Acumatica Construction Edition Overview
Acumatica Construction Edition is a powerful suite of business management tools that have been tailored to fit the complexities and challenges that the modern construction business faces today. With special attention placed on things like Project Accounting and Field Management, Acumatica Construction Edition is a top-tier business management solution for growing construction companies. Through Acumatica Construction, construction companies can automate workflows, track projects in real-time, enhance communication with field teams, and get unparalleled vision into profitability and other key performance indicators on a platform that consistently ranks first in usability and intuitiveness.
This article is going to break down the most important aspects of the Acumatica Construction Edition and provide a case for why it should be short-listed by companies looking to upgrade from their current accounting and business management solutions.
Top Reasons to Consider Acumatica for Construction
Robust Construction-Specific Features – When it comes to specific functionality for the construction industry, Acumatica is in a league of its own. From construction-based project management functionality to compliance features, Acumatica offers a lot to the construction industry out-of-the-box.
Pay by Usage – There will be more on this later. However, unlike most other business management solutions, Acumatica charges you by transaction volume. So for industries like construction, with low sales order volume but high dollar amounts, paying by usage means you can get Acumatica at a value. This alone means any construction company should see if Acumatica is a fit for their needs.
Superior Mobile Experience – Acumatica invested in a complete mobile experience. Using their app from the field is easier than ever. Logging time, logging expenses, submitting change orders, approving changes, plus a lot more all can be done with ease from a mobile-friendly application.
Ease of Use – Acumatica consistently ranks as the top solution in terms of ease of use and ease of set up. For a complete business management that can handle a lot complexity, Acumatica is extremely intuitive.
Unlimited Users – Acumatica does not charge by the user. This allows any employee to contribute to keeping your business management system up to date and keeps things simple when it comes to adding new employees or dealing with employee turnover.
Future-Proof Platform – There will also be more on this later, however, the platform that the Acumatica Construction Edition is built on allows for a lot of flexibility in the form of customization, integration, and expansion once implemented.
Hosting Flexibility – Acumatica is one of the only business management solutions that lets you choose where your data is hosted. If you want your data to be hosted by Acumatica like a standard SaaS solution, that is an option. However, if you want to host your data on-premise for any number of reasons, Acumatica can accommodate that request as well.
Acumatica Construction Core Features
Financials and Reporting: Of course, no business management solution would be complete without a robust financial management system. Acumatica comes with everything a growing business needs to transition to the enterprise level and beyond. Acumatica allows you to manage your finances with state-of-the-art business intelligence tools and dashboards that allow you to have complete visibility of your finances at all times.
Job Cost Accounting: Acumatica also provides you with the financial tools to track and gain real-time visibility into the profitability and resources committed to individual projects. This allows you to gain tighter control over your inventory, labor, and revenue as well as make sharper forecasts for future projects.
Project Management: PM is another staple for construction companies. With Acumatica Construction Edition, managing projects becomes a breeze. All of the important documents and relative information required for a project are easy to share and permanently stored in the cloud. Collaboration is enhanced and streamlined as all key personnel has access to the information they need to make informed decisions in real-time.
Payroll: Managing Payroll is simplified with certified payroll and union payroll functionality built-in, as well as the ability for field teams to submit time right from the field.
Inventory Management: For companies with extensive inventory needs, Acumatica provides all of the functionality to make your life easy; track, forecast, and even drop ship inventory directly to job sites without leaving the office.
Service Management: One of the main value propositions of the Acumatica Construction Edition is how it enhances the communication between office and field teams. We already talked about field teams being able to record time from the field, but it goes much deeper than that. The entire Acumatica platform is available on a slick app for android and IOS phones. You can use this application to take pictures from the field, update inventory, make change orders, approve change orders, submit expenses, and much more. The mobile functionality features allow the entire office to come to anywhere there is a smart device.
Embedded CRM: With Acumatica, Construction companies will also benefit from using native customer management features seamlessly with their PM and financial features. Acumatica CRM allows users to have increased customer awareness by sharing documents such as RFIs, change orders, and project issues. Attain faster issue resolutions with automated notifications on change orders and project commitments. And benefit from integrations with collaboration tools such as Adobe Sign and other document management software.
Acumatica Construction-Specific Features
Construction PM: Manage projects end-to-end in a single system with contracts, commitments, subcontracts, purchase orders, change orders, retainage, service management, submittals, and daily field reports. Track the status of your subcontracts and purchase orders, including comparing budgets to actuals and line-item committed costs
Compliance Management: Modernize compliance management with AIA billing and reporting, CFMA benchmarking, certified payroll, safety compliance tracking, and WIP and Bonding reports.
Profitability Tracking: See job costs and budget data from anywhere, with real-time project changes and profitability drill-downs. Enter AP invoices, write checks, and bill customers by stage or quantity
directly in jobs, so accounting is always up-to-date. Monitor up-to-date vendor payment statuses.
Third-Party Enhancements: Access a robust library of enhancements available to extend the product’s functionality to meet your unique business needs with software such as Procore, Arcoro, Assignar,
GoFormz, ProEst, and more.
Acumatica xRP Platform
When discussing the Acumatica Construction Edition, it is important to also discuss the platform that it is built on. So far all of the features we have discussed are built on the Acumatica platform and come out-of-the-box. But out-of-the-box functionality is only one part of the equation, as time goes on, you will undoubtedly want to customize your Acumatica system, and the xRP platform is the key to unlocking all of that customization in a no-hassle and low code way. Lets talk about a few of the key features:
Integration and Web Services: Acumatica has a robust API that allows users to import data seamlessly during implementation and connect their favorite applications to Acumatica afterward. The app library of Acumatica is extensive but the API goes beyond this and allows Acumatica users to connect all kinds of applications to Acumatica. This alone unlocks a lot of potential for efficiency and process improvements.
Mobile and Mobile Workspace: You can thank the xRP platform for the responsive nature and mobile-friendly features of the Acumatica business suite. Through its mobile framework you can access all of Acumatica’s functionality from any mobile device. And the mobile workspace allows users to configure favorites, workspace, and KPIs on their mobile devices.
Workflow and Alerts: Setup and modify business process workflows to match how you do business. Automate these workflows to improve efficiencies and document processes to evaluate for further optimizations. These processes can be made through graphical interfaces that require no coding knowledge.
Superior Usability: The user experience of the Acumatica ERP cannot be understated. This is especially important for construction companies that have dozens of employees who are more comfortable behind a power tool than a computer. Acumatica consistently ranks above the competition in intuitiveness and usability. Your team will not need extensive training to hit the ground running with this revolutionary business tool.
Familiar Environment: The Acumatica Cloud xRP Platform is built on industry-standard Microsoft .NET, HTML 5, and Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment, which allows for a wide range of developers to build and enhance the product.
Reporting and Analytics: Hundreds of standard reports are included out-of-the-box. Customize reports and create new reports without any coding required. Seamless integration with Microsoft Power BI gives users robust analytical tools as well.
Acumatica Construction Edition Pricing
One of the best parts about Acumatica is how it is priced. There are three important factors to consider when determining how much Acumatica will cost your business.
Functionality: Acumatica breaks down all of its features and functionality into modular/portable offerings. That way, a business can pick and choose only the features it will need and only pay for those features. As a construction company, you will likely choose the Construction Edition.
The Construction Edition includes Financials, Project Accounting, Order Management, Retainage, and Cost Codes.
Users can then add on additional modules like CRM, Payroll, Inventory Controls, WMS, Cash Basis Reporting, Construction Project Management, Property Management, and more based on their specific needs.
Commercial Transaction Volume: The next significant factor in determining your Acumatica Construction Pricing is your “Commercial Transaction Volume” or “CTV.” CTV is, in many ways, the key differentiator between Acumatica and most other ERP platforms. Most gauge usage by users whereas Acumatica allows for unlimited users but gauges by transaction volume.
Here is how CTV works. CTV is equal to the single highest volume of transactions within these transaction types: sales orders, shipments, AR invoices, customer payments, purchase orders, purchase receipts, AP invoices, and AP payments.
Here is an example of how CTV is measured. Imagine a company has the following transactions over a one-month period: 900 AR invoices, 600 customer payments, 500 AP invoices, 100 vendor payments, and 500 sales orders. The single highest volume for the month was the 900 AR invoices, so for this example company, the CTV for the given month would be 900.
Based on your CTV, you’ll be placed in a “Tier” that corresponds with the price you’ll pay per month. When growing, it is common for a business to climb this tier list. Acumatica will only consider you in the next tier and charge you accordingly after 3 months of sustained CTV.
This pricing scale may seem confusing and alarming at first. As its something you would have to worry about each month, kind of like a data plan on your cell phone. However, for construction companies that usually have a small number of large-dollar transactions per month, this is a massive opportunity.
Through this pricing method, Construction companies have access to enterprise-grade technology for a fraction of the cost of other companies. This pricing method is the single most important point in this article. All of the value we discussed is available at a low cost and a cost that will stay low just by the nature of the industry your business is in. Construction companies can scale on Acumatica for decades and still not see enterprise-grade fees for their main business management platform and single source of truth.
Licensing Method: Another unique method of Acumatica is they are flexible in how they deploy your solution. You can have them support it in the cloud, the normal SAAS model, or deploy it on on-premise. You can also choose to pay for the entire application up front or choose the monthly SAAS payment. The majority of users select the standard SAAS model, however; it is nice to know Acumatica is flexible in this regard. If you want to learn more about Acumatica Pricing, you can check out our Acumatica Pricing Guide.
How to Purchase Acumatica Construction Edition
For someone not familiar with enterprise software, how to purchase Acumatica may be new. Acumatica only sells its software through the help of third-party consultants. In the industry, these consultants are referred to as Value-Added-Resellers or VARs. Acumatica VAR partners are important because when you purchase a tool as complex as a business management system, you will want an Acumatica consultant by your side to help you pick out what features and add-ons you’ll need as well as help you implement the solution. Finally, a VAR can be helpful after purchasing Acumatica by helping you expand, customize, or even provide support.
This method of go-to-market allows Acumatica to focus on providing great software while it allows its partners to specialize in providing great service.
If you are looking for a VAR to help you purchase the Acumatica platform, beacn LLC is such a partner. For more information on how we can help you purchase Acumatica click HERE to learn more, or click one of the links below to get a quote or set up a demo
Final Thoughts
The Acumatica Construction Edition is a powerful tool that can be accessed by growing businesses of all sizes. There are a lot of details I simply did not have time to go into, however; I hope this article did its best to make a case for why Acumatica Construction Edition should at least be considered by any construction company looking to upgrade their ERP. If you have any questions or want more details on a particular feature, please ask in the comments, and I would be happy to answer them.
For more information on everything Acumatica, check out our complete guide: What is Acumatica?
Also, to learn more about us at beacn, check out the video below.
