October 2016 Newsletter

Volunteer Board Members Needed to Serve the Eclipse Users Group
The Nominating Committee is actively seeking 3-5 new board members to begin serving in January 2017. 
It is the task of this committee to ensure we have as wide a cross section of board members as possible.  This year, we are specifically looking for Owners, Accounting / Finance, Warehouse, and Purchasing.  As a general guideline (NOT A RULE!) we seek to not have more than one person from any company on the board at any given time, and prefer to not repeat a company that had a member just leaving the board.  This ensures we allow a variety of members and companies to join the board and not create a monopoly or have disproportionate representation.  This also goes for ANY category by which we can classify board members, such as job function, location, size, and experience - both current and past, etc. 
 I'm stating this only to let you know how this process works in the ideal world.  Submit whomever you think, including yourself, and the committee will vet and create the "ideal" list from the submitted candidates to ensure they can meet the requirements of serving. The list of candidates will then be submitted by December 1st for vote by the membership
The board has several expectations from its board members. 
  • Be sure your employer has fully approved of your involvement and supports the commitment to the board knowing these responsibilities.
  • Attend monthly phone conference calls that are approximately one hour in length
  • Serve on one or more board committees to plan and assist in the activities of the group
    • o   Training Committee
    • o   Enhancement Committee
    • o   Marketing / Newsletter Committee
    • o   Membership Committee
    • o   Vendor Relations Committee
  • Attend two yearly face to face meetings that are approx. 2 days in length
    • One will be held in conjunction with Epicor Insights
    • One will be typically held in the Fall (October/November)
  • The maximum length of service could include three two year terms.
    • One exception is that if service includes being an officer, the term length could be extended.
  • Be fully engaged in our mission of making Eclipse better for all our members.
  • Willing to serve as an officer if nominated.
  • It is also recommended that members attend Epicor Insights and/or the annual User's Group Encounter meeting as these are both significant events to promote the User's Group and meet our members. 
If you know of someone that you feel would be an active Board Member, or you yourself are interested in serving the group, please email Kris Hopkins the following questions and answers for consideration.   Any responses must be received by November 4th.
Required Information:
We would like to ask you to complete the following questions if you feel you can fulfill the above responsibilities:  
  1. What is your current position/responsibility relative to Eclipse in your company?
  2. How long have you been with your company?
  3. How much experience do you have with Eclipse? (Solar/ Eterm)
  4. What committee do you feel you can bring value to if you were on the board?  Explain?
  5. What are some major improvements you would like to make to Eclipse?
  6. What have you been previously involved in with regard to the Eclipse Users Group (Committees you previously served on, training events you attended or bulletin board posts/responses.)?  What, if anything, would you do to improve these based on your past experience? 
If you have any additional questions, feel free to email any of us on the Nominating Committee:  
Kris Hopkins - Chair - Email:  kris.hopkins@echogroupinc.com
Tammy Jones - Member - Email: tammyjones@eptingdist.com
Valerie Conforti - Member - Email: valerie.conforti@johnstonenj.com
In This Issue
Click on the link above - It will take you to the October Calendar on our website. You can click on each class to see the detail, make sure to click the back button in your browser to get back to this newsletter.
New and Returning Members in September 2016
New Members
Engineering & Equipment Co Albany, NY
Johnstone Supply Montgomery, AL
Rubenstein Supply Company
San Rafael, CA
Returning Members

Nicklas Supply Cranberry Twp, PA

Reduce Invoice Processing Costs by 80%

Do you receive hundreds or thousands of emailed invoices from suppliers each month that have to be manually keyed into Epicor Eclipse? Pretty inefficient, costly, and error-prone isn't it?
Conexiom AP Invoice Automation can reduce invoice processing costs by as much as 80% by eliminating the need for AP staff to physically enter, review, code, and validate supplier invoices. With automation, you'll quickly process emailed supplier invoices with total precision, avoiding clerical errors, delays, and lost invoices.
Perhaps you've tried a semi-automated solution using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) only to be left frustrated with its accuracy levels? Conexiom does not use OCR so you won't need to manually review each invoice and will even leverage your existing EDI investment.
Learn more by watching our short animated video below:

Why AP Invoice Automation?
  • Speed up invoice processing
  • Eliminate costly manual entry errors
  • Reduce invoice processing costs by 80%
  • Maximize early payment incentives and prevent duplicate payments
  • Enable better visibility and cash flow control
  • Achieve 100% invoice entry accuracy
Visit www.conexiom.com to learn how Conexiom AP Invoice Automation lets you focus on managing supplier relationships instead of entering data.

Download our eBook and discover the Top 5 Reasons Your Bottom Line Needs AP Invoice Automation: http://conexiom.com/ufo-ap-ebook/

About Conexiom:

Conexiom® allows manufacturers and distributors to focus on serving customers and managing supplier relationships instead of entering data. The patent-pending Conexiom solution was created by ecmarket, a cloud solutions developer. Conexiom revolutionizes critical sales and accounting business practices by automating manual entry with 100% accuracy. Conexiom effortlessly converts emailed and printed customer purchase orders and supplier invoices into automated sales orders and invoices, enabling companies to focus on driving growth. Conexiom helps organizations across the globe maintain a competitive edge. For more information visit www.conexiom.com

Eclipse Support Corner
by Camille Alberico,  Senior Manager, Eclipse Customer Support
Greetings Eclipse customers! 
Only a few brief updates this round.

Based upon your feedback, we have expanded the EpicCare Case history located under 'Legacy Cases' from 2 years to 5 years.  You will now see case history back to 2011. 

Four of our ITC team members have been in Hyannis, MA for the past 2 weeks.  We focused on triage/troubleshooting training, and reinforcing what has already been delivered.  It's been another wonderful opportunity to share knowledge and experience. 

In addition, 2 of our customers were kind enough to let us visit their operation and see a warehouse in full motion, along with how our software helps manage the warehouse activities.  We saw RF in action, totes, packing, shipping, receiving, returns, a lift moving inventory around the warehouse, how locations are organized, a beautiful showroom, and the prep work for a physical inventory just to name a few.  Both visits were videoed so that other team members in India can also benefit from these trips.  We thank our kind customers very much for these visits.

In case you didn't make it to the User Group's 2016 Encounter conference in Pittsburgh, we announced 2 winners of the Knowledge base contest; Congratulations to Courtney Smith, Salina Supply Company, and Jason Black,  Shepherd Electric Supply, who each one an iPad Pro.  Thank you very much to all of the knowledge submitters.  Your help is very much appreciated!
Eclipse Customer Support
IMPROVED FORECAST ACCURACY 
CUTS LOST SALES IN HALF
 
Thrive's analyses have shown that roughly 10% of revenues are lost to out of stocks for a typical distributor.  Our experience is that our better forecasting can cut your lost sales in half.  For a $100M company, that translates into $5 million in additional sales!

So how does this work?  Since distributors have to buy and stock inventory in front of sales, the prediction of upcoming sales (ie. usage or forecasts) for each SKU is what drives the quantity stocked.
 
For example, let's say the Eclipse usage number is 5 units per month of one of your stocked items, and you currently have 5 units on hand.  Most people do not realize how important that usage number is.  There are a lot of settings that can be adjusted to handle the usage number differently in Eclipse.  But regardless of the settings in Eclipse or any other inventory system, the usage number (or forecast) is used in one shape or another to calculate how much you should stock and reorder.  In this example, let's say Eclipse suggests a purchase quantity of another 5 units to keep 10 in stock.  That should be plenty right?

Now let's say a customer wants 20 units, and doesn't want to wait for a backorder.  He takes your 10 units but you could have sold another 10.  That's lost sales.  Granted, forecasts are rarely perfect and many sales cannot be predicted.  However, in most cases, Thrive would have done a better job predicting the sales for that item.  Thrive may not have predicted the full 20, but it might have predicted 15 units.  That's a 50% improvement in your revenue for that one sales transaction!  So you can see how a small improvement in forecast accuracy across the millions of sales transactions you have in a year translates into big dollars!  Used on a regular basis, the Thrive system results in a significant improvement in having the right quantities of the right products in stock at the right place when your customers want to buy it.
 
Thrive's patent pending forecast engine employs over 400 forecast model variations to increase forecast accuracy in Eclipse by at least 10%, increasing your revenues by 5% as well as your customer satisfaction.

Please email Bill Niehr,   bniehr@thrivetech.com or call 770-222-8599, x104 for more information.
 
Users Helping Users
Postings from the UFO Bulletin Boards 

 
From Bulletin Board posting to 390 points on the Ideas Site & Targeted for a Future Release. 

Did you know that if you write up a question on the bulletin board, and there is no solution, it could be a great idea to post on the Ideas Site?  Chances are others are looking for a solution to that same problem. 
So don't forget about the IDEAS Site as another outlet to drive Enhancements to the system.
" Most ideas are born and lost in isolation " - Scott Belsky, Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality.

Here is a perfect example of this! 

Bulletin Board Question:
Credit & Rebill ability in JM
How are people accomplishing this task? The steps we have received from Eclipse is 20 or so steps to accomplish. 

Bulletin Board Answer:
For anyone else wanting to contribute to the cause...
http://eclipseufo.accept-ideas.com/c...nt/ideas/22656
Vote three bars and add your input on how you think it should work. Or share your current workarounds.

IDEAS Site Posting: