R4 Enterprise Reviews | 2022 Pricing & Overview

About R4 Enterprise

R4 ERP is a complete enterprise resource planning solution that allows businesses to manage supply chains, financials, manufacturing, distribution, inventory, reporting, and more. This solution is adapted to meet the unique needs of various industries including, but not limited to, food distributors, auto parts manufacturers, government agencies, cannabis retail and inventory, and more.

Video Overview

R4’s back office financials delivers a multi-entity, multi-currency and multi-lingual ERP system. This system fully integrates AR, AP, GL, and other financial requirements with distribution management and a complete manufacturing suite which provides support for inventory controls, parts management, manufacturing (MPS, MRP, CRP, BOM, etc.), and project accounting.

At the base of the financial modules is a flexible internal control system that helps organizations meet critical new compliance regulations with maximum security meeting FDA, Sarbanes-Oxley and DoD requirements. R4’s back office systems incorporate financials that add to a company’s competitive advantage by streamlining financial processes and reducing costs, increasing accuracy of financial data and providing better oversight of expenses and cash flow.

Primary Features

Accounts Payable

The R4 Accounts Payable module completely integrates with GL, PO and Project Accounting modules.

This integration means extended capabilities such as:

• Voucher processing and management
• Vendor performance analysis
• Multiple entity accounting distributions
• Parameter generated check runs
• Manual disbursements
• Hand typed checks, debit / credit memos
• Cost capture by project
• Reconciliation of chased checks
• outstanding checklist printing
• daily cash analysis tools
• 1099 data capture
• Three way matching of PO, receiving and vendor invoice

This AP module provides management tools to maximize control of your company payables. In addition, maintenance of proper cash float levels and the ability to track daily bank activity is greatly enhanced.

R4 AP module includes effective management reports such as:

• Voucher and check registers
• AP Distribution
• AP Aging
• AP Management summary support for accounting month end closings

Accounts Receivable

The Accounts Receivable module is designed to provide you with the needed tools to effectively manage your company customer base.

R4’s AP module is fully integrated with other financial and distribution modules and provides for accumulating billing and credit activity for each of your customers. Improved customer credit management is due to all payments made by customers being applied to their open receivables.

AP module also is responsible for:

• Charge back recording and tracking
• Commission setup and calculation
• Allowance and rebate management
• Creation of credit management parameters

The cash payment application uses batch control to allow for faster payment and deduction applications.

Sales commissions are calculated as a percent of either sales or gross profit with commissions earned and paid out at the time of AR collection OR at the end of the month following the sale.

Daily and month end reports include:

• Sales and payment journals
• AR Distribution
• AR Aging
• AR Management summary
• Commission Reports

Capacity Management

To make maximum use of manufacturing production facilities, available capacities of each and every resource must be known and planned. The R4 capacity management module allows you to define and maintain resource capacities in time driven blocks. Resource bills must be defined and maintained for an item or a group of items. Production planners can generate rough-cut capacity plans, resource requirement plans and net change capacity plans.

R4’s CRP analyzes data from shop orders, planned orders, and actual orders to forecast how these orders will impact shop floor capacity by work centers. It helps to first identify bottlenecks and then how to eliminate them by determining the work load for each work station. It allows you to run what if scenarios until you find the optimum plan. This is a serious tool designed to help production operations run as efficiently as possible.

Customer Relations Management and Sales Tracking

R4 CRM (Customer Relationship Management) helps companies optimize customer relationships by integrating customer information, sales, and service. Additionally, R4 offers integration to other third party CRM solutions for tracking of marketing events. This provides a full 360-degree view of the customer; the system enables a consistent and continuous customer dialogue based on real-time information. With the R4 embedded CRM solution set, you can make the most of every interaction with every customer across every channel. As a result, you gain true customer insight, along with the ability to act on that insight.

R4 uses Crystal Reports (embedded report writer) to publish actionable information throughout the ERP application. The Crystal Reports software enables you to easily design interactive reports and connect them to virtually any data source. R4 takes advantage of Crystal Report outputs by exporting data into printable and downloadable formats such as PDF, Excel, ASCII, text, html, rich-text, etc. These reports can serve as the foundation of successful business intelligence strategy.

Demand Forecasting

Forecasting helps right size your inventory to keep in step with sales and minimize out of stock and over stock conditions thus improving profitability and customer satisfaction.

Fixed Assets

R4’s Fixed Asset module integrates with the GL module to book monthly depreciation or amortization amounts. The Fixed Asset module also calculates both book and tax (federal and state) depreciation. The Fixed Asset module supports multiple depreciation methods such as Straight-line, Double declining balance, declining balance, sum of the years, AMT, etc. as well as multiple books (Internal, Federal, State and AMT).

You will find reports such as:

• Asset additions and retirements
• Depreciation taken monthly and YTD
• Depreciation projections for budgeting and net asset value reporting

Additionally, prepaid expenses, long-term deferrals and intangible assets can be maintained on the FA module.

General Ledger

The General Ledger portion of R4 provides multi-company, multi-entity, multi-currency and multi-lingual capabilities. You’ll not only find a chart of accounts but also ability to define company codes, divisions, branches, cost centers and often product lines.

R4 provides for either calendar or fiscal periods depending on your needs. With soft closing for month ends you are able to have up to 24 accounting periods open before your year end processing is completed.

R4 GL module integrates with other R4 financial, distribution and manufacturing modules. That means transactions created in various modules flow to directly to the GL.

The GL module supports company designed financial statements, comparative actual vs budget statements and variable budgeting with import and export functionality between spreadsheet and budget files. In addition, Crystal Reports allows direct exports to financial data to Microsoft Excel.

Inventory Management

The heart of the R4 financial, distribution, manufacturing and planning modules is the inventory management (IM) module. With a robust item master, the IM module interfaces with all of the main modules in the ERP software, WISE and Web modules. In conjunction with WISE, the IM module, an integral part of the supply chain, supports multiple warehouse and distribution center operations. Inventories are entity-based, valued using multiple cost methods, tracked down to the lot or serial number level, can be used for simulation what-if testing, and has complete integration to other modules.

Item costs are carried for two purposes, inventory valuation by warehouse and to support manufacturing standards. Additionally, customer sales pricing begins at the item level by warehouse. A unique feature, which is now a part of the item master, is the ability to define item attributes, primarily used for item searches, has also been used by customers to create the item number and automate the creation of the BOM structure and production operations.

Manufacturing Design

The BM module supports unlimited levels of components and processes. Standard operations include inside and outside processing. Work centers are defined in terms of capacity, employees, machines, utilization, efficiency, direct labor and overhead costs. Cost rollup programs can be executed for individual items or all items, it enables analysis of resulting costs of materials, labor, machinery, outside processes and overhead on a “Costed Bill of Materials Report”.

Master Production Scheduling

The R4 master production scheduling module (MPS) provides time-phased demand and production planning information and helps you establish the vital strategic link between corporate planning and actual production capacity. By tracking actual production against forecast, it allows you to develop realistic “on-hand” and “available-to-promise” quantities and optimize work order release and PO timing quantities. User defined planning horizons, time fences, time buckets, and sensitivity filters allows presentation of information in a more meaningful way.

The MPS module is used for projecting long-term resource requirements, calculating loads at work centers, tests the feasibility of the production plan and determines future utilization of work centers. MPS works with single and two level BOM’s and integrates with MRP for detail materials planning

Material Requirement Planning (MRP)

R4’s MRP module follows guidelines set forth by APICS and is a complete MRP system in which closed loop MRP technology drives the R4 material requirements planning module. Information from sales orders and sales forecasts, interact with the IM, PO and PAC modules, to produce a time-phased material requirements plan. These time-phased plans, use infinite backward scheduling logic to arrive at the requirement dates for unlimited planning horizons.

MRP computes the requirements for both the component sub-assemblies, as well as the finished assemblies

Production Activity Control

Working with inventory management and manufacturing design, the production activity control module (PAC) tracks manufacturing activities from issuance of work orders to completion of jobs. It encompasses shop floor control, job costing, and labor performance functions. Work orders could be manually launched, triggered by make to order environments, or created by MRP, DRP or MPS planned orders.

Work orders could be created using the standards established in the manufacturing design module and print them to provide accurate documentation on the shop floor while simplifying paper flow. Track costs by entering time and materials on a job by job basis; variance from standards are measured for material rate and efficiency, labor rate and efficiency and applied burden.

Project Accounting

R4’s project accounting module is designed for use by organizations who manage complex, multi-year projects.

With Project Accounting you can budget at the project level, manage project related assets, track and record cost according to work breakdowns with summary and detailed reports to keep your projects on target.

Project Accounting provides you improved control over your projects:

• Prototyping
• Product development cost tracking
• Monitoring company owned delivery vehicles
• Construction in progress for projects
• Etc.

Purchasing

This Purchase Order module integrates with:

• Inventory Management
• Accounts Payable
• MRP
• Order Processing
• DRP
• WISE

With Purchase Order you can convert requisitions from Drop shipments, MRP, and DRP into purchase orders.

Purchase Orders interface to WISE as expected receipts. Product receipts are done in WISE with the aid of RF devices and bar code labels and are guided to warehouse locations based on put away plans.

Also supported are container tracking (in transit) and receiving and receipt reconciliation with vendor invoices. Drop shipping logic permits direct shipments from vendors to customers without creating virtual receipts.

R4 Distribution Requirement Planning (DRP)

R4’s DRP module is specifically designed for organizations with multiple warehouses, order fulfillment centers or distribution center needs.

The DRP module draws data from inventory management, order processing and demand forecasting to provide management with an accurate view of distribution requirements through out the supply chain.

DRP attempts to balance inventories and meet business needs by generating re-supply orders for products from either other facilities or manufacturing locations.

The benefits you’ll find from this module include:

• Reduced inventory investment
• Reduced purchasing costs
• Increased Productivity
• Improved customer service

Return Material Authorization

The R4 return material authorization module (RMA) is fully integrated with the OP module for purposes of accessing prices and costs from the original invoice line. The module records and monitors customer complaints by creating a log by a user defined claim code master.

The RMA module works in concert with WISE to accept the returned merchandise to the warehouse. Product returns are controlled for proper disposal through action codes. While WISE handles the receipt, condition, reason, responsibility for return and disposal action, the RMA module deals with the settlement of the claim through the issuance of a credit or no credit to the customer’s account. Effective reports and screen inquiries provide a set of tools for the customer service representative.

Industries Served

• Food and Beverage Distribution
• Auto Parts Distribution and Manufacturing
• Tires and Wheels
• Government
• Cannabis
• Apparel and Textiles Warehouse Management
• E-Commerce Order Fullfillment
• And More.