Acumatica Summit 2024 Day 2 Keynote Highlights
Advancements in technology and growth in success. Product focused keynote reveals new updates in 2024 R1 facilitating a new era for Acumatica ERP.
Every year, thousands of Acumatica customers, partners, ISV’s, and potential customers come together at the Acumatica Summit event to learn about the company, the product, and to have some fun. This years Summit returned to the Wynn Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada for 3 days from January 29th to the 31st. The majority of learning happens during the breakout sessions each day with a variety specific classes to choose from. However, we all come together to learn on the mornings of day 1 and day 2 at the keynote presentations. The keynote on day 2 is known for unveiling new product functionality and taking a deeper look inside the product itself and what to expect in the newest release, 2024 R1.
Let’s dive into the highlights from the day 2 keynote:
After a video recap of day 1, Acumatica Chief Product Officer, Ali Jani excitedly welcomes everyone to day 2 of Acumatica Summit 2024. With the highlights of day 1 listed on screen, Jani emphasizes that today’s keynote will show how this is truly a new era for the Cloud ERP company. Before diving into upcoming enhancements, we take a look at milestones and achievements that made 2023 the best year yet for Acumatica.
Two feature-rich releases with hundreds of new tools and capabilities (2023 R1, 2023 R2)
The Acumatica marketplace grew by 40%
Acumatica Community grew over 30% with more than 22,000 members
95% of new customers use SaaS model - 85% of new customers are on the ‘Always Current’ plan
Construction
Director of Product Management - Construction, Joel Hoffman, calls attention to the growing amount of varying construction roles requiring multiple products with a desire to bring their data together in one solution. (81% of Acumatica construction prospects are using 4-6 different, non-integrated software products.)
“Our strategy and our solutions are built to solve these problems”
Acumatica is making it easier for field workers and office employees to communicate by introducing REAL-TIME field reporting. Make better business decisions instantly with real-time communication instead of outdated daily reports. This announcement was celebrated with cheers and applause throughout the crowd.
Hoffman brought the CFO of Acumatica’s Construction Customer of the Year on stage where he spoke of the product features that have lead them to grow their success. Easy customizations, personalized dashboards, and side panels were among their favorite characteristics of Acumatica ERP.
As the construction section wraps up, Hoffman announces an addition in 2024 R1 that will improve the ‘Pay When Paid’ feature and reiterates the goal of 2024 R1 is to connect your entire business through one solution and allow you to make better business decisions.
Manufacturing
Director of Product Management - Manufacturing, Debbie Baldwin, comes out to talk about the ongoing digital transformation of manufacturing companies, powered by emerging technologies. A growing pain for manufacturers is the consumers’ desire for custom products, which can lead to a huge amount of data and frustration. Baldwin brings the operations manager from the ‘Manufacturing Customer of the Year’ on stage to show how the Acumatica Product Configurator has been a huge help in managing their trillions of possible consumer options on the back end.
For more complex configuration needs, it was announced that Acumatica has partnered with Revalize for streamlined integration of their CPQ application.
An announced feature of 2024 R1 that had a positive response from the audience is the new parameters added for the ability to report operations out of sequence and at the same time. The newest Acumatica release will also offer Distribution Requirements Planning (DRP) to non-manufacturing companies. The ability to plan kits is now offered in both DRP and MRP.
Distribution
The Senior Product Manager of Distribution, Kelly Squizzero, introduces herself and praises distributors for being the back bone of the Supply Chain. Squizzero addresses the common growing challenges that distributors are facing and acknowledges that each Acumatica update aims to ease these demands.
One way Acumatica is striving to solve distributor struggles is with the introduction of the new Manage Sales Allocation ability. With these new features, distributors can increase customer satisfaction and streamline their operations by working more efficiently. Acumatica works hard to design tools that fit your needs, these new features are made possible by customer feedback.
Retail
Director of Product Management - Retail, Josh Fischer, is introduced to present the new updates in the eCommerce edition. As business competition grows and consumer demands are heightened, more and more companies, in every industry, are becoming retailers. Acumatica is focused on “unlocking” your potential to grow in many directions by creating solutions for modern businesses.
Fischer shifts to talk about upgrades to Acumatica’s Shopify connector. With the growing amount of Business to Business seller accounts, Acumatica is adding a variety of features to benefit those entities such as flexible payment options, business customer hierarchy, and flexible customer specific pricing.
“Acumatica is the first ERP in the industry to offer a native integration to these new B2B features”
With this announcement, this means that you can now use Shopify with Acumatica to sell B2B, B2C, D2C, and direct Point of Sale.
Switching gears to Amazon, Fischer announces 3 new back-office features.
FBA Inventory Reconciliation
Per Unit Profitability
Amazon Statement Reconciliation
The features within the Amazon connector will now be included in the core solution.
Core Capabilities
Acumatica VP of Product Management, Doug Johnson, comes out to showcase the new core capabilities in 2024 R1. Acumatica uses low-code/no-code technology to allow you to easily create customized case management workflows. Each update is also designed to reduce “clicks” and “screens” needed to complete an action, reducing time per case.
Acumatica Payments is an easy way for users to collect credit card and ACH payments during a sales transaction. This native solution offers fast settlement, Click-To-Pay, point of sale card readers, and zero integration costs. Johnson went into the audience to demonstrate the new ‘touchless payment’ ability by selling $25 Wynn Casino chips to an audience member.
Johnson teases that there are tons of new usability features, technical innovations, and vertical feature improvements coming to 2024 R1, which will be available in late March. Below you’ll find some of the highlights to expect in the upcoming product release.
Future of Acumatica Technology
Acumatica focuses on entering this ‘new era’ by looking at the roadmap ahead and seeing how the product will improve over time. Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Mike Shchelkonogov, is welcomed as the audience is eager to see why this truly is a new chapter for the Cloud ERP.
Shchelkonogov begins right away by announcing the new user interface (UI), featuring a new design and controls that enhance usability, deliver unmatched personalization and improve customization. A public preview of the new UI will be available in the 2024 R1 release, with a controlled release expected later in the year before full general availability.
“A major milestone in Acumatica’s history”
The new design improves visual navigation and readability while dynamically adapting to the device being used. There will also be a new set of controls to improve user experience and even more ways to personalize almost any element to meet your needs and preferences.
During the demonstration we see that with just a few clicks, you can switch to the new user interface. With only a few more clicks, you can easily rearrange what information you want to see on each page and improve readability.
The next demonstration of the improved Calendar Board received an overly positive response from the crowd. “Not only does it look great but it also works well” Shchelkonogov said, of the updated feature. You can now perform drag and drop scheduling and appointment creation directly on the calendar with this refresh.
So when will the new Modern UI be available? Looking down the timeline, 2024 R1 is the official public preview, 2024 R2 will contain a controlled release, and the modern UI will have general availability in 2025 R1. See below for a general technology direction for the year ahead in this new Acumatica era.
Shchelkonogov announces a double down on Machine Learning and AI investments in 2024 to improve analytical decision support, intelligent notifications, and co-pilot integrations.
Ali Jani returns to the stage to close out the Day 2 keynote and recap how Acumatica plans to keep improving the product and their operations to grow and modernize your business. He announces that 2024 R1 beta is available now, ahead of the official launch.
“Let’s build the future of business together”
That concludes the 2024 Acumatica Summit Day 2 Keynote! If you are interested in more information about Acumatica please check out our Acumatica page or contact us. If you missed it, be sure to check out our Day 1 Keynote recap filled with company announcements and highlights from 2023. Click below to watch a recording of the Day 2 Keynote.
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