TrustRadius Insights for Epicor Eclipse are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Business Problems Solved
Epicor Eclipse is a versatile software solution used across various departments and functions in businesses. Users rely on Eclipse to streamline purchasing, sales, inventory control, and accounting processes. With its comprehensive features designed specifically for the distribution industry, Eclipse proves to be an invaluable tool for users in this sector. Businesses like Revere Electric Supply utilize Eclipse throughout their entire business cycle, including quote management, order entry, purchasing, inventory management, delivery logistics, invoicing, finance, and reporting. The software also integrates seamlessly with third-party products like Avalara for tax calculations, Vantiv for credit card processing, Phocas for business intelligence, and Innovo for remote data collection and delivery logistics. By providing solutions for most areas of the distribution business and offering integration options with third-party vendors for others, Eclipse becomes a one-stop solution for businesses' operational needs.
Epicor Eclipse is currently the ERP solution in use by the sales, purchasing, and accounting departments. It is presently the means used to keep track of customer orders, accounts receivable, purchasing, inventory management, and accounts payable. Speaking candidly, it does not address as many problems as it creates. The software wasn't designed for our industry yet we use it daily anyway.
Pros
Strong is the job scheduling arena. Customer orders can be set up to release product on a specific schedule and each item can have its own schedule.
The text search feature is robust. By default, the system will search multiple fields for information so you don't spend time clicking through columns to find something.
The interface is fast, particularly compared with some other Epicor solutions.
Cons
If you're not in the HVAC or Electrical industries and you're using Eclipse, you've got the wrong software. The scheduling component that is a huge asset to those industries is a major performance bottleneck for other industries.
The reporting is very limited; outputs are not user friendly. No open database.
Too many keystrokes to get things done. Redundant screens plague this system.
Likelihood to Recommend
As mentioned previously, Epicor Eclipse is built for the HVAC and Electrical distributor segment. It's a great package for them because of the job-specific control on orders for customers. Large orders can be created and released item-by-item on whatever schedule the customer needs. The integrated wireless warehouse functionality is also critical for large operations. However, if you're outside one of those two segments, these strengths become major performance bottlenecks. The scheduling piece is non-essential for other industries but you have to operate that way which slows things down significantly.
We use Epicor's Eclipse software for inventory control, pricing, point of sale, invoicing, receivables and payables, and general ledger. Our lighting and Gear departments uses their Job Management module to bid and track larger jobs. We use their PDW (product data warehouse) module to aid our sales team to increase our catalog of products we can offer. Tracking product as it enters our location to printing shipping labels, manifesting and proof of delivery signatures to the invoices greatly aid in our collections from our credit department.
Pros
I feel their customer service is pretty good. When having issues, being able to speak someone in a pinch is great.
Adding features and improvements with every point upgrade keeps their software relevant and the value up there.
Training modules make training new hires feel more comfortable with our system, and keep existing users "brushed up" on their skills.
Cons
All these features don't come cheap.
When we merged (both companies on Eclipse) certain functionalities we had on one system were not carried over. When asked about it, they responded"That would require custom custom coding $$$". Wasn't the code was already written?
Sometimes more involved service requests get thrown into "Product development" status never to be heard from again...
Likelihood to Recommend
For medium (with growing pains!) organizations, Epicor's Eclipse software would be a great distribution and point of sale software solution and competes well with other software solutions out there. For large distributors Epicor's custom programming has the ability to tailor their software to customers exact need. I feel the cost of the system would be prohibitive to smaller distributors.
Eclipse is used as the primary software of our company. We run sales, purchasing, operations and finance on it. Generally it is one of the better ERP systems available in the electrical distribution space. It has an inherent understanding of how products, projects, orders, and warehouses are setup for our industry. It's greatest strength is probably the ways in which it has setup the product/price line/pricing data to meet our industry's unique needs. There are also some strong drawbacks to using the system, which we try to overcome with either 3rd party add on products that integrate with Eclipse, or custom programming we do in house.
Pros
Transaction - we are able to rebuild inventory and financial history step by step if there is ever an issue.
The pricing engine is fairly robust, and allows us needed control over sells strategies.
Parts of the system are editable, and we are able to quickly iterate new solutions for internal customers.
Cons
Their support has gotten worse over the years. They fired a large portion of staff in favor of cheaper new hires. It is getting slowly better over time as their support people are gaining experience, but decades of institutional knowledge was lost. Response time can vary wildly depending, which is troubling when you have an immediate need. They have made a partial mea culpa, but the situation is not fully remedied.
The user interface is clunky. The original interface, E-term, is a terminal based system (think DOS). A few years ago they rebuilt it using Java and called the new interface Solar, which is a more point and click, windows friendly version. Solar is slower, and so has been difficult for us to get the user adoption we've needed. In addition, any customization we do doesn't work in Solar. Now they have announced a new road-map to make it all web-based. Good luck to them, but it seems they spend all their time playing catch-up instead of making deep system improvements.
There are significant gaps in what Eclipse is able to do. Sometimes there are third party products (Proof of Delivery, E-commerce, Tax, etc.), and sometimes Epicor offers in house solutions (Job Management, EDI, etc.). In either case, there are a string of products we have to integrate and maintain to make Eclipse functional. Most of them require support contracts, and have varying degrees of support.
Likelihood to Recommend
If you are an Electrical distributor, with multiple branches or multiple departments, it could be a good choice for you. It is built with a deep knowledge of your industry, which is hard to find elsewhere. To support it, it requires either expensive support contracts or knowledgeable people who have multiple years of working with the platform. For larger businesses there are other ERP's that may scale better, or have more features, but are not likely to have as many industry specific features. Depends on what downsides you can live with.
VU
Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology (201-500 employees)
We use both the E-term and Solar clients throughout the company. Solar is primarily used at the corporate level in purchasing and fringe departments. Most all of our sales people use the E-term client daily. We have one salesperson who uses Solar. This ERP is utilized across the company with everything we manage. I manage all of our pricing with support from our product data administrator. We believe that performance is key to looking at how our pricing impacts our clients. I use various performance reports to help create pricing strategy within the company.
Pros
The ability to look back in history and delve into a customers particular order creates an atmosphere of support.
Broad functionality that covers all sections of the wholesale model keeps all participating clients involved and engaged in the day to day operations of the company.
Utilizing the ERP to support our clients and offering information based off of the data given to us.
Cons
I have had limited experience with support but most of my experiences have left me with my questions and concerns not being fulfilled. I have two tickets in the pipeline now that I have had no follow up as to the status of the request. Makes me think that my concerns are not a priority.
I would like to see a more updated e-term client as I feel that e-term at the counter level is a much more robust vehicle for a salesperson to work with. The point and click with a mouse at the counter slows things down with the Solar client.
Having an improved cut and paste would also make my life easier.
Likelihood to Recommend
The Eclipse E-term client, in my opinion, is a game changer at the counter and in the sales field. The ability to see numerous parts of the sale is great. Using numerous windows allows one to go back and forth between jobs. The queue and messaging functions create accountability and improve performance. The "call when complete" queue, in my opinion, is a great tool that unfortunately is underutilized by most people as there can be some confusion generated by some of the statuses.
Epicor's Eclipse is the business system for Revere Electric Supply. It is used for the entire business cycle: quote management and order entry, purchasing, receiving, managing inventory, delivery logistics, invoicing, AR, AP, finance, commissions, and reporting. Eclipse ties into several 3rd party products for additional features, such as Avalara for tax calculations, Vantiv for secure credit card processing, Phocas for business intelligence and dashboards, and Innovo for remote data collection and delivery logistics. There are only a few areas of the distribution business that Epicor Eclipse does not have a solution, but for those areas there seem to be several choices of 3rd party vendors and good integration.
Pros
The order entry process is very smooth, allowing users to see availability and immediately source unavailable items from vendors or other branches with single keystrokes or clicks. You can choose what columns of information display in order entry to help order writers make decisions.
A set of built-in and unlimited user-defined "queues" allow users to be pro-active - always knowing what needs to be taken care of in real time. A "Trouble" queue, for example, shows a user their orders where the available date is further out than the requested date so they can take action.
The RF warehouse system directs one or more pickers through the entire process of picking a customer's order and eliminates mistakes through scanning barcodes for both the shelf location and the product. The Carton Packing add-on can be used to verify quantities and products during packing, and product labels that indicate the order shipping information along with the package contents and quantities.
Cons
Eclipse does not do cross-docking well. If you have multiple branches and want to effectively move material for specific orders between a stocking branch and a delivering branch, you may want to work partially outside of Eclipse. The system will direct you to pick, pack, and transfer the product. You then have to receive and verify the quantities and material and put it away to make it available to pick, pack, and ship to the customer.
Likelihood to Recommend
Eclipse is well suited for quick order entry where the source is a formal purchase order document or a phone call with a known customer. In these scenarios the order entry process is quick, and order processing is smooth even if the customer has a lot of "special" requests like shipping part today and holding the rest or shipping some of the order to other addresses. Eclipse also works well if you have a good database of products, especially in searching for products where only partial information is known or finding existing orders where all you know for sure is the customer. It is not particularly well suited for Point of Sale where a walk-in customer who doesn't have an account wants products for which part numbers are not known, due to the requirements to release an order for a customer with no credit.
We use Epicor Eclipse across the whole organization. It provides us with a way to track every order processed and what stage it is at. It also integrates with other products that give you more flexibility and versatility.
Pros
Eclipse gives the ability to utilize real time on hand quantities instead of having to wait til it does a nightly update.
Cons
I wish there was a better way to do returns for inspections. It is a lengthy process to keep the items tagged on the outgoing for inspection and the incoming once inspection complete.
Likelihood to Recommend
To fully appreciate Eclipse, you have to understand it's processes. Once you do, all the other pieces fit together!
VU
Verified User
Employee in Information Technology (51-200 employees)
This company is a wholesale distributor of HVAC products, 70% of which we manufacture. We use Eclipse for AP, AR, GL, Sales, and Purchasing, as well as maintaining a default inventory for all 6 branches. We even use the 'Suggested PO' features for prioritizing our manufacturing processes by the department. The 'Suggested Transfer' feature is used to prioritize loads for the 12+ semi trucks we send out each week from the mother branch IN Wichita, Kansas to our branches in KC, Denver, Omaha, Lincoln and Des Moines.
We use another product for 'Labor and Materials' when costing our manufactured product.
Pros
Sales Order tracking, even returns are strengths of Epicor Eclipse. It can be set up to match returns to previous orders so that the correct credits are applied. It is capable of setting up contract pricing as well as matrix level pricing according to sales velocity or individual customer buyer programs.
Purchasing can be set up to work by full line buys or short buys while still maintaining a balanced inventory level of vendor line product.
Vendor Invoices and purchase orders are easily matched up for payment and the diverse reporting features are able to provide multi-faceted views of Product Sales, Items with No Sales, or Sales or Purchasing trends, just to name a few.
It is also tracking warehouse operation in both RF and non-RF environments, or a combination of the two.
Cons
Epicor Eclipse announced sometime back about an Advanced Cycle Count (ACC) feature that our company has waited some time for. While it does work somewhat and the dashboard board is nice, the reporting feature, while on the drop down menus, is woefully inept. It also lacks the ability to separate trouble queues, such as back orders, wrong locations, and other inventory concerns, from the ACC functionality (which in our company is done by different people).
Customer Support is now ported to another country. We don't care who does it but it adds another step in getting needed concerns addressed and, at times, the dialects can be very hard to understand, hence complicating communication of both problems and solutions involved.
Time management system is very basic.
Likelihood to Recommend
Wholesale distribution or Retail Sales great. Manufacturing less so.
As a plumbing distribution company, Eclipse is used in every department, by every employee. It runs our business.
Pros
Inventory - maintaining products on the shelf without having excess.
Order Entry - fast, easy and efficient- allowing us to give great customer service.
Accounting - receivables and payables - system gives you all the information to handle problems and give good customer service
Cons
New Message system needs more work. Still not efficient. Ability to have messages and Job Queues automatically emailed to offsite employees can quickly handle problems.
A/P Preview Queue - should be able to enter thru options without having to move my hand to the mouse to update the screen.
Emailing options should be a global option -- not just Faxing and Printing -- this is the 21st Century. Email should not be an additional expense, should be just part of the package.
Web Order should be enhanced - no improvements in a very long time.
To expensive and long wait time to get anything custom done or just a standard project (like move to laser printing in the warehouse) -- everyone has to go to other companies.
Likelihood to Recommend
It is still the best software package out there (at least that I'm aware of). Obviously, one needs to have the needs for what it offers. AND is willing to put in the time to learn and input reliable data.
