M1 ERP Reviews

M1 has helped us track serial and lot numbers effectively and allowed us to streamline many processes across the company. Have used it for five years now, we rely on the data it generates to run our business in the most efficient and cost effective way possible. Our implementer took the time to learn our business and made suggestions on how the software could assist us in areas we had not even considered. We definitely choose the right software!

The most we like about E2 is the following,

1 user friendly , specially the help line
2: database module an bill bill of married module and part search engine
3: project setup and process routing
4: real time cost capture
4: we envoy the accounting module

The most we like least about E2 are,

1: Converting proposal to order
2: Lack of creating report to show the Balkance of non invoiced for any particular order

Customer support is good. You can always get someone on the phone. They do work with you to try and get things figured out. Although you may be on the phone a long time, so plan accordingly.

Everything pretty much. It's the least user friendly software we've encountered. It's not a visible system, everything is buried deep within. It takes many different clicks and screens to see what is needed to see. Doing any retail type business with different price levels is very troublesome. Information that should be simple to look up in near impossible. This system also puts your parts from a PO in the order they want to, not how you entered them. you can't customize any reports without paying or going through a bunch of trouble. We have stumped our techs several times with simple issues that can't seem to be resolved. You can't just hit print on any screen, you have to "generate a report" Creating parts in the system is cumbersome as well. You have to close one window to open another when creating the part, you can't check from one part to another to compare. There's several errors that pop up. The cost of this software was far too high for how much time it added to our work day and work load. We also had to upgrade our main server and some computers to accommodate this software. All in all, this system is not a simple system.

This software is very versatile and covers everything from quoting through shipping. The accounting module keeps everything in one interface so there aren't any integration issues.

The quoting module uses estimate codes that you can not see all at the same time. Reconciliation of accounts only works on a calendar month basis. Credit cards require jumping through some hoops!

From the initial RFQ to Final Shipping, E2 MFG is there every step of the way. This is turnkey platform for Aerospace/ISO registered companies.

Hoping to add a 1st level viewer of PDFs or solid model plug in. one click printing of print, job label and traveler.

If you are able to deploy, implement and customize M1 for your company without any support from ECI this is a good option.

Support is terrible -
ECi was unwilling to respond to any of my questions on the software's functionality. I have paid for maintenance and support on 9 licenses for over 15 years and they will not even respond to my online request. When I finally called in and waited for a live person they insisted that I needed to pay for training in order to get answers to general use questions about how to setup and use different functions in the software. After 2 hours of paid training I had very few answers to my questions and my trainer "[SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN]" had a list of questions he was going to "get back to me on". It has been several weeks and once again I have no answers and "[SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN]" is ignoring my emails.

What I like most about the software is how easy it is to stay on top of the General Ledger on a daily basis. If something goes wrong, I don't have to wait until closing to find the problem. M1 makes it possible to make corrections immediately.

1. We were told the job costing module would apply labor & burden properly. It doesn't.
2. We were told the BOM would upload to the job. It doesn't. That was an expensive lie for us.
3. When the guys make mistakes, it can be difficult and tedious to find and correct mistakes.
4. We made it clear from the start that one customization would be needed and would be VERY important. Numerous attempts have not gotten a result.

We have been using this software for 10 years and I don't know how we ever survived without it.
Product Configurators really helped us streamline our estimating and planning processes.

We have tuned M1 to a point where we have very little issues. It took some time to really figure it out but we realized that the core system didn't really need a lot of the customizations that we thought it did.
I'm not good at cons...

This is the most customizable ERP I have ever dealt with or implemented. Love, Love this as it easily can modify to serve the challenges of about any size company, growth rate, and experience levels. This is the best feature of this software.

The main con from my exoperiences has been the support personnel and the lack of knowledge of the product and the response. With that said, let me say that it is not complelely fair as the compaqny has experienced a rapid growth and with that comes new personnel and the years of experiences are just not there.

Visibility is key for us, and with this software you can follow an opportunity through from initial stages of quoting through final stages of billing and everything in between. And Customer Service is Top Notch!

It can be difficult to make changes to orders once in process, but hopefully that is something their team recognizes and will help to rectify in the future.

Although not intuitive at all, once you get used to the system it does work and prior to this year, it has been infallible.

Customer service is fair to poor as we did not receive any contact from this company regarding upgrades, etc. Carefully read the maintenance agreement as it apparently does not cover repairs and upgrades - which begs the question, what is that payment for exactly??

No ad-dons, no cost for view users, i.e. unlimited clock card entry PC's.

Absolutely poor support if any. Referred to external consultants as ECi M1 could not supply technical support.

It is very intuitive and extremely detailed. Nothing is missed.

Hard to learn at first, but customer support more than makes up for it. Very helpful and professional.

Good Sales Team :) Might be good for very small company but wouldn't recommend to any company. After trying other ERPs have almost no Pros except how they did Part Revision.

Software failed when was put to load. Worked fine in pilot but when needed to manage 1.4k POs on daily basis it couldn't do math. At one point had daily meetings with development team from Australia on issues but still couldn't resolve all issues. About twice a week were getting orphan records in DB, development team were no help on this.
ECi started promising us new version but promise was sliding.
After 8 month of deployment time and about 6 month after go live hard decision was made, search for new ERP. When ECi was asked to give us partial refund because their product didn't perform as advertised they revealed themselves as very bad partner.
M1 also has major security issue.

Ease of use, functionality, reporting, scheduling.

Nothing yet. We've been using V7 and are getting ready to switch to V9, looking forward to the upgrade.

The amount of report options is wonderful you have many different options to retrieve your report

trying to figure out the best way to get a report

i like the range of information that is available at the fingertips

could have a more modern look and feel to it

Overall architecture is well thought out from a flexibility, customization and IT standpoint. It uses standard database (MS SQL), reporting (Crystal reports) and customization (VB) languages. You can use their resources or find your own to dive as deep as you need to but you also can do quite a bit without being an IT professional.

Support experience ranges widely from good to very slow to respond. They have made efforts to improve and you see benefits slowly but it still isn't a good consistent support experience.

The product does seem to have the potential to fulfill all requirements of a small parts manufacturer.

The customer support starting at the implementation stage right through to after sales ongoing support is poor. The supplier attitude is "Wellm you bought it, so get on with it." There seem to be very few people in the organization who actually know how it works and how to correct bugs and issues. The reports package is full of flaws. We have spent a lot of money trying to improve the product ourselves.

There are multiple ways to perform functions within the software. The access to data through QuickView and report hyperlinks makes finding the information very easy.

Once a job is "In Process" making changes becomes very difficult. The lack of being able to use UPS ground freight pricing has added extra work onto our Shipping department. Hopefully, the interface will be completed soon.

Easy to use. Broken into modules so everything is grouped together. You can have multiple tabs open and traverse in-between them. Being able to access SQL backend is beneficial for writing customized reports.

Would like to see what users are logged from login screen as sometimes concurrent licenses are orphaned.

All the functionality of a larger program without the big program cost and the flexibility to do minor customization.

Slow performance. Some reports of tools are at times very slow. Our Job Analysis report runs very slow at times. Usually when the quantity is more than 1 and the material quantity is more than 100.

I love how everything is tied together. When in doubt I right click and see where that PO, Sales Order, Receipt, etc. has been used and what it is linked to.

Mostly it's a cosmetic thing. I've never been overly fond of how it's laid out but the next version should make that better and truly with time you just get used to it.

The only thing that was good was the dashboard
The software appeared to be ideal for a company making thousands of components in production runs - the very thing that we don't do.

The software is extremely clunky. it seemed that anything that could be done with 1 click in our old program program takes 5 clicks.
Support was often vague - it didnt sound like support personell had the correct training
They sold us a web app that they said was up and running, which was a large influencer in our decision as we required remote access to the CRM, however they hadn't finished developing it.
They didn't seem to understand NZ laws
Overall, the recommendation made by the company seemed to be motivated by getting the sale, rather than providing a solution that was fit for purpose.

The integration is well done, there are many facets to the software setup that enhance the integration.

I wish the training video's were more up-to-date on some of the advanced features like scheduling and the web interfaces.