Record Number of Customers Benefit from New Features, Advanced Technology, and Strong GRC Capabilities to Get a Head Start on the Economic Recovery

Epicor Software Corporation today announced that Epicor iScala 2.3 SR2, released last autumn as one of the broadest releases in the history of the Epicor iScala product line, has been shipped to over 200 customers in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa), and to another 50 customers outside of EMEA. This is the most rapid and wide spread deployment of a new Epicor iScala release.

Designed for global business, the release features the extended functionality organizations need today in order to prepare to take advantage of the return to market recovery and growth. It includes significant new capabilities for improved business and hardware scalability with support for over one billion transactions per year, one hundred thousand different account posting rules and new support to scale out with additional cheep hardware to enable improved system response time and data throughput. To support businesses the strong GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) functionality helps to minimise the risk of financial penalties and waste less time and resources on compliance matters. It is also SEPA-ready (Single Euro Payments Area), vital to companies doing business in the Euro area.

"Part of our 'protect, extend and converge' strategy, the latest version of Epicor iScala offers a robust platform for business growth while driving down cost to help companies cope with regular changes in local business requirements," said Adam Prince, senior director product marketing for Epicor. "For example, every business with a banking relationship in the Euro area will eventually be affected by SEPA. It will impact all Euro fund movements, which means that any company that conducts business in Euros will need to be ready to comply with the new messaging format."

Once SEPA is fully in place, it will be possible to exchange Euro payments between any accounts within the SEPA zone as easily as it is today within single countries and banking networks. Common standards, faster payment settlement and simplified processing will help companies improve cash flow, reduce costs and facilitate access to new markets.

Another new feature is the new iScala Template Tool. With this tool organizations can simplify their compliance monitoring by quickly creating templates that identify the business critical data, including security roles and permissions, system parameters, feature activations and company data (e.g. standard item codes, suppliers, accounts or customers). Any company within the organization can then be compared at any time against the template creating a quick way to identify changes and issues that may need follow-up investigation. The Compare & Enforce version of the tool goes one step further, enabling administrators to select template discrepancies and then reset the live system back to the default template values.

Sodexo, the world leader in Quality of Daily Life Solutions, has been using Epicor iScala solutions for over 15 years in Russia, and decided to upgrade to the latest version because of its extended security features and improved manufacturing functionality. "We have already realized a number of benefits with Epicor iScala, such as streamlined local accounting processes and better operational control due to running a single data source across applications," said Michael Salozhin, IST financial applications manager for Sodexo Russia. "It was therefore a natural choice for us to upgrade and we are delighted with the new features, and the possibility we now have to work with Microsoft Reporting Services directly from the Epicor iScala system. We also notice that the speed of the system has greatly improved - a clear bonus when you work with such large amounts of data as we do."

“With long experience of doing business in the variety of markets that exists in the EMEA region, we are well placed to advise organizations on how to turn overhead and cost into control and insight,” said Prince. “We focus on supporting businesses as they grow and change, and with the improved business scalability that this latest release offers, organizations can plan for future growth in a controlled and managed manner, with demonstrable return on investment.