Macola vs WorkWise

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Our analysts compared Macola vs WorkWise based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Manufacturing Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Macola Software Tool
WorkWise Software Tool

Product Basics

Macola provides business solutions to small and medium-sized distribution and manufacturing companies. It increases the accuracy and speed of managing a business and streamlines operations in complex manufacturing and distribution environments. It allows users to configure workspaces at user level without consultants or developers. It also streamlines processes such as workflows, automation and document management. 

It enhances how customers interact with the businesses, improving accuracy, speed and reliability. It offers access via mobile apps and the web, business intelligence, and automated workflows.


Pros
  • Strong inventory management
  • Robust financial reporting
  • Customizable to specific needs
  • Scalable for growth
  • Long-standing industry presence
Cons
  • Steeper learning curve
  • Limited mobile accessibility
  • Potential customization costs
  • Dated interface (in some versions)
  • Compatibility concerns with newer tech
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WorkWise ERP is a role-based software for discrete manufacturers that use engineering to produce their merchandise. It assists from conception and design to manufacturing and delivery. It automates the tedious manufacturing tasks and allows manufacturers to focus on optimizing the production, marketing and the financial sides of their businesses. For example, it ensures that employees are always aware of inventory locations and levels, so they’re able to focus on more complex manufacturing tasks.

It can deploy in the cloud or on-premises. Comprehensive implementation and support services are available. It’s built specifically for make-to-order, configure-to-order, engineer-to-order, build-to-stock and mixed-mode manufacturers.

Pros
  • Intuitive interface
  • Improves inventory visibility
  • Streamlines production scheduling
  • Solid customer support
  • Flexible customization options
Cons
  • Steeper learning curve
  • Limited reporting features
  • Occasional bugs and glitches
  • Can be costly for smaller businesses
  • Mobile app could be more robust
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$995 One-Time
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Tailored to your specific needs
$2,000 Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Product Assistance

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Email
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Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
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24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Improved Financial Control: With the general ledger, users can manage core financial information leading to better financial control and decision making that can lower costs and minimize human error. 
  • Streamline Operations: Centralized document creation and management with secure and role-based access lets users streamline operations. This helps users monitor and manage their business operations. 
  • Monitors Business Activity: It monitors business data and executes actions through triggers that can be pre-set by the user. This leads to lowered costs, better productivity and higher revenue. 
  • Ensure Smooth Distribution: Macola maintains inventory in real time, making sure that users avoid overstocking and stockouts. This ensures that investment in excess inventory is reduced while boosting inventory efficiency overall. 
  • Manage Customer Data: It comes equipped with a pre-built platform to manage companies’ relationships with their customers. 
  • Process Payments: Macola has powerful accounting and finance capabilities that enable users to process orders and manage payments. 
  • Critical Job Functions: Macola allows workspaces to be created for specific jobs, such as a human resource workspace, a sales workspace, an order processing workspace or a finance and accounting workspace. 
  • Optimize Time: The personalized workspaces that can be created within Macola help lower the time needed to perform tasks by providing users with critical data and functions. 
  • Always Accessible: Personalized workspaces can be accessed from anywhere at any time using browsers, tablets, smartphones and client servers.
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  • Improve Customer Service: The WorkWise CRM module provides users with the necessary tools for quickly delivering solutions to customers and increasing employee productivity. This can encourage employees to flourish in their roles and provide their best customer service. 
  • Optimize Supply Chain Management: Accurate, real-time data enables users to make decisions that shorten cycle times. For example, forecasting capabilities help users anticipate inventory demand, preventing disruptions in the supply chain.  
  • Cut Costs: Improved manufacturing efficiencies and financial analysis capabilities provide ample opportunity to cut costs. Additionally, improved employee productivity — which comes as a result of automating tedious tasks such as schedule building — reduces labor costs.  
  • Go Paperless: WorkWise ERP can assist in going paperless with electronic data capture and other document management features. With the implementation of WorkWise ERP, all business processes become completely digital, and any remaining paper legacy documents can be uploaded with the electronic data capture feature. 
  • Stay Informed: From the availability of real-time data to instant messaging and notifications, the system provides visibility and streamlines communication so you’re always informed.  
  • Ensure Compliance: Data journaling can help users maintain an audit trail and stay compliant with Sarbanes-Oxley reports. In addition, quality management capabilities that include a partnership with uniPoint Software can make it easier to ensure ISO compliance. 
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  • Accounting and Finance: Macola gives users a real-time financial overview of their company. Using the general ledger, users can manage the business’s financial core, cut costs, reduce human error and improve decision making. 
  • Accounts Payable and Receivable: This feature of Macola ensures that the flow of raw materials, services and supplies does not get disrupted, resulting in a good reputation with the vendors. It also helps manage credit and activity to help maximize cash flows. 
  • Excel Add-ins: Macola and Excel link dynamically, allowing users to access data in Excel. It is not necessary to export data and it offers dynamic and immediate reporting capabilities. 
  • Monitoring Business Activity: Macola monitors users’ business information and scans users’ operations every minute. It can send email alerts, update databases, generate reports and initiate workflows. 
  • Business Process Management: Macola comes with document management, customized workflows and CRM capabilities. These features ensure that users store information securely and centrally so that it can be accessed from anywhere, streamlining customer interactions. 
  • Customer Relationship Management: This feature organizes customer data in a single database. Users’ clients, vendors, employees and business partners are connected via Macola, allowing them to capture customer experiences. Users can understand, monitor, maximize and manage sales performance. 
  • Inventory Management: Macola ensures the right products are in stock. It helps also helps users avoid overstocking and stockouts. 
  • Order Entry: It facilitates order entry processes. It also accepts quotes and orders, validates credit and calculates prices. The system supports pickups and shipping by recommending lots to be picked along with order lines. It generates shipping documents like packing slips, labels and bills. 
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  • Customer Relationship Management: The CRM manages marketing, sales and customer service responsibilities. It’s designed to provide exceptional customer service with several features, such as quoting and estimating, order management and returns and warranties. It also comes with an electronic data interchange feature and an e-commerce gateway for managing customer-facing applications. 
  • Engineering Application: The engineering application helps users maintain data and work with their CAD application. The system can integrate almost any CAD application. The bills of material application can work with every style of BOM and coordinate with all supply chain functions, from customer order processing to production costing. The routings application handles scheduling, work loading and cost planning. 
  • Planning Suite: The planning suite manages capacity requirements planning, material requirements planning and master production scheduling. The advanced forecasting feature can help with balancing supply and demand. 
  • Materials Suite: The materials suite provides users control over their materials-related tasks, such as purchasing and requisitions, mobile data collection and shipping. The mobile inventory control application is included in the solution and can deploy barcode enabled handheld mobile devices. The system integrates with major shipping carriers and can manage shipments with multiple carriers. 
  • Production Suite: The production suite streamlines ERP manufacturing processes to help users manage quality, schedule maintenance operations, manage shop floor changes and more. The suite comes with a visual scheduling feature as well as a Kanban visual communication system. Other features include shop floor control, production dispatch & reporting, equipment maintenance and quality management. 
  • Finance Suite: The finance suite monitors financial health with standard accounting features as well as more advanced capabilities. The system’s accounting features include a general ledger, accounts payable and receivable, fixed assets management and payroll management. Several features within the suite leverage financial data to create reports or conduct analyses, such as planned vs. actual cost. It also automates sales tax management. 
  • Documents Suite: The document suite provides paperless document management with the business process repository (BPR), barcode generator and a document linking application. It allows the user to capture information electronically and manage and archive data. Label management can create any type of barcode label and the BPR retains business process information for accessibility across all departments. 
  • Analytics Suite: The analytics suite provides access to graphs and data. It can enable desktop notifications and mobile alerts. The Workwise Event Manager allows users to communicate through instant messaging. The Data Journaling application can help with the collection and management of data for audit trails. 
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Product Ranking

#15

among all
Manufacturing Software

#85

among all
Manufacturing Software

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User Sentiment Summary

Good User Sentiment 49 reviews
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78%
of users recommend this product

Macola has a 'good' User Satisfaction Rating of 78% when considering 49 user reviews from 3 recognized software review sites.

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3.7 (15)
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4.1 (30)
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3.4 (4)
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Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Accurate Inventory Tracking: Real-time visibility into stock levels and locations, minimizing stockouts and overstocking.
Robust Financial Insights: Generate comprehensive financial reports with drill-down capabilities for deeper analysis.
Tailored to Specific Needs: Configure Macola to match your unique workflows and processes, improving efficiency.
Adapts to Growth: Accommodate increasing business volume with Macola's scalable architecture.
Proven Manufacturing & Distribution Track Record: Benefit from Macola's deep understanding of industry-specific challenges.
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Improved Inventory Management: Real-time visibility and control over stock levels, reducing waste and optimizing production.
Streamlined Production Scheduling: Efficiently plan and track production processes, minimizing downtime and maximizing output.
Enhanced Quality Control: Integrated quality checks and traceability features ensure consistent product quality.
Data-Driven Decision Making: Gain actionable insights from production data to optimize operations and improve efficiency.
Scalable and Flexible: Adapts to your growing business needs and integrates seamlessly with existing systems.
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Steeper Learning Curve: Initial setup and user training can be demanding, requiring dedicated resources.
Limited Mobile Accessibility: Interface may not be fully optimized for mobile devices, hindering remote work.
Potential Customization Costs: Extensive customization needs may incur additional development fees.
Dated Interface (in some versions): Older versions may have less intuitive interfaces compared to modern software.
Compatibility Concerns with Newer Tech: Integration with newer technologies might require additional effort or third-party tools.
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Steeper Learning Curve: Requires significant investment in training and onboarding due to feature complexity.
Limited Reporting Customization: Predefined reports may not fully meet specific data analysis needs.
Occasional Bugs and Glitches: Users report occasional software bugs and glitches that disrupt workflows.
Costly for Smaller Businesses: Subscription fees and implementation costs can be high for smaller manufacturers.
Mobile App Limitations: Mobile app lacks full functionality and offline capabilities compared to the desktop version.
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For manufacturers and distributors, Macola is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it's praised for its rock-solid core – think Fort Knox inventory tracking, treasure map-like financial reports, and a growth-friendly architecture that scales seamlessly. On the other hand, it's criticized for its learning curve resembling Mount Fuji and a mobile app stuck in a dark labyrinth. Compared to its competitors, Macola lacks the modern sparkle and broader integrations, but its deep industry expertise makes it a master of the manufacturing and distribution tango. Choosing Macola boils down to priorities: if operational power trumps cutting-edge tech, invest the time to learn its intricacies and embrace its classic vibe. For those seeking slick interfaces and mobile magic, Macola might not be the perfect fit.

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WorkWise user reviews offer a nuanced perspective on its strengths and drawbacks. For some, it's a game-changer: "Switching from Acumatica to WorkWise felt like upgrading from dial-up to fiber optic internet. Everything is so much faster and more efficient." The real-time inventory visibility and streamlined production scheduling are often praised, with users noting, "We used to spend hours manually tracking inventory with Epicor, now WorkWise does it all, giving us valuable time back." However, the complexity can be intimidating. New users often face an uphill battle: "It's incredibly powerful, but it took our team months to feel comfortable using it all compared to Acumatica's more user-friendly interface. The learning curve is definitely steeper than Epicor's." This complexity extends to the customization options, a double-edged sword: "You can tailor WorkWise to your exact needs, but if you're not careful, it can become a tangled mess like Epicor's overly-customized systems." Reporting leaves mixed reviews. While some appreciate the data-driven insights, others crave more flexibility: "The pre-built reports are useful, but I need to dig deeper into specific data points like Epicor allows, and WorkWise doesn't quite offer that granularity." Ultimately, WorkWise excels for manufacturers seeking robust control over inventory and production. Users who value ease of use and out-of-the-box reporting might need to look elsewhere. As one user aptly concluded, "WorkWise is like a Swiss Army knife – incredibly versatile, but requires some effort to master, unlike Acumatica's straightforward approach."

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