Brightpearl

We moved some years ago from Sage, which was causing us serious problems and although the original implementation was rather time consuming and the product cost very much more than Sage we have over the years been pleased we made the move.

We are mainly geared towards traditional rather than on-line sales but the interface with other apps is good, the accounting is solid and the sales/warehousing function substantially meets our needs.

All aspects are ok - does a good job for us

The only thing that I really like about this software is that they have good support staff. I was initially attracted to Brightpearl because it included integrated accounts. It has taken me 6 years to realise that this was a false way of thinking as there is other software that integrates seamlessly with reasonably-priced good quality accounting software like Xero, Quickbooks and Sage. Essentially with Brightpearl you are paying a high price for an accounting system that is used by a relatively small number of users (online it says Brightpearl has about 1,000 users - that is a very small number to finance a piece of accounting software. Eventually I realised how much it was missing in other areas.

The biggest drawback with Brightpearl is the small number of marketplaces it support compared to many of its competitors. They claim to integrate with Amazon, but this is only partially true. Amazon Europe have added 3 new marketplaces but BRightpearl have ingnored them where similar software providers have integrations at no extra cost. Brightpearl haven't added a single marketplace integration in 6 years, and the only one planned, OnBuy, a small marketplace unlikely to generate much revenue, comes at an extra cost. When I started with Brightpearl they were advertising it as the software to automate your online selling, but it was very limited as far as automation was concerned. After a couple of years they launched the Brightpearl Automation App. Funny that you should need an additional app, at extra cost, to do what the software was promising to do 2 years earlier. many things come at extra cost with Brightpearl but are available at no extra cost with other software. Brightpearl doesn't calculate VAT correctly. If you get an order from the Channel Islands, Brightpearl will add 20% VAT even though there is no VAT in th Channel Islands. (it does the same with the Canary Islands which also are not subject to VAT. It would be simply to write a filter to catch these and put correct 0 VAT on them, but they just don't seem to care if their customers are paying the tax men a bit more than they should be.

Effective software, enabling access of the entire company to view and work as a team to work as a chain from start to finish in different parts of the UK in order to complete the entire part of the supply chain. Therefore leading to effective business management.

Uninformed from the beginning about certain aspects (not down to Brightpearl directly) and therefore the small team need enlightening and training regarding certain elements that can be so easily taught and answers. Because Brightpearl can do so much, there is just so much to learn that perhaps we are not taking advantage of as a business.