Haso or @josecgomez , do you know if Epicor certified partners can help clients who don’t have a maintenance contract?
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That’s a little gray area, while I don’t think there’s anything specific stopping them from taking on the client they would have to make sure they aren’t using resources such as EpicWeb etc that only come with maintenance agreement in place. I could see how that would potentially get muddy rather quickly.
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I’m just going to be blunt. Unless finance is telling you absolutely no, and if they actually have that power in your company, just tell them thanks for their opinion and renew it.
It’s not worth it if something goes wrong.
It’s a cost of doing business. If they can’t see that, or afford it, then your company has bigger problems.
Not trying to be gruff, but that’s just the way it is.
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I’m sure you don’t want to hear from another person that cancelling maintenance is a bad idea… But it’s not a good one.
Unfortunately, I don’t think you have many options out there for support without an agreement. Even if you get a consultant who would help with issues, if it comes down to needing just a patch or data fix, they’re not going to be able to get it for you without a maintenance agreement.
We too went down this path. We reduced the number of user licenses and sold back modules we were no longer using and had discussions about not continuing with maintenance. We decided to continue paying maintenance because, for us, if we were to experience a business critical issue and we were potentially unable to work for a day or two, it would cost us more than our maintenance fee for the year…
Epicor maintenance is definitely steep and it goes up annually, but it’s not one of the places to trim the budget.
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I wonder if there’s a different way y’all can look at it. This is a bit like the gambler’s’ fallacy (something which I’ve fallen for and cost me 1K+ in vegas a while back 
) when you are playing roulette there are 38 slots 18 red, 18 black , 00 and 0
The odds of landing a color are 18/38 every single time you spin the wheel not matter how many times you spin and or how many times it lands in red, your ods are the exactly the same every time you spin.
Yet if you are at the table and you see that ball land on Red, Red,Red,Red,Red,Red,… you are probably going to “predict” that the next one is Black cause what ARE THE ODDS of that happening again! (still the same…).
My point is that because you’ve been safe thus far and haven’t needed emergency support services it seems that the value (ROI) provided isn’t there so its easy to look at it and say well is this really worth it? But, the odds of something catastrophic happening are still the same as they were yesterday and you wouldn’t want to land on the wrong side of that equation.
Yes consultants can provide limited one time hourly support, but are you willing to risk it?
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Again @CPullen , please don’t feel like we’re all ganging up on you.
These posts come from experience and concern.
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Another approach you can take is using math. How much is your annual maintenance? What is your company overhead/hr? What is the cost of being down? Doesn’t have to be a computer/server/db down scenario that you may need support for. Could be something like this TRANGLC Deleted after Purge and Summarize!
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Nah! Go ahead and cancel it! Go back to Excel and the good ol’ days! HAHA!
Seriously though, stick with the maintenance.
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It is a rather uncomfortable feeling, when it feels like they have your whole company hostage. A bit like health insurance… milk you dry, and when its time for them to provide service make the experience like pulling teeth. But best not derail into another support bashing thread.
I concur with everyone else, pay for support or you might as well change ERP platforms.
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Are you sure that you get locked out of EpicWeb without maintenance?
We had a blip of no maintenance a while back while negotiating contracts and whatnot, but we only got locked out of Epiccare, not EpicWeb (i.e. I could still download updates). Not sure if that’s because our negotiations were in progress and they cut us some slack or if anyone without maintenance can get into EpicWeb.
I promise you ti was an accident.
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Once they get that single sign on working…
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Yes I’m sure.
Well… in that case we have time LOL
Thanks for all your honest feedback. I did not need convincing but I have been able to utilise your comments to justify my cause, so it has been very useful!
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As a Certified Platinum Partner, I can tell you that it will not stop you from getting service. However, the challenge goes beyond support and updates. Essentially, should you come back online with the software, Epicor will charge you back maintenance to get the benefits of the latest version. (There may be a negotiation possible) that is the policy.
Another approach that we encourage our clients is to look at improving the efficiency of your business by not dumping modules but getting a greater return on investment by adopting best practices, improving profitability and making your company more valuable by using ERP to your advantage. When you approach it in this manner, you are far more likely to see the value and the cost will be the last thing you look at. There are many case studies we and Epicor can share on the topic. Each customer can be unique but the tools ERP provides are valuable and can be deployed in any company.
Sincerely,
John Preiditsch
Six S Partners
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Thanks for the info John.
I’m an independent consultant, who are probably the only group of people who would take your call. I would be very likely to not take on someone who doesn’t carry maintenance. But not carrying maintenance is not a good idea. It’s just a cost of doing business.
From my perspective as an independent: I’m also looking for clients who are long term. I look at a company who’s not willing to pay maintenance costs as someone who’s probably going to nickel and dime me on everything as well. I’ve had clients like that in the past (former clients) and they are no fun to deal with. I’ve grown over the years and learned that not every client is a good client.
I know you said you didn’t need convincing - it’s your bean counters. Hopefully you use my perspective as further fuel. If they think they can simply reach out to a partner or an independent in a pinch, they’re probably not going to get a good one. The best analogy I can use - your car needs maintenance and all the good shops have a two or three week wait. There’s one garage that can get you in this afternoon. Ever wonder why they don’t have the same wait? You don’t want that same thing with your ERP help.
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Curiously we are told here in the UK, if we want to reduce the modules you have licensed, Epicor will revalue the remaining ones at todays prices, this means you may be paying the same for less functionality.
This was told to a customer of ours last year.
We are also told that if you withhold maintenance for two years, you can back pay the maintenance, after two years you have to purchase the software again.
We had a customer who last year upgraded from 9.04 to the latest. We soon and didn’t use the Epicor support.
So there are two reasons why you may want to keep paying the maintenance, firstly if there are any legislation changes that are required, for example in the UK we have recently been required to link Epicor to the government for tax purposes. This of course could be written by any competent developer.
The second reason for keeping maintenance is security, your version of epicor will run on certain versions of SQL. At some point the version of SQL you are on won’t be supported which means the data will be at risk and the later versions won’t support your version of Epicor.
This is why Epicor are pushing the cloud version, don’t pay, you don’t get access.