Question

Cancelling Epicor Maintenance

  • 24 July 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 199 views
C

We have recently upgraded from Epicor 10.1 to Kinetic 2022 and our Software maintenance is due for renewal later this year.

With ever increasing costs of Epicor's maintenance contract, we are under pressure from finance NOT to renew the maintenance contract going forward.

We have already negotiated with Epicor what is the cheapest we could drop down to, including dropping modules that we do not use or are not business critical but the pricing is still prohibitive.

Does anyone have any experience of using Epicor WITHOUT an active Maintenance and Support agreement?

The thought is that for general applications help we can reach out to consultant subcontractors, but if we do experience a "business critical" issue, are there any options out there for ad-hoc support (paid hourly)?  Like for things that we may need a data patch for?

We are currently being told that Epicor do not offer this without a maintenance contract and that other partners will also be the same?  Does anyone know if this is the case?  And are there any other options out there?

Thanks.

Carolina Pullen Systems Project Director

2 replies

M

Carolina, 

I understand that the cost sometimes is prohibitive. I Don’t recommend going without maintenance. Some subcontractors/Consultants are told not interact with customers without support. I am sure you have heard and are dreading this already. In the recent past I worked for a company that did not have a maintenance contract. It is doable but only with the right people in place. One incident using consultants can run you more than maintenance in the right circumstances. As the Director of I.T. without a maintenance agreement I had my hands full. The following are things that were encountered in e10 that I would have to handle myself. 

  1. Data fixes - Known bugs or glitches cause data issues. I would have to edit the database using scripts or uBAQs
  2. Any bugs and their hotfixes are now your responsibility. A few minutes with Epicor to get them fixed or patches to correct them are out of reach. Most of the issues can be worked through C# and BPMs but take considerable time to investigate, fix, test, and implement. 
  3. Training. All training for new users is now upto you no more going to epicor learning center for training videos if you currently do. 

I highly advice against doing this. Most days there isn’t an issue but when there is an issue there is no response team nowhere to turn. Feel free to PM me and I can discuss other options I have used when I was forced to go without support. 

 

Matt Spotts

djo
Userlevel 3

To add to Matt’s list above:

  1. you will not be entitled to upgrades
  2. if you decide to go back on maintenance, they will make you pay the years you didn’t pay or repurchase the software as a new customer - usually which ever is cheaper.

It is never easy to go off maintenance.  You need to make it clear to “Finance” that this is a cost avoidance that needs to be considered very carefully.  It can be done, but I wouldn’t want to be a part of that.

Doug

Doug Oswald Vice President of IT INSACO Corporation Quakertown PA 215.536.3500

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