How to Automate Epicor Eclipse

Eclipse holds the whole branch, from the counter to the delivery truck

An electrical wholesaler is three businesses wearing one sign. A trade counter, where a contractor wants forty feet of cable cut in the next ten minutes. A project desk quoting a school refurbishment eighteen months out, with its own bill of materials, submittals and bid schedule. And a warehouse trying to serve both without running out of anything.

Epicor Eclipse is the ERP built for exactly that business. Epicor sells it to electrical, plumbing, HVAC and PVF wholesale distributors, and it carries sales order management, supply chain, warehouse management, financials, CRM, job management and eCommerce in one system.

So Eclipse holds the branch's version of the truth. What is on the shelf, what this contractor pays, which job the reel was cut for, whether the will call order is actually picked. Counter, warehouse and delivery truck read the same record, which is the whole reason a distributor buys one.

The follow-up work happens on manufacturer websites

Everything Eclipse knows, it knows because a person typed it or a trading partner sent it. The rest of the week goes on finding things out.

A buyer signs into a manufacturer's portal to see whether the price change announced in a PDF has taken effect, and what it does to the contract. Somebody opens a utility's trade ally site to see whether the rebate claim on a lighting job has been approved, because the contractor keeps asking and the money is real. Somebody else works a general contractor's project site for submittal approvals and revised drawings. A clerk chases an exemption certificate from a customer whose state registration lapsed in March.

Then the small repeated ones. Carrier tracking for the pallet a foreman is waiting on. A vendor stock check before anyone promises same-day pickup. A bid tabulation built out of three quotes that arrived as attachments.

Every one is a login, a person and a copy, and none of them is a gap in the ERP.

Epicor Eclipse

Price letters checked against the cost file The new sheet on the manufacturer's portal set against what Eclipse currently costs, so only the lines that moved need a decision.

Rebate claims followed to the payment Utility trade ally sites watched from submitted through approved to paid, so the contractor gets an answer and the branch stops carrying it.

Certificates flagged before they lapse Customer exemption certificates checked against the state register and raised the month before expiry, not during the audit.

Work queues push a job along until it leaves Eclipse

Eclipse automates more of the branch than outsiders assume, and that deserves saying first.

Work queues put the exceptions in front of whoever should see them, so an order on credit hold or a line short on stock lands in somebody's list instead of sitting invisible. Advanced inventory forecasting drives replenishment, and the Eclipse Warehouse Management System verifies receiving, put-away and picking in real time, sets automatic replenishment guidelines and runs cycle counts against system-produced count sheets. Contract pricing and EDI carry the two things a distributor repeats most: what this customer pays, and what this trading partner sends. Eclipse Forms renders, sends and archives paperwork as PDFs, and the Eclipse API offers REST endpoints supporting get, insert and update against Eclipse data, which is a real integration route when the other side has an interface to meet it.

That last condition is the ceiling. All of it acts on something already inside Eclipse, or on a trading partner already set up for EDI. The utility rebate site, the manufacturer portal and the submittal system are none of those. They are websites with a login.

Rebates, certificates and price letters land where they belong

Start from what Eclipse already holds and the outside work stops being a separate job.

The open bid list is the clearest case. Eclipse knows which bids are live and what was quoted; the manufacturer's site knows whether the quote reference was extended or has expired, and a morning check turns a stale list into a short one worth phoning about. Vendor price letters run the same way. The cost file is in Eclipse, the new sheet is on the vendor's portal, and the comparison is a column of the lines that moved, in front of whoever sets sell prices.

The awkward jobs fit the same shape. Rebate claims followed from submitted to approved to paid. Exemption certificates checked against the state register and raised the month before they lapse. Cable reels reconciled against the cut list for each job. Backorders carrying a promise date read off the vendor's own page instead of a guess.

The line is one a branch manager already draws. Looking things up and setting them beside what Eclipse holds can run overnight. Committing a purchase order or telling a customer anything stays with the person whose name is on it.

None of that is an Eclipse setting

There is nothing to configure for any of it, which is why an Epicor consultant is not the answer either. Somebody has to open the utility's website, sign in, and read what it says.

WebRun is an agent that drives a real Chrome browser, signed in as your buyer or your counter manager. It opens the manufacturer portal, the trade ally site or the carrier's tracking page, reads the screen the way a person reads it, and sets the answer beside what Eclipse already holds.

It runs on your schedule in your own private environment, restricted to an explicit list of domains, and you can watch a run and stop it. Anything that commits money or reaches a customer is drafted for approval. Each workflow below names the sites it opens.