Cetec ERP vs. Viewpoint Spectrum

Cetec is useful for small to mid-sized companies with various levels of system complexity. It can manage having distributors and customer interfaces. It does fairly well at being a 'one-size fits all' solution. It would probably not be the best fit for large companies 100+ employees because it may not have the integration capability that is typically needed.

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Viewpoint Spectrum would be fine for small to medium-sized companies. It would be great for transitioning from an in-house paper-based process, especially since it's designed with small construction companies in mind. They're making it even easier for smaller companies by offering additional features that you'd normally have to find in other products. However, companies can easily outgrow this system. We have about 15 years of data in the system, over 300 active jobs, and nearly 1,500 employees. In the past 3 years we've noticed slower performance and frequent locks in the system that require intervention from a system administrator. We moved to the cloud about 2 years ago and this has made troubleshooting even more difficult as we don't have the same access that we did before to resolve performance issues.

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• Usage Logs: In the Medical Device Industry, having traceability is key. With this log, the Admin can review any user to see all their activity (viewing, updating, deleting, creating, etc.)
• Flexibility of Roles: Accessibility is very important. With Cetec ERP, we are able to create our own roles to grant specific access to certain user while denying it from others. This really helps by protecting information from being manipulated by users who do not carry that permission.

• Dashboards make navigating to the crucial information quick and easy.
• The layout with what we affectionately call the job info bar helps our project teams to quickly get where they need to go in the system.
• Crystal reports are easily managed and integrated with Spectrum, giving us great flexibility in custom reports.
• With a little training, and I mean a little, Spectrum is user friendly. Easy to create favorites/shortcuts for ease of use.

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• It needs the ability to breakdown sales for multiple customers by product code.

• Subcontract Kiosk can be glitchy - allows subs to overbill on subcontract billing items
• Document Imaging can be glitchy - often says users do not have adequate security to view/add documents, but they do - if they sign out and back in, it works fine
• At times, support can be lacking - sometimes case responses are delayed or you get an incorrect answer

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It checks all of our boxes at the moment.

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Cetec ERP is useful and fairly intuitive, but if you have a difficult time adapting to a ever-changing user interface, it may cause slight discomfort with every major update.

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Some things in Spectrum are NOT that intuitive, but I think knowledge of the software just comes with time. There are still some things I need assistance with in Spectrum but I'm very comfortable with my day to day items now that I've been using it for years. However, if there is something I don't do often or haven't done before, I don't find the software to be that intuitive, I actually find the logic on some things to be a little weird but it's fine once I know how to do it.

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Very little down time. They host our system.

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For the most part the product is very reliable. Since we are hosted we sometimes have connectivity issues but I would say that is more our ISP than Spectrum.

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Cetec ERP will answer support calls but depending on your level of service contract, it may cost you quick a bit per hour to solve the issues you have. E-mail support is always available and surprisingly responsive.

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The support has recently changed. Last year, you could call in and get an immediate response. Now that doesn't seem possible unless you have an urgent situation with access to the software, payroll or payables. I have found that using chat or e-mail works nicely for the most part, but sometimes I feel it would be easier if someone from support would jump on our site and take a first-hand look rather than going back and forth

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Our trainer was excellent and navigated the time zone differences expertly. She gave us test assignments to complete and was available for questions at any time.

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It is important to have a strong implementation partner. It made the transition from our old system to the new system easier.

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We reviewed plenty of ERP Systems before we decided on Cetec ERP. Going through systems like NetSuite, MS Dynamics, and Oracle, we were able to really define how many features we wanted and what price range we wanted to be in. As a small/midsize company, we needed a system that fit our needs while still having the capability for growth. Having the system be cloud based rather than a server base, like ProfitKey, also helped us determine our choice. Another feature that we were interested in was a barcoding/mobile feature. Cetec ERP has this out of the box where ProfitKey provided this as an add-on. GSS was the last system that we reviewed in comparison to Cetec and due to its large amounts of unusable features for our company, we decided not to use GSS. The overall price for what you get, responsiveness and helpfulness from their team, and the ability to customize to fit our needs helped make our decision to choose Cetec ERP over all the other systems we reviewed.

Spectrum, when compared to Simply accounting, is better. It has more options, and it is easy to navigate. Spectrum meets our needs better. Spectrum, when compared to Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate, is better. Spectrum has better connectivity between its project management system compared to Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate. Spectrum, when compared to CMIC, I believe they are equal. CMiC has a better project management system, but Spectrum has an easier accounting system to navigate.

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You can grant user specific access which is nice. Project managers do not need all the same modules as Accounting. But Accounting does need access to PM modules as well

• We have been able to streamline costs due to the amount of data now available.

• Viewpoint Spectrum has allowed us the opportunity to be proactive in analyzing the costs for a project in time to make a difference in the outcome of the project. It has allowed us defense in supporting our communications with the project owners.
• Viewpoint Spectrum has allowed us to become more productive with its accounting software and the cohesion between the modules. It has definitely streamlined the processing necessary to account for the business.

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