Spruce

We went live with Spruce in 2009. Like any software change, we had some bumps in the road. Spruce helped us smooth out the bumps and made the whole process simpler then expected. Their committed staff were there to help and assist. Now, several years later, we continue to learn and utilize existing and new Spruce software features that help our performance, reporting, and bottom line. Their Tech Support have been responsive and timely. Spruce is progressive and cutting edge.

One of the biggest challenges for us is training the staff for change and the benefits for that change. Educating them to see that one upfront work around may appear to save time but in fact creates several hours on the back side.

It has a good inventory system. But if you are coming off anything but another program that your inventory is already in (i.e. a manual system) be prepared to spend a lot of time updating and correcting many things.
It could work well for many industries, but you need to be sure yours is one of those (i.e. lumber) and you ask many questions before agreeing to this program.
We have made it work for us since we've invested so much money, but it hasn't been easy.

Customer Service is horrible. You call in and basically get a call center of people who can look up the same things you can look up through their on-line help. Otherwise they have to send you to a support specialist who typically has to call you back. It takes quite a while (days not hours) for them to actually call you back and typically I have to call and raise a fuss to get a hold of anyone.
The GL is primitive. There is no easy way to get reports and any information back out of the system. The only way I've found to do this is you have a learn Crystal reports, purchase the product or pay more money to have them write you a report.
This is a very rigid program. If you have anything special or any "different" way of completing tasks, you will have to conform to the program. It's very difficult to get the program to conform to you.
Also if you have invoice terms rather than statement terms, you will not get a proper statement to send to customers monthly. They consider each invoice the "statement". And if you have discounts on those invoices you cannot change that amount if your customer does not take that discount.

The part I like most about Spruce software is the overall function of the "Point of Sales" portal. For the majority of our team this is the only area they use on a day to day basis. Spruce allows our team members the access and ability to check stock, pricing, purchase orders, customer profile information and much more all from the same screen they use each day when entering orders for our customers.

The area I like least about Spruce software is the crystal reporting that is used. I know there are hundreds of pre-written reports that are available, but having the ability to create reports and change reports within Spruce would be nice.

This product is much more user-friendly than our last POS/Inventory management system. We moved from Epicor Eagle. Spruce offers more functionality and is much easier to train new employees on. I am a big fan of the General Ledger module and the ease of use in producing monthly financial reports.

I am not a fan of the Crystal Reports aspect of the system. It is functional, but a bit cumbersome to have to seek out the proper report, download and run it from outside the system. I hope that Spruce looks into integrating this feature in the future.