What do you like — and don't like — about your current ERP solution?

Hey everyone 👋 We're building GableLBM in the open, and we want to hear directly from the people who live inside ERP systems every day. Whether you're running Epicor, DMSi, Spruce, DDMS, or something completely custom — we'd love to know: What's working well? - What features do you actually rely on day-to-day? - What does your current system get right that you'd hate to lose? What's painful? - Where do you find yourself building workarounds? - What takes way too many clicks or steps? - What reporting gaps drive you crazy? What's missing entirely? - What do you wish your ERP could do but doesn't? - Are there modern tools (AI, mobile, customer portals) you wish were integrated? No wrong answers here. The blunter the better — this feedback directly shapes our roadmap. Drop a comment below. 🔽

43 Comments

Sort by:

234

LumberJack_88•3 days ago

Running Epicor for 6 years now. Here's my honest take: Likes: - Inventory tracking is solid once it's configured properly - The GL integration with QuickBooks is reliable - Purchase order workflow is mature Dislikes: - The UI looks like it was designed in 2005 because it was - Reporting is a nightmare — we export everything to Excel and rebuild from scratch - Mobile? What mobile? Our drivers still call the yard for stock checks - Every "simple" customization requires a consultant at $200/hr Would kill for something that lets my customers check their own account balance without calling us.

YardMaster_Steve•3 days ago

The Excel export thing is SO real. I spend 2 hours every Monday morning rebuilding reports that should just... exist. Our controller has a folder with 47 Excel templates.

156

Sarah_CFO•2 days ago

The consultant fees are what get me. We paid $15k last year just to add a field to a form. A FIELD. TO A FORM.

198

MillworkMike•2 days ago

We're on Spruce and honestly the bones are decent for a lumber-specific ERP. Tally entry is fast, pricing matrices work. But the pain points: - No customer portal whatsoever. Every quote request comes in by phone or email, then we manually key it in. It's 2024. - Pricing updates are manual. When commodity prices swing 10% in a week, we're scrambling to update thousands of SKUs by hand. - The dispatch module is an afterthought. We literally use a whiteboard for truck scheduling. I think the biggest gap in the industry is the customer-facing side. We have tools to manage inventory but nothing to let customers self-serve. Every other industry has moved to portals and we're still playing phone tag.

DevOps_Dan•2 days ago

This is exactly why I got excited about Gable's dealer portal approach. The idea of white-labeling a customer portal under our own brand — that's what we need. Not some generic B2B marketplace.

312

TrussQueen_Amy•2 days ago

On DDMS here (yes, we still exist 😅). What works: The core transaction flow — PO to receiving to invoice — is bulletproof. 20 years of lumber-specific logic baked in. I trust it with our money. What doesn't: Everything around the edges. CRM is nonexistent so we use Salesforce separately. Document management is file folders on a shared drive. Customer communication is email chains nobody can find. What's missing: AI. I saw the GableAI demo where you photograph a handwritten material list and it turns into a quote. I almost cried. We have guys at the counter typing in 40-line takeoffs by hand. Every. Single. Day.

145

GableLBM_TeamOfficial•2 days ago

This is incredibly helpful, Amy. The "bulletproof core transactions" point is noted — we're not trying to reinvent the wheel on proven workflows, just make everything around them actually modern. And yes, GableAI's photo-to-quote is live in beta. DM us if you want early access!

421

CounterGuy_Phil•1 day ago

I'm just a counter guy but I'll chime in. My biggest complaint with our current system (Epicor) is speed. I've got a contractor standing in front of me, job site crew waiting, and I'm clicking through 6 screens to build a simple quote. By the time I'm done he's already texting our competitor. Give me something fast. I don't need 50 features. I need the 5 I use most to be BLAZING fast. Quick search, quick quote, quick checkout. That's it.

178

LumberJack_88•1 day ago

Phil just described every counter person's life. Speed > features, every single time at the point of sale.

MillworkMike•22 hours ago

We timed it once — average quote takes 4 minutes 20 seconds in our system. For a 5-line order. That's criminal.