Excellent Software for a small company

We started using ACCTivate in 2010 as an inventory add-on to Quickbooks. We have very much appreciated all the software had to offer. We have modified the system somewhat over time to fit our needs. We also had some custom reports created for us that have worked very well. Very pleased with the software and the support team.

Pros

-Very intuitive product -Easy to learn -Highly functional -Crystal report software for reporting is easy to learn and use to customize your reports -Very flexible system

Cons

-Original Reporting is lacking. Custom reports are available or can be made by a third party -Very occasional issues syncing with Quickbooks

Excellent for the Price!

We were able to greatly improve visibility of our performance allowing us to focus resources in the areas that needed help. The quality and consistency of our output also improve dramatically. Probably the one area that had the most drastic improvement has been our warehouse. The ACCTivate our inventory is the most accurate it has ever been and order processing accuracy has also improve dramatically with the use of the mobile scanners.

Pros

Software is filled with many intuitive features that cover a wide variety of of business uses in everything from order processing to inventory management. Inventory management includes ability to manage using bins and multiple physical or virtual warehouses. This is a strong feature for an application in this price range. The ability to create custom fields in virtually every section of the software helps resolve many challenges, and the fields are, in most cases, can be made to appear in reports. Has a great order management module that can be customized for specific views and allow for both visibility and batch management of open sales order. Mobile/handheld support allowed our warehouse to switch from manual to scanned picking, which greatly improved accuracy and accountability. Software supports ODBC connectivity which provide a solid work around for the software's lack of strong out-of-the-box reports (see below) In conclusion, if you are a small to mid-size business that has outgrown Quickbooks, you really cant go wrong with ACCTivate. So long as your Quickbooks data is clean and organized, migration is quick and painless.

Cons

Out of the box reporting is a bit limited depending on your needs. Very basic reports are fine and they are accurate, but if your business has complex or custom logics by which you evaluate performance, you will need to hire a report writer (Crystal Reports) to build your report templates. No real audit trail tracking/reporting so seeing who did what can be a challenge. Lacks ability to restrict certain permissions that can lead to accidental or deliberate manipulation of data resulting in order processing errors.

Can't function with Acctivate

We bought Fishbowl inventory in 2017 and returned it within a month. And then spent considerable time looking at options and reviewing them. We spend days and days with Acctivate before buying. And then we bought it. It took three or four months to get us to an 'active state'. At which point we discovered that the entire way we setup our product structure would not work. So we started over and now, 12 months after purchasing, we have finally invoiced the projects from November of 2017. We have posted over 100 requests in the online help system and with a few exceptions been told that our ideas are not applicable to their users. We have made the decision to not to renew our maintenance plan. And Acctivate was not interested in extending our plan for a few more months give the total disaster we have had implementing it. We did consider it affordable and the yearly maintenance costs reasonable given the platform. However, we have spent lot of money on labor to get the system implemented AND still had to hire an outside consultant to build custom routines to be able to get reports that answer basic stocking questions. We continue to find the interface prevents you from being able to make smart decisions at the moment you have to (when you can see the data) and is wholly lacking for a system with as much data as it has. We can not say strongly enough that you should really consider your options before moving forward with Acctivate.

Pros

Lot's of handholding during setup. Possibly considered affordable - unless you count your time. At this point - not much - We have fought for a year to get the system online.

Cons

Lack of respect for the ideas and needs of customers It hides important information needed to make decisions in the windows where you need to make decisions. It doesn't auto update backorders A huge list of other items.

Very Reliable and Easy To Use

Pros

Acctivate is perfect for QuickBooks users that need a better inventory and sales order process. It is a bolt on product. You just "sync" it whenever you want to have QB and Acctivate talk to each other. It makes managing inventory really easy- and gives you a ton of room and vendor history so you can manage your costs. It also makes price updates really easy. Initial integration is easy- all of the details are handled by Acctivate thru remote sign in on your first day. I suggest to have an IT person in house just to handle the small details- so you can concentrate on your business. I decided to go with Acctivate 5 years ago and have been Extremely Happy with this product. It is easy to use and is based on Crystal Reports - which means that you can get just about any report made - so you can get the specific dash boards you want or reports you want. Your employees will like using this product as well. My employees were using this by 10AM the morning we installed it. Once you have this product 90% of the time you will be operating out of Acctivate. You only use QB for the Book Keeping for the most part. Inventory control and unique inventory situations are easily handled by Acctivate. Overseas shipments or Lead Time Inventory is not a problem- Acctivate has a solution for this. Your Pack Slip, Sales Orders and Invoices will look a lot better with this product. If this product doesn't pay for itself in 1 year or less- I would be very surprised. Excellent Product.

Cons

I dont have any complaints. After an initial set up- i do suggest using a 3rd party for special reports. But you dont have to do this. Activate can help you if you want work with them. I just like having a 3rd party vendor - but i make a ton of reports. Acctivate comes with enough reports to run your business.

Acctivate is excellent; start to finish. It plainly works without any hitches! Plus, great service!!

Pros

The integration with QuickBooks works seamlessly. The product is very easy to use; it is very intuitive. You just simply need to know the sequence of steps and in a few clicks, perfectly formatted forms are ready for printing. The reports are well organized, informative, and great tools for analysis. The customer service team is patient and hard working. Some tech companies talk down to non-techies, but Acctivate is patient and quick to educate in terms someone can understand, follow, and implement. Also, when educating, they run video seminars or can email screen shots to you very effectively. I cannot over estimate how much time they saved me, because they are so good in the customer service arena.

Cons

There is nothing that I don't like about the software, except maybe the cost. However, we are in business and they are in business, so I don't begrudge anyone for making a living and earning a profit. What would someone pay for an inventory management system that works without a flaw in a QuickBooks environment? If you were a huge company you may say tens of thousands. If you are in a small company like mine, you might say a few thousand once. Instead the cost is an annual amount and that's just the way they price it, which is okay.