FAQs for Acumatica Cloud ERP System In Zimbabwe

Have questions about Acumatica? You’re in the right place. Dive into our comprehensive FAQs covering everything from seamless setup and reliable support to powerful accounting features, inventory management, security, and more. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to optimise your current system, find clear answers and expert insights to help you make the most of Acumatica Cloud ERP for your business.

General

What is Acumatica SaaS?

For many small and midsize businesses, deploying Software as a Service (SaaS) provides the benefits of an enterprise-class solution without the enterprise IT budget. When Acumatica is deployed via SaaS, your Acumatica system is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and can be accessed from any web browser on any Internet-connected device. You can pay as you go, and easily scale resources up or down based on growth or changing business needs. Free yourself from the complexities and costs of managing hardware and maintaining software. Additionally, a SaaS deployment enables Acumatica to ensure the highest levels of security, availability, and performance.

What does Acumatica manage on my behalf with my SaaS subscription?

Acumatica manages the work involved in settup and provisioning the application, as well as configuring the initial environment for you to access your Acumatica SaaS instance. Once your Acumatica environment is accessible, Acumatica automates common administrative tasks, such as performing backups, software updates, and continuous monitoring and tuning, including multi-homed internet and power backup.

What is the Always Current Program?

The Always Current Program provides all SaaS customers with automated patches and upgrades to ensure that customers are on the latest release. This provides the following benefits:

Access to the latest features and fixes
Predictable maintenance times
Streamlined support
Lower upgrade costs

Customers in this program automatically get regular patches, service packs and semi-annual upgrades to the latest Acumatica release. Prior to the free automated upgrade, customers work with their Acumatica Partner to procure a free sandbox for testing and training.

Customers who require additional upgrade timing flexibility may purchase Acumatica Flex. For additional information about Always Current or Acumatica Flex, please contact your Acumatica Reseller.

Why should I use Acumatica SaaS (public cloud) instead of a private cloud version and host it on my own?

Acumatica SaaS includes a range of benefits that come standard with your subscription. These benefits are provided by Acumatica using Amazon Web Services (AWS), are backed by our SLA, and surpass the benefits you would gain from most external hosting providers. This includes disaster recovery, backup service, 24/7 access, high availability, monitoring, software updates, and application maintenance. Please contact your partner for an overview of your options. For private cloud deployments, Acumatica offers Private Cloud Subscription (PCS) license model.

How do I access my Acumatica SaaS ERP solution?

We will provide you with a URL to your Acumatica SaaS ERP solution, accessible from any web browser on any device with an Internet connection. This URL uses a prefix you choose in the format .acumatica.com, but we can also help you create a custom domain URL (xxx.yourdomain.com) if you provide us with your SSL certificate.

Can I use separate databases to track my companies?

No, all you need is a single database. Each Acumatica SaaS subscription is housed in a single database where you can track financials separately for an unlimited number of related companies. Acumatica security features allow you to decide what elements should be separated or shared between them, such as customers, employees, etc.

What database technology does Acumatica utilize?

Acumatica SaaS currently uses Microsoft SQL Server. Other database options exist for private cloud deployments.

Can I customize each of my companies separately?

Many customizations that require the system to behave differently based on separate business processes can be separated for each of your companies. However, certain customizations that require database changes are shared across companies. These include the addition of user-defined fields and user interface changes.

Can my customizations directly access the database using ODBC access?

Acumatica SaaS no longer allows you to connect through ODBC because you can achieve the same integration goal using Acumatica’s development platform APIs. These APIs provide the following benefits vs ODBC access:

Save time by eliminating the need to learn complex database structures.
Ensure system stability by guarding against human error that can threaten the referential integrity of your data or impact performance.
Reduce cost of maintaining customizations during upgrades. Customizations remain functional despite database changes, because the APIs change less frequently.
Consistent enforcement of your security policies. By going through the data access layers and APIs instead of going direct to the database, all your customizations and reports will respect your security configurations.

Can I add my own stored procedures and publish them to the database?

Acumatica’s development platform APIs allow you to achieve the same goal without having to add your own stored procedures. Instead, you can build and publish server-side customizations that are registered and maintained by the system.

Unlike stored procedures, Acumatica’s APIs ensure data integrity by processing all data changes through your business logic.

Is there a database schema I can use?

Starting in Acumatica 2021 R2 (August 2021) the software includes a DAC (data access class) Schema Browser that can be accessed directly from inside the software.

Acumatica also provides a full set of documentation of its development platform APIs. This allows you to build complex customisations using data access layer objects.

Acumatica is architected to ensure customisations remain functional despite database changes. This reduces the cost of maintaining customisations during upgrades.

What is a maintenance window?

Acumatica may carry out scheduled maintenance, or in rare circumstances, unscheduled maintenance. Scheduled maintenance is usually communicated with at least a week’s advance notice. The scheduled maintenance window averages less than 30 minutes each week, and typically occurs during non-peak hours or weekends. Scheduled maintenance does not count against the uptime guarantee.

From time to time, unscheduled maintenance may be required. Acumatica will attempt to notify you in advance of any unscheduled maintenance event. Unscheduled maintenance counts against the uptime guarantee.

Will my Acumatica SaaS be available during software maintenance?

In most situations, maintenance will require us to disable access temporarily while we perform maintenance activities. Acumatica makes every effort to minimize downtime during such events.

Performance

Can I expect consistent performance from Acumatica SaaS throughout all times of day?

Yes, Acumatica reserves resources to ensure consistent performance – even during peak hours – as long as you have purchased the right Resource Level for your needs. Please work with your Acumatica partner to make sure you are at the right Resource Level.

What are Acumatica SaaS reserved resources?

Reserved resources are included with your Acumatica SaaS service. You decide on your reserved resource level by choosing a consumption level for your Acumatica SaaS license. Your partner will walk you through the resource option that is right for you. You can upgrade your consumption level at any time to acquire more resources.

What should I do if my Acumatica system seems to be running slow?

If you are facing urgent connectivity issues (unable to connect or login to the system), please report it as soon as possible at Report an Outage. For other issues with speed or connectivity, please contact your Acumatica partner and we will work with them to investigate and resolve your issue.

How does Acumatica monitor the environment to ensure that I receive consistent performance?

Acumatica uses 24/7, modern monitoring tools that continuously review system operations and automatically alert our engineers in the event performance or other operating criteria does not fall within our strict performance guidelines.

Hardware and Scaling

How do I know how many SaaS resources I need to buy?

Acumatica does not charge by user. The optimal consumption level is based on the load you put on the system during peak times. For most customers this is the number of commercial transactions you process each month. Your monthly commercial transactions are the single highest volume within these transaction types: Sales Orders, AR Invoices, Shipments, Payments, Purchase Orders, Purchase Receipts, AP Bills, and vendor payments.

It’s important that you share your expected transaction volumes and peak time usage patterns with your partner so they can advise you on the best possible option.

How large of a system can I get?

Acumatica SaaS Resource Levels scale to accommodate companies with a few thousand to millions of monthly commercial transactions. Acumatica technology was built for scalability, so we have the ability to scale for extremely large enterprise scenarios. Please talk with your partner to discuss these options.

Does Acumatica provide load balancing configurations?

Acumatica supports load balancing and multiple server configurations. Load balancing is useful when you want to spread your system load across multiple servers. This way, you benefit from the performance of two servers instead of one, and you also ensure high availability, which means that if one server were to go down, the other server will take over and the system remains up.

If I do not renew on time, will Acumatica keep my data?

Upon your expiration date, your account will become suspended for a period of 30 days. During the suspension period, your data is intact and can be reactivated upon your renewal. You will not be able to access Acumatica SaaS during the suspension period. At the end of the suspension period, your data will be permanently deleted.

If I don’t renew, and my subscription deactivates, can I get a copy of my data?

During the 30 day suspension period, Acumatica can provide a backup copy of your data provided your account is in good standing. Please check with your Acumatica partner.

What format can I get my data in?

Your data backups are fully intact in a relational database. All elements in your data are made available to you such that they can be restored should you choose to ever resume your subscription. You can also restore your data on your local SQL server environment.

Sandboxes

How do I know how many What is a sandbox and how is it used?

An Acumatica Sandbox is a separate instance of your Acumatica environment. You can do anything you want in the sandbox – all without impacting your current deployment and your users. This can be helpful to ensure a smooth transition for new rollouts or new employees, or to develop and test new solutions for your organization.

Can I push the changes I made in my SaaS sandbox environment into production?

No. The SaaS sandbox environment is for testing only. Any changes you make will be lost when the sandbox is refreshed.

Within your production environment you can create test tenants. Data in test tenants is isolated from your production data, but there is an easy mechanism to copy data between your production and test tenants.

Is there a charge every time we want to refresh my SaaS sandbox environment to the most recent backup?

Currently, this is a manual process and rates apply. Depending on your database size and free space, you can try extracting a snapshot from your production and restoring the snapshot within your sandbox environment.

Automated Backups and Database Snapshots

What is the difference between automated backups and database snapshots?

Acumatica SaaS provides two different methods for backing up and restoring your instance: automated backups and database snapshots.

Acumatica performs continuous automated backups of your data. You can request a copy of your data for a fee per copy, or you can subscribe to an optional backup access service with an annual subscription fee.

Acumatica also comes with a database snapshot feature, which allows you to take snapshots of your company and restore them at a later time. Each snapshot is a complete copy of your database, so your snapshots could quickly add up to the total storage you have subscribed to. Snapshots will only work if there is enough free capacity available within your subscription.

How do I know what my database usage is?

Your Acumatica application has a screen called Space Usage which shows the amount of database storage you have consumed.

In the event of a disaster, should my system go down, what is the recovery process?

Acumatica backs up all transactional data to an additional geographic zone for an additional layer of protection and disaster recovery. In the event of a disaster where a datacenter hosting your service is completely shut down, Acumatica will quickly go through a recovery procedure and your service will resume from an alternate datacenter. Acumatica’s SLA uptime guarantee will continue to provide you protection during this duration.

Do I need to enable backups for my instance or is it done automatically?

Backups are performed automatically at no extra charge. All transactional data is backed up daily on a rolling backup schedule. Additionally, incremental backups of transaction logs are performed frequently throughout the current day. All backups are replicated to an additional geographic zone for an additional layer of protection and disaster recovery. Access to backups is provided for a fee or by purchasing an optional backup access service.

What is a backup window and why do I need it?

Acumatica’s backup window is an approximately 2-hour duration during which your instance is backed up on a daily basis. It is scheduled between 12am-6am. During the backup window, the system may experience slower response times.

How long are database backup files retained?

Several concurrent retention schedules have been implemented:

Daily backups are retained for 4 days.
The last backup of each week is retained for 4 weeks.
The backup taken on the last day of the month is retained for 4 months.
The last backup of the quarter is retained for 1 year.

What are the advantages of the optional paid backup access service?

The optional paid backup access service provides you with anytime access to 7 days of rolling backups. This allows you to download and store a copy of your data using SFTP. Standard fees apply if you need to restore or roll-back your production environment.

Subscribers to this service get this benefit in addition to all standard backup procedures.

What happens to the data after my SaaS subscription expires?

Upon expiration, the account becomes disabled but we retain the data for up to 30 days before we permanently remove it from all our systems. You can request a copy of the full database for your safekeeping so long as the request comes in within 10 days past the subscription expiration.

How do I restore a database snapshot?

You can restore any prior snapshots by using the restore feature within Acumatica. However, do take extra precautions when restoring snapshots because they override your current production environment. We encourage you to restore snapshots outside business hours, and to first take an additional snapshot of your current production environment before restoring a prior snapshot.

Can Acumatica help me restore my system to an earlier point in time?

If you have subscribed to the optional backup access service or have a copy of your data on-hand that you wish to restore, Acumatica will work with your partner to evaluate your data for restoration. There is a one-time services fee for restoring a backup.

If you have neither subscribed to the optional backup access service nor kept a copy of your data on-hand, then please contact your partner and Acumatica will evaluate your specific situation. Acumatica cannot guarantee that it will be able to successfully restore data since the automated backups Acumatica performs are intended for global disaster recovery and may not be suitable for individual customer restore situations.

Should I delete snapshots from my database?

The data that is contained in a snapshot is also stored in the database, so a full snapshot effectively doubles the size of your database. When you upgrade Acumatica, the data in the snapshot is also up updated so that it will be available after the upgrade. To keep the database size from growing excessively large, we highly recommend you export and download and then remove that snapshot from Acumatica. If you need this data in the future, the snapshot can be imported to Acumatica from your computer and then restored so long as the versions are the same at that time.

What happens to my database snapshots if I delete them?

If you delete your database snapshots, they will be permanently deleted from the database. If you export those snapshots to your local workstation system before deleting them, you can upload, import and restore the snapshots when needed. If you believe you will need the data snapshot at a later time, export it to your computer before deleting it from Acumatica. Please keep in mind, you can only restore them if the versions have not changed since you exported the snapshot.

Is any snapshot data stored on the SaaS Server?

When a snapshot is exported from the SaaS server to your local machine, a temporary zip version of this snapshot is prepared and saved on our servers primarily to facilitate the download to your computer. This temporary zip data file may remain on the server for a few days and it will automatically be removed. Please do not rely on the export file to be available at a later date. Should you need to export the same snapshot during another date, you must prepare a new export file of the snapshot.

Security

How do I know how many What isIs my data stored in the same area as other clients?

Unlike many web-based applications, with Acumatica every subscriber’s data is stored in a separate database. This way, every Acumatica subscription enjoys better data security and can be on their own versions of Acumatica. At the same time, they can take advantage of Acumatica’s multi-tenant architecture to add additional completely separate entities within that same subscription.

Data is never stored on the user’s computer. All data remains on Acumatica servers. As users complete forms only small bits of data are transferred to the web browser – and even then only for a brief instant. Once forms are completed, no data remains in the browser. All transmission is secure and encrypted using SSL technologies.

Will Acumatica provide me with an SSL certificate or can I use my own?

Acumatica will always provide an Acumatica URL that is protected by SSL standards. However, Acumatica also recommends that you use your own certificate if you would like to have your own custom URL.

How does Acumatica protect my data from unauthorized access?

Acumatica’s intrusion detection system (IDS) detects any attempt to compromise the confidentiality, integrity or availability of your data, or to circumvent security controls. In the event of such an attempt, the intruder is locked out of the system, and investigation is conducted to identify and apprehend the intruder. Acumatica can also restrict user logins to specific IP addresses.

How does Acumatica monitor the environment and ensure protection against viruses?

Acumatica uses enterprise-class anti-virus software to continuously monitor your SaaS environment and prevent, detect and remove malicious viruses and other types of malware, such as Trojan horses, worms, fraudtools, spyware, browser hijackers, keyloggers, and more.

Can I control the level of access my users have to Acumatica?

Yes. With Acumatica, each user can be assigned unique security credentials. These credentials can be role-based or highly specific to individual users. Since Acumatica allows unlimited users at no additional cost, each individual’s login is unique and activities can be tracked.

How do I know my data is protected against physical and environmental threats?

Acumatica SaaS is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) to ensure we provide the world’s best cloud infrastructure with Acumatica SaaS. AWS follows strict guidelines and uses state of the art architectural and engineering approaches to guard against physical and environmental threats. It has extensive experience in designing, constructing and operating large-scale datacenters. Physical access is strictly controlled, both at the perimeter and at ingress points by security staff and video surveillance. All staff members pass two-factor authentication to access the datacenter. All visitors and contractors are required to present identification and escorted by authorized staff. There are also fire detection and suppression, power, climate and temperature, and electromechanical support systems.

What should I do in case any security violation/incident occurs?

Please inform us immediately providing any details regarding the incident at Report a Security Issue. Acumatica Incident Response Team will be involved and you will have feedback during the next 24 hours.