1. Features and Improvements

   Acumatica 2020 R2 contains an astounding number of improvements and new features. A list of highlights is provided below. You can learn more by viewing the latest copy of the 2020 R1 Preview 2 Release Notes and the Developer Release Notes on the download page.

   • • • Usability and Reporting:
         • 
           Recently viewed records

           Generic inquiry table join suggestions (*)

         • Recently viewed records list
         • Dashboard auto-refresh
       • Technology:
         • Visual state automation engine (*)
         • Workflow engine enhancements and build out
         • API enhancements and automated inquiry mapping
         • Unified notifications using business events (*)
         • Advanced UDF visibility and enablement
         • 
           Bank reconciliation

           OData v4 – LINQ-based access to data objects

         • In cell error reporting for data imports
         • Mobile dialog box support – phase 1 (*)
       • Financials:
         • Automated AP document creation (*)
         • Cross company sales (*)
         • Centralized account visibility
         • Credit memo retainage and automation
         • Bank reconciliation improvements
       • CRM:
         
         Address lookup and enrichment
         • Improved account / contact relationship
         • Pin important activities
         • Automated address enrichment using Google or Bing
       • Inventory and Order Management:
         • Payment processing improvements
         • Restrict shipping of unpaid orders (*)
         • Validate bills against purchase orders
         • 
           Multi-Day Service Appointments

           New workflow engine for sales orders (*)

       • Manufacturing and Service:
         • Manufacturing delivered in Acumatica core (*)
         • Quality management module (m)
         • Pause and resume appointments
         • Multi-day appointments
         • Create PO from appointments (*)
         • Cost tracking enhancements for appointments (*)
       • Payroll, Project, and Construction:
         • Team time entry (*)
         • Paid time off enhancements
         • Pro-forma workflow enhancements
         • 
           Commerce in Core with Shopify

           Project material management (*)

         • AIA report improvements
       • Commerce:
         • Commerce delivered in core product
         • Shopify connector
         • Drop ship buyer notification enhancements (*)
         • Multi-box shipments (*)

1. Features and Improvements

   2020 R1 contains several improvements and new features. A list of highlights is provided below. You can learn more by viewing the latest copy of the 2020 R1 Beta Release Notes and the Developer Release Notes on the download page.

   • Usability:
     • Capture images using mobile device
     • Dynamically define UDF valid values
     • Tab visibility and GI tab reordering
     • Pivot table percentages and distinct counts
   • New Modules and Workflows:
     • Commerce engine with BigCommerce integration
     • Acumatica payroll
     • CRM lead qualification workflow
     • Pre-defined CRM reports
   • Inventory and Order Management:
     • Matrix inventory
     • WMS wave and batch picking
     • Void and re-create invoices linked to sales orders
     • Additional shipping options
   • Technology:
     • Create expense receipt from camera image
     • Web hooks in customization projects
     • Data imports preprocessing and parallel processing
     • Dashboard caching and refresh
   • Project and Construction:
     • Daily field reports with weather service and photo logs
     • Stepped and capped retainage per project
     • Project balance reconciliation
     • New low-code Workflow Engine.
   • Manufacturing and Service:
     • Data collection via scanning
     • Capable-to-promise and what-if
     • Travel and break time recording*
     • Optimized scheduling using WorkWave

Acumatica 2019 R1 released on March 19th, 2019, which includes upgrades to features and usability in three areas:

1. The Platform Usibility
2. General Business Application to include
   1. Financial Management
   2. Project Accounting
3. Industry Specific Enhancements
   1. Order and Inventory Managment
   2. Field Services
   3. Commerce
   4. Manufacturing

Platform Usability

Highlighting Inquiries provides visual clues on rows or columns of a generic inquiry based on customized conditions that have been introduced. Based on the alerts required, the system will highlight certain elements of a generic inquiry. For example, when inquiring on “opportunities”, the resulting grid can show those opportunities that have been won in green, those that have no owner in yellow, and opportunities that are late in red.

Acumatica 2019 R1 – Conditional Highlighting

Side Panel displays the details of a row on an inquiry screen. Changes to the data can be made in the side panel and the information displayed in the panel can include data or dashboard graphics without leaving the inquiry screen. In 2019 R1, significant improvements have been made to the Side Panel UI for improved usability.

Improved help search via Machine Learning (ML). Inquiries made in the HELP menu inform the system what was useful and how to provide better help recommendations over time. Based on how effective the response to a natural language search has been, the system knows if it is serving up the correct results and adjusts.

Redefined list of currencies reduces the effort in maintaining exchange rates and managing transactions in multiple currencies. Now there is no longer a need to manually enter the world currencies and their basic settings. Users can select from a predefined list of currencies included in the ISO 4217 standard for use in Acumatica.

Support for Different Financial Calendars allows companies with multiple legal entities within the same tenant to have different fiscal year-end dates. Organizations can accelerate implementation, simplify maintenance for companies that share vendors, stock items, and employees, run consolidated operational reports at any time, and facilitate the preparation of consolidated financial statements.

Recognition of Revenue from Customer Contracts provides additional support for contracts with multiple performance obligations, including fair market value, re-allocation pool, term start/end dates, and pro-rated fair market value in compliance with ASC 606 and IFRS 15.

Tax Improvements enhances the integration with tax engines, including overrides for shipping address on AR and SO invoices and pro forma invoice screens to third-party tax providers, such as Avalara.

Credit Card Processing Improvements leverages the updated Authorize.Net plug-in for greater PCI compliance; tokenizing credit cards allows greater security for credit card payments.

Financial usability improvements: Additional improvements to the UI make the program easier to use. Among some of the improvements: Restrict searchable fields on entry point lists for faster results; activate/deactivate attributes for deferral codes; and select from a predefined list of currencies to support external interfaces.

Project Accounting

With multi-currency project accounting, users can enter project transactions in different currencies and maintain projects in both the base currency and the project currency. Now project managers can calculate project profitability in both the project currency and the base currency, and present costs to the customer in the customer’s currency.

Project budget forecasts by period allows comparisons of actual project costs and incomes with the forecasted, original, and revised budget amounts for each financial period.

Company-Specific Financial Periods enables companies in the same tenant to have different fiscal year-end dates which is particularly valuable for businesses that share vendors, stock items, and employees.

Revenue Recognition for projects recognizes the revenue when the performance obligations are satisfied, including those made over multiple periods of time.

Industry Specific Enhancements

Order and Inventory Management

Warehouse Management System (WMS) provides distributors, manufacturers, retailers and eCommerce firms support for medium and large warehouses with operations such as picking, packaging, PO receiving, putting away, transferring, and physical counting by using barcode scanners (or mobile devices with a scanning option).

Multiple Ship-to addresses allow combining multiple shipments on a single order invoice.

Field Services

New calendar board allows rotating the personnel vs. time axis, changing the time range to show schedules for one week or one month, and more.

Location tracking uses the mobile device of service personnel to locate and record the GPS location of the device.

“One-click” invoicing enables the easy closing of an order, accounting for inventory, and generating of an invoice from a service order or an appointment.

Commerce

Commerce Edition has been improved for commerce order processing to adjust the transactions based on small differences in the way that charges take place, such as changing a shipping method or making changes in tax calculations after the order was taken online.

Connectors in Commerce Edition provide integrations to eCommerce front-ends for true omni-channel sales and fulfillment. Connectors for Magento are available today, with connectors for Shopify and BigCommerce available soon.

Manufacturing

During 2018, product configurator, estimating and advanced planning and scheduling (APS) were added to the product line. Now in 2019 R1, engineering change control and finite capacity planning have been enhanced.

Engineering change handles the workflow and approvals from the request through creation of the change order and the update of the bill of material (BOM).

Finite capacity plans at the workstation and machine level. This facilitates quoting accurate ship dates to customers with capable-to-promise (CTP) while more effectively scheduling machines, tools, maintenance, vacation days, and those short turn-around special requests from important customers.