The following graphic displays each module group within the Epicor 9.05 application. It also details which modules are contained within each module group.
Sales Management
Quoting and managing sales orders enables the vital coordination of activities between your sales, plant, shipping, and accounting groups.
You dictate whether to hold all companies in a single database, or each company in individual databases, where each company can have its own chart(s), currencies, and calendars.
Use the Quote Management and Order Management modules to capture orders and seamlessly integrate the information with supply chain, production, fulfillment, and accounting systems.
By streamlining the sales process—centralizing access to product, pricing, customer information - orders can be generated with a minimal number of steps. It automates and improves labor-intensive processes for quoting, proposal generation, configuration, and order entry. You can increase sales productivity by ensuring accuracy during the quote and order processes and identifying the right solution to meet your customers’ needs.
Customer Relationship Management Overview
Outfitting your sales team with advanced, easy-to-use software is not just smart; it is a matter of survival. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is equipped with the tools you need to find more prospects and quickly convert them to satisfied customers.
Your sales people can manage the complete prospect-to-customer life cycle, give accurate revenue forecasts to management and automate many administrative tasks. The bottom line is better qualified prospects, shorter sales cycles, reduced lead-time, and more revenue.
With CRM you can manage and analyze the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and events. Marketers can pinpoint targets, capture highly qualified leads, and perform cost/benefit and return on investment (ROI) analyses on promotional activities. The campaign manager can track the number of leads, opportunities, orders, and costs per campaign. Once you have the lead, the CRM functionality helps manage the entire sales process more effectively, with features such as workflow and forecasting.
Contacts can be shared across the Epicor application. For example, a payroll employee can now be added as an authorized user for a buyer records reducing time and ensuring consistency You can share contacts between the following records:
• shop employees (Shop Employee Maintenance)
• payroll employees (Payroll Employee Maintenance)
• workforce people (Workforce Maintenance)
• buyers (Buyer Maintenance)
• supplier contacts (Supplier Maintenance)
• purchase point contacts (Supplier Maintenance)
• customer contacts (Customer Maintenance)
Contact Attributes
The contact functionality is enhanced so you can enter additional communication data for each contact.
The new contact fields include:
• IM address
• Facebook ID
• LinkedIn ID
• Twitter ID
Customer Quick Entry
A Customer Quick Entry program is available within Sales Order Entry and Opportunity/Quote Entry. Use this program to enter the primary details you need on each customer.
You can later launch Customer Maintenance and enter any other information you need for the customer record.
Industry Classification Types
You can now enter Industry Classification Types and codes (NAICS, SIC, NACE, and so on).
These types and codes can then be selected on customer records within Customer Maintenance.
National Account Visibility
The customer National Account structure can now be viewed on business activity queries. You can then display national accounts on dashboards.
Person Contact Maintenance
Use this maintenance program to create and update person records. These records can then be selected as contacts for records across the application.
Person Contact Maintenance is located within setup folders throughout the Sales Management suite of modules.
Developed as part of the Shared Contacts functionality, you create contact records within this program and then select them on customer, supplier, payroll employee, shop employee, and workforce records.
You enter the primary address, email, phone and similar information on each contact record. You also define name details like First Name, Last Name, Prefix, and Suffix information which displays on records and reports.
You can also use this program to review all of the records on which this contact is used.
Shared Contacts
Contact records can now be shared across your Epicor database.
Any contacts you add to the database can now be pulled into other records as you need. For example, a payroll employee can now be added as an authorized user for a buyer record. This reduces time and ensures consistency, as the same contact record can be used within any record as needed.
You can share contacts between the following records:
• shop employees (Shop Employee Maintenance)
• payroll employees (Payroll Employee Maintenance)
• workforce people (Workforce Maintenance)
• buyers (Buyer Maintenance)
• supplier contacts (Supplier Maintenance)
• purchase point contacts (Supplier Maintenance)
• customer contacts (Customer Maintenance)
Case Management Overview
From initial call to resolution and follow-up, the Case Management module provides a customer focused solution for personalized, high-quality service.
This comprehensive one-stop solution enables your service team to manage current case load and respond quickly to customers for industry leading customer satisfaction.
This module includes a Case Workbench equipped with time saving links to customer focused activities (for example, new quotes, orders, RMA requests, or service calls). In addition, a search-driven knowledgeable and case driven workflow are available for standardizing case resolution. You now have easy access to dispatch field activities and enable field service representatives access to online knowledge bases, existing customer field service calls, warranty information, and service contracts.
Case Management is fully integrated with all customer facing functions such as LOQ, Contact Management, Customer Management, Order Processing, Field Service, and Invoicing.
CRM Cases
Case Management workflows can be assigned to workforce role, in the event the case transitions into an Opportunity/Quote.
Quote Management Overview
Quote Management is often the starting point for the supply chain cycle. When a quote is entered, manufacturing details are entered for the record. These records give your organization a solid head start for job management, scheduling, purchasing, and other functions of the application. Best of all, the result is greater efficiency.
Multiple Forecast Confidence Factors
Quote Entry now includes best, worst and most likely confidence factor.
Within Workforce Maintenance, managers will be able to declare their own confidence factor on the person records.
Demand Management Overview
Use Demand Management to more efficiently manage short and long term contracts, turning the demand from these contracts into sales orders and Material Requirements Planning (MRP) forecasts.
Demand Management incorporates the framework and business logic necessary to efficiently manage long term contracts. These contracts encompass forecasts, sales orders, changes to sales orders, and shipping schedules, whether the information is entered manually, electronically, or both.
You can enter demand information manually, electronically through EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), or both.
The EDI feature suite generates electronic information that passes both to and from your customers.
Demand Management handles creation, analysis, editing, and reconciliation of cumulative records for releases from your customers.
Demand Management includes the following functionality to support long term contracts:
• Provides the ability to have several sales orders/lines attached or subordinate to the contract.
• Creates the ability to review contracted values and quantities with actual incoming quantities and values.
• Delivers an efficient interface and process to manage the volume of data possible with long term contracts.
• Includes the capability to view the impact of incoming contract changes before accepting, while allowing them to be accepted, revised, or rejected and provides the appropriate response to trading partners.
• Provides access to both forecasts and sales orders from one point of entry.
• Allows the management and reconciliation of CUMs (cumulative shipping quantity).
• Allows the acceptance of incoming information to be handled individually, in mass, or in auto-accept mode at the trading partner or document level.
Important For this module to be fully functional with EDI, Service Connect must be installed. If you use EDI to process your demand, you need to install and configure the EDI functionality on your application.
You set up the EDI functionality on your network server.
EDI Enhancements
The EDI functionality is enhanced to both improve the quality of the data received and integrate this data more accurately within your sales workflow.
The enhanced EDI functionality includes:
• The ability to handle and reconcile cumulative quantities.
• Receipt settlement capability including "Pay on Receipt."
• Alternative definitions for rejection rules when the need by and/or ship by dates cannot be met.
• Additional support for allowance and charge codes including flat amounts and percentage-based calculations.
• Report enhancements to allow for ease of review of net changes in demand received through EDI.
• Full automation to accept inbound 830, 862, 850, 860 documents and generate outbound 855, 856, and 810 documents.
• Demand Management functionality can send configuration answers to Sales Order Entry. This configuration is then used for the order detail lines on this configured part.
• The Capable to Promise functionality now works with the Demand Management module.
EDI/Demand Management Configured Parts
Use this EDI and Demand Management functionality to receive an intelligent configured part number and automatically run/validate the configuration. If there is a failure in the configuration, you are notified to manually reconfigure the part.
Two auto-configuration options are available:
• Store the inputs through another method like Service Connect into the Configurator; the Configurator then runs against those answers.
• Have the Configurator accept an intelligent part number. This number is then used as an input against the Configurator rules; these rules then parse out the part number to generate the input answers.
Forecast Pro
®Integration
The Epicor application is integrated with Forecast Pro®, a third-party application that provides affordable and powerful sales forecasting capabilities.
This integration is at the forecast entry level and is designed to offer a simple solution for the forecasting needs of most organizations.
Order Management Overview
Order Management drives the Epicor ERP system. From the time a sales order is entered, its progress is tracked through final shipment, producing timely reports on demand.
All sales orders and change orders are effectively managed online, reducing your chance for error and smoothing out the entire order-to-delivery process for maximum customer satisfaction.
Mark For Customers
If your company ships to a distribution center instead of directly to a customer, you can specify the final destination of the order using the Mark For sheet in Sales Order Entry.
Use this sheet to define the Mark For Customer and Ship To Address. After the distribution center receives the shipment, it will be sent along to the customer defined on this sheet.
If you need, you can also enter a One Time Mark For customer. A shipment will only be sent once to a customer defined as a one time mark for location.
Multi-Level Capable to Promise (CTP)
The Capable to Promise (CTP) feature of Order Entry can now perform multi-level CTP. To accomplish this, CTP uses the Plan as Assembly parameter to create the assembly structure on materials defined as View as Assembly when the demand is found within the cumulative lead time.
This status is always true for make direct parts. It has also been extended to include stock parts if the demand falls within the cumulative lead time and the quantity on hand is short of the required quantity.
For a stocked part, when demand is within the cumulative lead time and per Available to Promise (ATP), not enough stock is available to cover the demand, then an unfirm CTP job is created following the rules (which include Plan as Assembly). If the CTP is accepted, then the CTP jobs for stock parts is marked as firm, but will not directly link to the sales order.
Multi-Level Configured Sales Kits
You can create multi-level configured sales kit parent part records. These multi-level sales kits can also include non-stock part components.
Each level of the sales kit is generated as a separate component detail line on a sales order. You can fulfill these component detail lines through a non-stock transaction like a job or a purchase order. The component configuration data is available for display in Job Entry; you can then pull in the details (Get Details) for each component which is defined as a Make Direct part quantity.
Single Level Configurations
Use this functionality to configure the components of a sales kit.
The answers from the kit master can now be passed to the configured kit components, so features such as style, color, and size can be synchronized to the parent assembly. To use this feature, kit components must be directly linked to a job so they can be built.
Service Management
Service management capabilities (for example, Field Service) include such areas such as production and facilities maintenance.
This suite of modules are particularly important for businesses in today's climate where maintenance and repair are often more cost-effective than new capital acquisition.
Expense Management Overview
The Expense Management module contains the functionality you need to approve and enter expense entries (claims) for employees who work on a specific project. By leveraging this functionality, you can then accurately track the expenses being accumulated against each project.
You first define the expense groups, or types, you need to link with each employee. These expense types define the specific kinds of expenses placed against a project. You select these time types within Time and Expense Entry.
The module contains an approval process through which employee expenses are then verified against a selected project. Users first launch the Time and Express Approval program to indicate how much expense is approved to be budgeted against a specific project. After the employee expense is approved, this expense amount is then placed against the project through Time and Expense Entry.
Through this functionality, you can monitor the expense amounts being accumulated against a project. This functionality improves planning and calculates more accurate billing calculations for each project. It supports multi-currency expense requirements. You can manage direct expenses arising in AP along with specific postings to pre-defined General Ledger accounts.
Approval Workflow
Users can define an approval workflow for expense transactions employees enter and submit for approval in Expense Entry. Expense approval workflows can be created for both indirect expenses and project expenses.
Approval workflows for indirect expenses are primarily defined in Plant Configuration Control. If the Approval Required check box is selected in Plant Configuration Control, the approval method must be defined as Automatic or Employee. If the approval method is set to Employee, additional setup is required. To designate a group of employees as approvers, an expense workflow group for approving expense transactions must also be set up.
A workflow group is comprised of tasks, task sets, and group members assigned to an approver role.
• Task - A task is a combination of a task and a corresponding approval role. Different roles are used in different workflow groups.
• Task Set - A task set is a group of organized tasks and milestones. An approval task set includes all the tasks required to approve an expense transaction.
• Workflow Group - A workflow group consists of an approval task set and the group members assigned to the approver roles.
Once an expense workflow group is created, it can be associated with an employee in Employee Maintenance, or it can be set as the default expense workflow group in Plant Configuration Control to apply it to all employees.
There are four pre-defined approval workflow groups that can be used as templates to define an expense approval workflow. These pre-defined groups include the roles, task type, tasks, and task set needed to define an expense approval workflow. The pre-defined groups include:
• Supervisor Approval
• Project Manager Approval
• Project Manager & Supervisor Approval
• Multiple Level Approval
If you are using the Multiple Level Approval workflow group as a template, you must assign group members to the approval roles in Workflow Group Maintenance. If you are using the workflow groups Supervisor Approval, Project Manager Approval, or Project Manager & Supervisor Approval as a template, you do not need to assign group members to the approval roles as the application uses the employee's supervisor or the project manager as approvers.
Employee Maintenance
Expense features have been added to Employee Maintenance. The Enter Expenses check box must be selected in order for an employee to enter expenses. A Supplier is required and is used to reimburse employees for expenses.
Expense Search
Users can search for a group of expense transactions by user-defined claim reference number or by accounts payable (AP) invoice number. The search results can be used to reconcile submitted expenses with invoices from the AP department.
Purchasing Miscellaneous Charge/Credit Maintenance
The Purchasing Miscellaneous Charge/Credit Maintenance interface has been enhanced to enable users to better manage expenses.
On the Expense Type Detail sheet, the following additions have been made:
• A Chargeable check box defines whether the expense is chargeable.
• The value in the Tax Liability field defaults in Expense Entry.
• In the Comments pane, the Required check box defines whether comments about the expense are required in Expense Entry.
• In the Comment field, comments about the expense are added that then display in Expense Entry. This can be instructions about the expense type.
On the Unit Based > Detail sheet, the following additions have been made:
• An Effective From Date and Effective To Date can be defined.
• The Claim Unit Maximum field allows users to define the maximum number of units that can be entered.
A value of zero indicates there is no maximum.
Note For example, your company may want to set a maximum of 50 miles for Mileage expenses.
• The Claim Currency and Claim Unit Amount can be defined.
• The Override check box indicates users are allowed to override the Claim Unit Amount defined when they enter expenses in Expense Entry.
Quick Entry Codes
Quick Entry Maintenance enables users to determine frequently used expense entries and associate them with a quick entry code, or quick code. When a user adds an expense in Expense Entry, he or she can just select the quick code to populate the expense record with the defaults defined in Quick Entry Maintenance. Quick codes can be defined for each employee record.
Reimbursable Check Box
In Pay Method Maintenance, a Reimbursable check box has been added that allows users to define if the expense will be reimbursed to the employee.
Time and Expense Approval
The expense approvals view displays all pending transactions for the approver. These pending transactions can be approved or rejected all at once. Rates do not display by default. The Rate Preview button allows users to view rate information in the grid. The Status of each transaction also displays in the grid.
Time and Expense Entry
This program enhances how users enter time and expenses in the Epicor application.
• Users can use the Calendar to determine what expenses display in the tree view and hence, the expense information that displays in the Time and Expense Entry sheets.
The Calendar also uses colors to indicate days for which transactions exist.
• Green - Time
• Yellow - Expense
• Yellow - Expense