What’s New in Acumatica 2021 R2?
More Integrations, More Speed, and More Flexibility are Key Benefits for Acumatica 2021 R2
If you attended Acumatica Summit 2021 in July (or if you read the SWK Technologies in-depth Summit round-up blog), you already received a sneak peek into many of the brand-new features for 2021 Release 2.
There are hundreds of enhancements in Acumatica 2021 R2, which are covered in detail in their release notes (note: Acumatica Community login required). We will cover some of these enhancements in greater detail in a future article. What follows is a brief overview of what Acumatica presented in their virtual R2 release event.
We’ll outline how your company might benefit from recent new features like: Acumatica and Microsoft Teams integration, multiple base currency capabilities, the new Canadian localization, improvements to AP Bill automation, and what’s new the industry-specific editions of Acumatica.
What’s New in Acumatica 2021 R2?
The 3 key focus areas for Acumatica 2021 R2 were:
- Seamless Personalization by delivering more tailor-fit capabilities in each of the industry editions. Examples of this include the many enhancements to the industry editions you will learn about below.
- Boosting Growth with Best-in-Class Functionality by providing more capabilities for more users to do their jobs better. Examples of this include faster bank reconciliation that leverages AI, multiple base currency support, and a tighter CRM integration.
- Driving Innovation with a Robust Ecosystem by connecting with more third-party integrations to make users’ jobs easier. Examples of this include the integrations with Microsoft Teams and Adobe, as well as the 900 new Payroll enhancements since last year.
Announcement #1: Tighter Integration Between Modules for End-to-End Customer Care
In the first demo, the Acumatica team showed off how the newest ERP, CRM, and eCommerce features provide better end-to-end customer care from Sales to Marketing to Support.
FOR SALES:
The demo showed how easily the sales team can boost the selling process and profits with clear:
- Cross-sell opportunities (for related items)
- Substitutes (if a product is out of stock)
- Upsell options
The sales team also has a handy visual cue when these options are in the system, so they can better control the sales process.
FOR MARKETING:
The demo of Acumatica 2021 R2 showed how a company can generate a marketing list using Generic Inquiries, craft an email template to send to that list, and then track engagement such as opens and clicks using the new SendGrid integration.
FOR SUPPPORT:
The demo showed how the Support team can start cases quickly and use Teams and Adobe integrations to speed resolution.
- After adding a Quick Link to their dashboard, Support can quickly and easily open a new case using the “New Case” link tile.
- They can annotate PDFs to show where the damage was on an item (or other relevant information).
- The Acumatica + Teams integration announcement from Acumatica Summit got even better in the past few months, with an Acumatica integration button discreetly placed within the Teams chat toolbar.
Now you can use Microsoft Teams to chat, call, or schedule a meeting to coordinate a faster case resolution. With the new Acumatica button in Teams, users have an easy, secure way to share relevant case information from right within the Teams chat window.
- Teams can also be used to create follow-up tasks within the company. The example below shows an activity being created to follow up on a failed inspection.
Announcement #2: Multiple Base Currencies and Localization Options for Easier Global Operations
In the second demo, the Acumatica team showed how intercompany transactions across international lines are now easier and faster and how new localization options simplify the process of expanding to another country, or operating within that country’s financial, linguistic, and tax structures.
The Acumatica 2021 R2 demo also showed how global companies now enjoy significantly less data entry due to the ERP’s brand-new ability to operate entities with multiple base currencies in a single tenant and share vendors, inventory, customers, and other important data seamlessly.
- In the Canadian entity, Canadian dollars are used.
- In financial statements, such as P&Ls and Balance Sheets (shown), multiple currencies are visible and available for drilldown.
The multiple base currencies capability is just one step in Acumatica’s localization strategy, which delivers company-specific needs to each local version of the Acumatica Cloud ERP. Canada is the first example. The new Canadian localization includes key Canadian-specific updates for language, taxes, and banking rules.
Announcement #3: Platform Improvements for Easier Day-to-Day Operations
In the third demo, the team showed how to use new low-code/no-code capabilities in the Acumatica Cloud xRP platform to customize your company’s workflows.
- They showed how to use the Workflow Engine to customize next steps and dependencies in a workflow.
- They set up workflow notifications by relating Generic Inquiry tables to one another.
- They showed off the new DAC Schema Browser, which helps power users understand and visualize metadata clearly.
At Acumatica Summit 2021, we had also seen impressive UI improvements for Acumatica 2021 R2, including the “big green button” that directs users to their logical next step, and the processing screen that has been moved to the side, so you can keep working while the system completes tasks in the background.
Announcement #4: Improvements to AP Bill Automation
Although the AP Bill Automation feature was announced in an earlier version of Acumatica, the team just announced some great improvements based directly on customer feedback. Not only does the AI / Machine Learning – driven tool recognize text from PDF invoices significantly faster, it now also:
- Recognizes vendor logos
- Recognizes vendor email addresses (if used with the Acumatica Outlook plugin)
- Handles multi-page invoices
- Provides mapping options, so you can control the process better
Industry Editions Updates
Acumatica 2021 R2 included multiple updates to multiple industry editions.
If you would like to know more about these, please contact the Acumatica experts at SWK Technologies. We are happy to answer all your questions.
DISTRIBUTION EDITION UPDATES:
- Substitutions, cross-sells, upsells
- Credit card refunds in Sales Orders and Sales Order invoices
- New toolbar
- Purchase accrual balance by period
- Directed paperless picking
- Multiple base currencies
- Project drop-ship
- Track project-related materials
RETAIL-COMMERCE EDITION UPDATES:
- Support for Shopify Payments within Acumatica
- Selling personalized items on BigCommerce and Shopify
- Exporting ERP data to Shopify metafields
- Selling gift wrapping services on BigCommerce
MANUFACTURING EDITION UPDATES:
- Visual scheduling
- Pre-assign lot / serial number for production
- Production Order Labor Efficiency report
- Vendor shipment enhancements
- New toolbar
CONSTRUCTION EDITION UPDATES:
- Project cost adjustments
- GL reclassification with Projects
- New toolbar, actions, and UI improvements
- Additional side panels for Generic Inquiries
- Project-specific inventory
- Project drop-ship
- Project transaction visibility
- CFMA benchmark KPI integration
See If Acumatica 2021 R2 Is Right for Your Company
Would you like to see R2 in action? Are you ready to start taking advantage of these new features and functions in your Acumatica system now? Contact SWK Technologies to learn more and schedule your update.
Remember, it is always a good idea to talk to your partner first before installing an update, just to make sure your mission-critical ERP solution works exactly as you expect it to. You can review system requirements for Acumatica 2021 R2 here.
Reach Out to SWK Technologies to Get Started