business, streamlining your financial processes with tools that can handle even complex financial requirements. Just a few of the software’s capabilities include collections management, electronic funds transfers, automated order matching, general ledger management and bank reconciliation. The financial module can even handle payroll and tax management.

It’s not just your daily tasks that can benefit from financial management from Epicor® — your business, in the long run, can benefit from centralized financial accounting. Many audit firms today advocate for centralized financial data, as businesses using more disparate financial information tend to lose sight of their business’ financial health. This is particularly the case for large, multi-location enterprises. With Epicor® ERP accounting software, you retain data visibility and benefit from incredible analytical and automated tools that save you time and effort.

Security Compliance

On top of its large selection of modules, Epicor® ERP offers sophisticated security, handling both in-application and external security processes to keep your data safe. The system accomplishes this level of security through a variety of means, including role-based security profiles, data restriction options, strong password policies and a protected user interface. On top of these basic measures, the Epicor® system ensures all cloud communication is heavily encrypted and monitored for suspicious patterns. These security measures and more operate simultaneously to keep your data secure so you can worry less about your data and more about your daily business operations.

Enterprise Performance

Ensuring continuous performance is about more than monitoring — it’s about managing. Performance management is made easier than ever with Epicor® Enterprise Performance Management, embedded within the Epicor ERP software.

The Epicor EPM software is a complete set of analytical tools that allow businesses to plan and execute business activities to meet their long-term goals. Business intelligence is a huge component of this system, enabling more effective decision-making. This includes budgeting, planning and forecasting abilities, analytical applications, data warehousing, business activity queries and reporting capabilities. This means your business gets the intelligence it needs when you need it.

In total, the Epicor® Enterprise Performance Management system cultivates a culture of high performance by allowing businesses to see what works and what doesn’t. It also encourages everyone involved in the business by informing them how and where their work fits in.

Start With Epicor

Epicor® software can be difficult to understand, and no matter how long you’ve worked with the software, problems and mistakes happen. That’s why you need an independent consultant to help.

As an independent service provider, Practical Technology Solutions, LLC knows what it takes to implement Epicor® in a way that works best for your business. Since 1997, our business has worked in the IT industry, learning systems like Epicor® from the ground up. Our expertise is the best in the industry, as is our high-quality customer service, but we still promise low-cost, competitive services for our clients.

Between our quality service and expertise, we’ve gained the trust of several clients across the United States. That’s because we focus on our customers, providing them with the best we have to offer. That includes our highly certified technicians. In short, when you choose Practical Technology Solutions, you choose Epicor® specialists who can offer you a functional system with the best support.