Acumatica 2021 R1 – What’s New?


Missed the Acumatica 2021 R1 Launch?
Here Is What You Need to Know.

 

The Acumatica 2021 R1 Launch added important new features and functionality to Acumatica Cloud ERP. This article will give you a quick reference to learn what you can look forward to from Acumatica in 2021.

Jump to a specific section:

  • General Usability Enhancements
  • Retail-Commerce Enhancements
  • Distribution Enhancements
  • Additional Enhancements

NOTE: ABOVE WILL BE SETUP WITH TABLE OF CONTENTS NAVIGATION

General Usability Enhancements

As the pandemic continues, Acumatica is focused on making the Cloud ERP easier to use than ever before for business leaders and employees across all roles.

The latest usability enhancements include:

  • Business card mobile image recognition

This exciting new feature leverages the machine learning expense capture debuted at Summit 2020 to automatically input business cards into the Acumatica CRM. Once the tradeshow circuit starts back up, every salesperson will want to connect with as many prospects as possible. This time-saving tool cuts down on data entry to maximize engagement time. Additional new features in CRM include deduplication notifications.

  • KPI Meter and Tile widgets for dashboards

In our hectic, online sales world, dashboards have become key insight tools for nearly every role across the company. To expand access to dashboards, Acumatica 2021 R1 delivers more pre-built dashboards, new meter and tile widgets, and the ability to copy-paste widgets for fast dashboard customization.

  • Side panel enhancements

Side panels are a popular feature in Acumatica, which is why this latest version makes them even more flexible and useful with the ability to set conditions for when and how to use them, reorder icons, and set side panel visibility.

  • Send bulk notifications from filtered General Inquiry results

The more windows your team has to open to complete key tasks, the more time they waste. Acumatica understands that you and your team do not have time to burn, so they released fast, low- or no-code trigger options that help your staff send customizable notifications directly from data and UI screens within the Acumatica system.

The example shown below demonstrates just one of the notification methods: sending an email to a filtered list of customers to inform them about a relevant recall.

Retail-Commerce Enhancements

As you can see, Acumatica has renamed their Commerce edition to “Retail-Commerce edition.” This name change reflects the comprehensive, omnichannel functionality that the Cloud ERP delivers to retailers. Whether retailers are solely online or run a blend of brick-and-mortar and online sales, Acumatica has a solution that helps take the hard work out of running a retail business.

The latest Retail-Commerce enhancements include:

  • Shopify POS Pro integration

Imagine that a customer comes in to your brick-and-mortar store shopping for a highly specific, time-sensitive item. If the location that customer shops at is out of the inventory item, you are likely to lose the sale to Amazon. Or, rather, you used to be likely to lose the sale.

The new Shopify POS Pro integration for Acumatica 2021 R1 helps you save that sale by empowering your brick-and-mortar staff to quickly and easily identify other nearby stores where the item is in-stock, so the customer can pick up the item that day. If the item is out of stock at all local locations, the new Shopify POS Pro integration makes it easy to set up that order for at-home delivery, so the customer has no need to shop at Amazon.

  • Order risk analysis

A key feature in Shopify is their “at risk” fraud flagging system, which assesses transactions based on their potential risk, such as ones made with stolen credit cards. In the past, users had to log in to Shopify to view their risk analysis, but with the new Acumatica risk analysis flagging functionality, merchants will have all the information they need to make informed order fulfilment decisions right from their ERP.

Distribution Enhancements

Distribution had a breakout year in 2020, with many distributors ramping up operations significantly – almost overnight. As savvy distribution leaders discovered, streamlined operations are the #1 key to success in our modern, online-driven world. That is why Acumatica 2021 R1 Distribution edition includes a wide range of time-saving functions and workflows to get your company working smarter.

The latest Distribution enhancements include:

  • Cross-company sales for stock items

New, lightning-fast, cross-company sales capabilities build on the functionality introduced in 2020 R2, by making it easy to generate documents and automate transactions for stock items between companies. From PO to SO to Shipping and beyond, Acumatica’s latest cross-company enhancements cut the cumbersome end-to-end intercompany sales process down to mere minutes.

  • Drop shipping workflows

To power the increase in drop ship transactions, Acumatica 2021 R1 provides simple-to-use drop shipping workflows that add new tabs and status indicators that make it easy to schedule drop ship orders. In addition, the new drop ship workflows support drop ship returns. Sending returns directly back to the vendor can save significant time, money, and effort.

  • Delivery optimization through WorkWave

For distributors that run their own delivery services, Acumatica now provides optimized delivery scheduling that leverages WorkWave. WorkWave was first introduced a year ago as an automated tool that helps optimize daily activities for field service technicians. Now, delivery services can optimize their routes and schedules too.

Additional Important Announcements

During the launch event, Acumatica also made some important announcements about the new Acumatica Community site and Acumatica Summit 2021. Both of these resources are great ways to learn more about Acumatica while networking and having fun.

We recommend you check out the virtual community first, and then meet your virtual contacts in person at Summit in July.

There Is a Lot More to Explore in Acumatica 2021 R1

Ask the ERP experts at SWK Technologies for more information about any of the other exciting enhancements announced for Acumatica 2021 R1, such as:

Financials Enhancements

  • Pre-defined dashboards
  • Centralized vendor management
  • Paid amount and line-level balances support in AP reports

Manufacturing Enhancements

  • Capable to promise on manufactured sales orders
  • Improved SO to production order link
  • Manufacturing Product Lifecycle Management via an integration with Arena

Field Service Enhancements

  • Link AP bill to field service appointments
  • Simplified field service invoice correction

Construction and Project Enhancements

  • CFMA benchmark integration
  • Pay AP bills by project
  • Pro forma import initial balances

Count on SWK Technologies to answer all your questions about Acumatica 2021 R1 (or anything else Acumatica related). We are always available to help you keep your business on the track to success.

Get in touch with SWK Technologies anytime to learn more about Acumatica.

 

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