Spruce

Very user friendly. POS works well and is quick to get customer invoiced. The document management built into the software is very good and eliminates the need for paper files. Can easily tag external documents and scan into the software and tag to specific invoices, orders, quotes. Customer support has been great to deal with. They provide a good online help system with videos and documents to explain how to work with the software. There are lots of add on features if you need them. The implementation went very smooth when we switched over from the ECS PRO system we were on. The day we went live we were up and running that afternoon on the ECI Spruce system. The implementation team outlined a course of action over several months to get everything in place and tested before the actual go live date. The key to the success we had was in the planning done by Spruce and on us acting on there advice and getting the training and pre implementation check list done.

Crystal reports (optional add on) does take some time to get used to and is a little hard to use on initial setup. But overall it offers good reports.

As a manager I like the features that allow for reporting on data collected through the normal course of business such as product use by month. Also, the ability to price certain items based on a fixed margin based on current cost if selected. Lastly, while not a uncommon feature, I like to be able to send documents such as invoices via e-mail which our last system wouldn't do. We also like the Delivery feature that allows sales people to see the status of there delivery. There are many more, but these are just a few.

While probably not an issue at every business, our staff is a little older, less sophisticated and not very computer literate. It would be nice to have people that specialize in each segment of our business to come spend more time doing individual training to get them up to speed on their specific roll in the new system. It can be overwhelming for the implementation specialist to train everyone and also for those like myself to train everyone in rolls that I am not so familiar in such as Manufacturing.

We like that the current product is cloud based. We also like the old fashioned interface as it is comfortable for older employees coming from a less graphical employment history.

Hosted systems in a seven day retail world need immediate support from the hosting team. Spruce does not allow third party MSP access to hosting support and, the hosting team does not work on weekends which are busy times for retail operations. Communication between ourselves and the hosting team (when available), go through a standard support person who does not have the knowledge or experience to confirm the appropriate changes that need to be made. Additionally, when a hosting team support call is supposedly completed, the case is closed without opportunity for the client to confirm functionality.

Additionally, because technical support does not utilize the Spruce interface, there is zero ability for us to learn of updates/patches/changes to the platform. The end users need to let us know when a Spruce update is scheduled for deployment. This situation should never occur in a professional setting.