What To Know About Sage X3

In 1981, Sage was founded in Newcastle, UK, as a financial management software targeted to small businesses. Since then it has grown its product line considerably to provide a numerous ERP software products to small and medium sized businesses. Their newest product is Sage X3, a cloud-based ERP built for midsized businesses that want big-business functionality. 

Sage X3 is best positioned to serve the manufacturing industry, offering discrete functionality for flexible pricing, demand planning, inventory management, make-to-stock, and make-to-order. 

However, there are some significant weaknesses to the platform:

• Sage X3 is not a true SaaS application.
• Sage X3 requires more manual accounting processes, due to multiple ledgers and multiple charts of accounts.
• X3 is a new product. Therefore, there is no wide breadth of experience within the industry of partners who can support and implement it.
• Updates do not occur as expected, and migrations often happen unwillingly, leaving customers running unsupported versions of the software. 

What To Know About Acumatica

Acumatica is a full-featured ERP system that can scale with your business in the cloud or on-premise. Acumatica offers built-in support for financials and vertical industries, such as manufacturing, distribution, professional services, and retail. 

Acumatica also offers strong accounting and professional services functions, as well as strong distribution. Acumatica has a thriving development community through its Acumatica Marketplace, where you can find hundreds of certified extensions designed to extend functionality.  

Shared Features

Acumatica and Sage X3 both offer the following functionality:

However, there are some capabilities Acumatica has that Sage X3 lacks. Here's a quick comparison chart to see the differences: 

Feature Differentiators Explained

Full function ERP: Since most of Sage’s product line has been built on older client-server technology, Sage X3 does not have the same type of functionality as its on-premise counterpart. Acumatica offers a fully integrated financial and ERP solution that can scale with your business in the cloud or on premises.

Flexible licensing options: Both products are available through subscription licensing, but your company may prefer a depreciating operating expense as opposed to an ongoing one. Sage allows licensing based on user count whereas Acumatica offers perpetual licensing and charges based only on the resources needed.

Lower TCO: Acumatica charges by computing resources used, not by user. Sage charges per user. These costs increase as your company grows.

Kensium has over seven years of experience implementing Acumatica for all types and sizes of companies. There are several vital questions that you need to address when evaluating a new ERP. 

Key Question #1: How Much Control Do You Want Over Your Data? 

Sage X3 users cannot directly export data and are forced to use Sage's data export templates and convert them into CSV files. CSV files are not relational, which means you cannot search and categorize data across multiple tables. 

In contrast, Acumatica supports data exports directly out of SQL servers into a relational database format. You can export data as frequently as needed. Acumatica offers reliable data center locations from AWS and Microsoft Azure (each operates over 10 data centers in North America). Acumatica also supports cloud, on-premises, and hybrid hosting options. Clients can quickly move among all three options without migrating data between systems.

Key Question #2: How Much Control Do You Want Over Your Development?

Sage X3 strictly limits customizations, limiting the degree to which the ERP can be modified. Sage's business practice relies on buying solutions from other ERP systems companies rather than developing them in-house. For example, Sage X3 was formerly a company called Adonis X3. Unfortunately, this means that each of their purchased solutions was developed by different teams, leading to incompatibility issues. 

Acumatica’s company culture encourages development and in-house innovation. Their business logic source code is openly accessible and easily modified with standard development resources and programming languages. Your programming team will find it easier to customize Acumatica for a fraction of the cost vs. Sage X3. 

Key Question #3: Which Pricing Structure Is Best For Your Organization Long Term?

Sage X3 is an annual subscription licensed per user and user access level. The core system comes with a single entity, and additional business entities can be added for a fee. Additional modules and vertical solutions also cost extra. 

Acumatica's pricing model is set up differently. You only pay for the resources you need. Since it is consumption-based only, you will not need to pay any new user licensing fees. Acumatica also offers perpetual licensing and charges based on the resources necessary – not by the user – so your business is not penalized for growth. 

Consider where your company will be five years down the road. As you hire more employees, your resource costs will steadily increase. Acumatica charges based on resource tiers: The resource tier you pay for is sized to support the volume of key transactions for your business. This makes it easy to scale pricing: Start on one tier and expand or shrink as needed. 

Wrap-Up

Ultimately, it's up to you to decide which ERP is best for your company, but based on what we covered in this comparison, we recommend Acumatica for most of our clients. We believe the company culture is dedicated to product quality. Over 75% of Acumatica's budget is invested in technical development and support of a single product. Their frequent updates and new feature releases show a passion for improvement and new technology. 

Kensium has extensive expertise and experience implementing Acumatica, so if you think it might be right for you, please contact us for a free consultation.