Epicor Pushes Integration With eBackOffice 7.3

For example, users of the upcoming eBackOffice 7.3 will be able to tie a purchase order to a sales order," said Karen Adame, director of product marketing at Epicor, based here.

"You can take net transactions from customers to suppliers, get invoices and send them ... take transactions from receivables and payable systems and tie them together. If there's a balance left, you can cut a check," all without toggling between disparate-feeling applications, she said.

The eBackOffice line includes software financials, distribution, warehouse and human resources/payroll modules. Release 7.3, demonstrated this week at Epicor's Perspectives conference in Anaheim, Calif., is slated to ship in December.

Also at the show, Epicor showed off eBackOffice 8, a work in progress being developed for the Microsoft .Net platform. That version is about 12 to 18 months from shipping, according to the company.

Epicor plays in the hotly contested midmarket, which it defines as companies with revenue of $10 million to $500 million. There it competes with software from J.D. Edwards, Lawson and PeopleSoft, Adame said. An entry-level implementation of release 7.3 for five users starts at about $30,000.

"What's really important with this effort is they've brought all the components up to the same version and improved integration between them so they all talk together more easily," said Dallas Wilt, president and CEO of Axis Accounting Systems, a Nashville, Tenn.-based reseller. "That's extremely important today. People expect things to be perfectly integrated.'