For more than a decade, Acumatica Cloud ERP has been the true cloud ERP for growing and established businesses. Feature rich and user-friendly, Acumatica has continued to add new features and functionality in twice-annual releases based on user requests, industry trends, and regulatory needs. These updates keep the platform ahead of the competition as one of the leaders and fastest-growing ERP platforms on the market today.

As one of the leading resellers and implementation partners of Acumatica for organizations in Florida and throughout the Southeast region, the team at Innovative Cloud Solutions is pleased to share with you the latest news about the update and invite you to a special event at which you can discuss the latest improvements and innovations with your industry peers.

What’s New in Acumatica 2018 R2?

Released on September 19, 2018 Acumatica 2018 R2 provided a wide variety of enhancements to the core platform and each industry edition, with updates focused on customer satisfaction, usability, and compliance.

Mobile Functionality Improvements

If there is one thing that customers expect when they move to the cloud, it’s this: anytime, anywhere access from any device. Acumatica has always provided a strong mobile product, but the 2018 R2 update provides significant enhancements to the mobile experience. n 2018 R2, users will see usability improvements such as push notifications, smarter navigation, and easier customization. In addition, the user interface now includes targeted pop-up notes, branch navigation, and improved date management.

Reporting Enhancements

Another improvement that will make life easier for users comes in the form of reporting enhancements. Reporting now displays pivot tables along with the Generic Inquiries. Also, you can add a side panel in the Generic Inquiry function that allows users to manage the details of specific records in an inquiry using the same screen.

Further, if you create and distribute regular reporting packages, the new release allows you to string reports together by creating multiple reports and merging them into a single package before sending them as an HTML or PDF file.

Module Enhancements

From the ‘across-the-board’ enhancements to the following made to each module, Acumatica has focused on making many compliance-based improvements pertaining to GDPR, contracts, and more, as well as enhancements that make users’ jobs easier.

Financial Management

At the core of the Acumatica platform is the Financial Management module, and the company has made significant enhancements.

  • Multi-Entity Improvements Make Closing Easier: Acumatica 2018 R2 makes it easier to close financial periods by company by providing different financial periods to manage books separately for each company in the same tenant. This means multi-entity companies can now close books independently of one another.
  • Wider Variety of Tax Management Integrations: Additionally, the company is providing a Tax Calculation Integration Plug-In to support a choice of sales tax calculation providers.
  • ASC 606 Readiness Enhancements: With new standards taking place for private companies in 2018, Acumatica is offering more functionality to support ASC 606 compliance in deferred revenue recognition.

Project Accounting Improvements

Acumatica Project Accounting is a strong player for professional services firms in need of complete visibility and better profitability, and the update makes it easier to collaborate, create quotes, and more. Among the improvements:

  • Payroll Integrations for Project Costs: Making it easier than ever to bill, Acumatica 2018 R2 now offers labor cost rates and project labor cost accounting integrated with payroll,
  • Simplifying the Opportunity-to-Quote Process: New project quotes (convert opportunity to project) simplify project sales and pricing by supporting complex quote processes. This usability enhancement supports a connected business in which people on the road can work collaboratively with project managers to create quotes and easily convert them to projects.

Customer Management

A powerful CRM platform that integrates with ERP—that’s what customers get when they choose Acumatica. Among the improvements:

  • Outlook Integration Improvements: Outlook integration enhancements that will link email activities with any contact in the system.
  • Better Branch Management within CRM: The new Portal setup by branch allows users to display financial documents associated with all companies and branches, which enables organizations with multiple companies and branches to better control information that is visible to specific customers.
  • GDPR Compliance Tools: This release also includes GDPR Compliance Tools to safeguard handling personal data. These tools let users protect personal data and restrict its processing.

Industry Edition Enhancements

Acumatica is known for its industry editions, unique solutions designed to help companies in specific industries to do more with a custom-tailored product. Knowing this, each release features unique improvements to each industry edition—distribution, manufacturing, field service, and commerce.

Distribution Edition

Updates to Acumatica Distribution Management in R2 2018 include several ease-of-use improvements designed to make the end user’s job easier.

  • Discount Functionality Enhancements: Improved discount functionality will save time in sales, order management, purchasing, and accounting.
  • Landed Cost Improvements: New landed cost document types capture and allocate landed costs while streamlining purchase receipt processing. They also provide landed cost allocation capabilities.
  • Smarter Returns: The purchase return process enhances control over returns, including the necessary accounting transactions. Improvements to shipping functionality enable you to accurately match freight costs to shipments and reduce operating costs.

Manufacturing Edition

Acumatica Manufacturing Edition has always been a strong player in the Manufacturing ERP game, and 2018 R2 adds a variety of improvements:

  • Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) Improvements: Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) updates equip manufacturers with the ability to consistently and cost-effectively set accurate and reliable delivery dates.
  • Engineering Change Control provides additional revision status controls in the BOM to help you simplify and control product changes, improve product design, and reduce costs.
  • Production Management enhancements streamline production of a stock item and simplify production management. For project-centric manufacturers,
  • Tighter Integration with Project Accounting: Project Accounting integration improves project visibility while reducing operating costs over multiple production runs so that businesses can determine profitability for large jobs and contracts.

Field Service Edition

Field Service companies face unique challenges and need to leverage a wide variety of features to support customers. R@ delivers the following improvements to the Field Service Edition:

  • Easier Process to Create a Sales Quote: 2018 R2 Makes it easier to create a sales quote and a service order from an opportunity, along with the ability to easily copy notes and attachments into orders.
  • Allocation and Tax Calculation: Service orders can allocate items and display calculated tax amounts. Updates to pre-payment and tax calculation on orders make it possible for field workers to complete transactions while on the job. Improved cost tracking provides insights on service order profitability.
  • Inventory Allocation: To address the needs of repair and maintenance companies, Acumatica added inventory allocation controls and scheduling improvements that will help organizations ensure parts are ready when appointments are scheduled.

Commerce Edition

In 2018 R2, Acumatica has provided additional sales order processing workflows so that transactions originating from online systems with up-front payments can be processed and calculated differently from transactions entered by salespeople with payment terms.

Learn More about 2018 R2: Acumatica Roadshow Hits Orlando

Are you an Acumatica customer or prospect who would like to get a first person look at the enhancements made to Acumatica in R2? Look no further than an Acumatica 2018 R2 Launch Event! There are many reasons to attend one of these events, which provide a personal introduction to the platform, allow attendees to network with their peers and ask questions, and understand more about how each new enhancement works.

The Acumatica 2018 R2 Roadshow will hit Orlando, FL on October 18, 2018. Learn more about this event and register here.