18 years helping Australian businesses
choose better software

Phocas
What Is Phocas?
Phocas' business intelligence (BI) solution makes it easy to analyze data and present actionable information to help executives, business managers, and purchasing managers make more informed business decisions. A powerful BI solution like Phocas can give organizations the advantage they need to hit goals faster than the competition. Whether you’re looking for better insights, increased profitability, or more accurate sales forecasting, Phocas BI is the tool you need.
Who Uses Phocas?
It assists mid-market businesses in distribution, manufacturing and retail industries with reporting and analysis capabilities of their ERP and drive financial planning.
Not sure about Phocas?
Compare with a popular alternative

Phocas
Reviews of Phocas

Phocas Software: An In-Depth Review of Business Intelligence and Analytics Solutions
Comments: hocas Software is highly regarded as an effective business intelligence and analytics solution due to its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards that enable easy data analysis and interpretation, even for non-technical users. The software's fast analytics capabilities are also a major advantage, making it ideal for businesses that need to process large amounts of data quickly and in real-time. Users have praised the software for its reliable performance and usefulness in facilitating data-driven decision-making.
Pros:
Phocas Software is praised for its simple and intuitive interface, which enables me to navigate and analyze data in various ways. This feature is especially beneficial for businesses without dedicated data analysts, as it helps non-technical users to access and comprehend their data with ease.
Cons:
Some users have pointed out that Phocas Software's integration options with other systems and tools are limited. This can be problematic for businesses that use various applications as it would force them to switch between different platforms to access all their data.
Phocas Software Response
2 years ago
Hi Aman, thanks for leaving a review of Phocas. The key to making our system easy to use for complete exec, finance, ops and sales teams is the way we setup integrations with ERPs and other business systems to run automatically. If there is a system that you're really missing in your platform, get in touch and and we'd love to see what we can do to give you easy access to all your business data. Warm regards, Mike Hills Global Head of Customer
Phocas Software will definitely change the traditional way of reporting.
Comments: I love Phocas reporting and this has helped our branches and our operations in a big way, and we can see our company performance as a whole at once. No need to check different reports to analyse data - Use Phocas -all under one umbrella.
Pros:
Phocas software is highly User firendly than compared to Microsoft Power BI. We were using PBI and attracted to buy Phocas immediately after first demo. The software is fantastic but not necessary for small organisations.
Cons:
Phoca software is good in all aspecrts but the pricing needs to be revised to accommodate small organisations with minimum modules.
Phocas Software Response
2 years ago
Hi Benoy, thanks for taking the time to leave us a review, and great to hear that you're finding Phocas a lot easier to use than Power BI! A big part of our process is conducting a comprehensive needs assessment to ensure Phocas is the right fit for your business. We strive to provide pricing that is all all-inclusive and avoids hidden costs like consultants and data warehousing. If you require assistance or have any further suggestions, please send us an email at [email protected] Warm regards, Mike Hills Global Head of Customer
I feel like it can be a useful tool, if you are in the know!
Comments: I would suggest a simple user guide to come up the first time you log in, so you are aware of the real potential of this software.
Pros:
Once you have been shown how to use this software, it can be a very useful tool, especially for us as CEs who aren't directly involved with the Sales side of the business.
Cons:
Unless someone is a pro on Phocas, it is difficult to navigate your way around it and completely understand how to use it.
Powerful Business Intelligence Tool - Phocas Software
Comments: I have had a great experience with Phocas Software. The user interface is intuitive and user-friendly, making it easy to access and understand the various data points. Additionally, the powerful and comprehensive capabilities of the software enable businesses to gain valuable insights into their operations and performance. The only downside I have experienced is the cost, as the software can be quite expensive.
Pros:
Phocas Software is an incredibly powerful and comprehensive business intelligence tool that can help businesses gain valuable insights into their operations and performance. With Phocas Software, users can quickly and easily access real-time data and analytics to help them make better decisions and optimize their operations. The user interface is intuitive and user-friendly, making it easy to understand the various data points and use them to inform decisions.
Cons:
While Phocas Software is an incredibly powerful and comprehensive business intelligence tool, it can be difficult to set up and configure. Additionally, the cost of the software can be quite expensive, depending on the features and functionality you need.
Phocas Software Response
2 years ago
Hi Noam, thanks for leaving us a review, it's awesome to hear that you're having a great experience with Phocas. We like to make our pricing as all-inclusive as possible, by including all our implementation costs and data warehousing costs up-front. And as part of our process we want to make sure that an investment in Phocas really pays off for you, leaving you feeling great about your data. If you require assistance or have any suggestions, please send us an email at [email protected] Warm regards, Mike Hills Global Head of Customer
Phocas is the simplest dashboard and BI tool
Comments: happy and satisfied with the onboarding process and data presentation
Pros:
User freindly and easy to understand reports and dashboard. In depth analysis with detailing of each parameter
Cons:
not encountered anything that is not as per requirement
Phocas Changed Everything for US.
Comments: As I said in my Pros section, we are making data driven decisions now and our sales reflect that. Also, their customer service team is top notch and more on the ball than any other software company I have dealt with in recent years.
Pros:
Before we migrated over to Phocas we were using MITS which was very clunky and very slow. Because of these reasons most of us never really touched it. That meant that we weren't utilizing data when making decisions and more using our gut. Since implementing Phocas our decision making has been data driven and we are making smart choices and it shows in our sales.
Cons:
The only con I can think of had really nothing to do with Phocas. We had a rough time when we switched ERP systems. But the issue was with the ERP company and not Phocas.
Phocas
Comments: Overall we have had a positive experience with the software.
Pros:
Very intuitive to navigate and manipulate data. Reports are good.
Cons:
Have had some issues with the data syncing.
Phocas Review
Comments: It's been a overall positive experience so far. I hope to further my knowledge of Phocas and utilize more
Pros:
how many different reports you can run, it's endless
Cons:
Sometimes it is a little difficult to figure out how to run reports with the parameters you need
Great tool for inventory & sales management
Comments: Overall Phocas is a great tool for analyzing and comparing sales data, inventory analysis, and revenue tracking.
Pros:
The functionality to build custom reports with easy to choose options.
Cons:
At first it takes some use to familiarize with all of the options and choices, almost too many options, but once you get the hang of it, and save custom options it's great.
Without Phocas, I would lose my focus on productivity
Pros:
The ease of use and ability to drill down to the exact detail you are looking for. Also the quickness with which it sorts and organizes the information is a great feature of the software.
Cons:
At first, it seemed a little daunting, but the tutorials and guidance tools they provide allow the user to learn the ins and outs at a rapid pace
Simple to use Modern and up to date software
Pros:
This software is very easy to use and it helps me track what sales are most profitable. I would recommend it to anyone looking to grow their sales.
Cons:
Phocas is good but I think the pricing needs to be revised to accommodate small organisations and businesses
Phocas is a masterful piece of software
Comments: It's seriously good. Sometimes the customer service is slightly slow and I don't always hear back straight away but in the main it's good!
Pros:
Phocas is one of the best CRM / data analyst tools in the market for people selling multiple product lines to multiple customers. The ability to track and measure the success of individual products and product groups to a selection of customers or sectors is absolutely brilliant!
Cons:
The software is slightly clunky still and would benefit from more work on the ease of use side, ie. a better search function
Phocas Software Response
2 years ago
Hi Tyler, thanks for taking the time to leave a review. It's great to hear that you're able to slice and dice your product and customer data to your heart's content! Our team is always working hard to respond quickly whenever you need us, so please let us know if you have anything in particular that isn't quite right: [email protected] Warm regards, Mike Hills Global Head of Customer
Phocas is a necessity!
Comments:
Fantastic. [SENSITIVE CONTENT], our Customer Success Consultant is amazing. She's readily available and knows exactly what she is doing. Their support staff is also very accommodating and knowledgeable. We've dealt with other software companies and they take their time and treat you like they don't need your business and
over charge for routine services. Phocas is a true partner. A couple projects that were able to be successful with the use of Phocas is: Customer Stratification, Gap Analysis, Daily Inventory Analysis (Which was huge for this last year) and our Dead Stock process.
Pros:
The ease of use. As an admin of Phocas, it was very easy to get our staff onboarded and very comfortable with day to day usage. If the staff isn't going to use the tool, then it's worthless no matter how great the data is.
Cons:
Phocas is great at listening to our issues and roll out timely updates to add new features or fix issues.
Johnstone Supply - Las Vegas - Why Phocas has increased our productivity!
Comments: Overall we are very happy with this product. It has opened the door for getting information to our teams much faster and it also created a new full time position for data analysis! The flexibility of being able to create our own databases, & adding to existing databases has increased our ability to share information to our teams in a easy to view format instead of sending spreadsheets that some people did not look at.
Pros:
It is very easy to use! I can show someone the basics in 5 to 10 minutes and they are off and running creating favorites and dashboards. The software is updated every month and their support and documentation is outstanding. The product gives us the information we need faster than doing it in our ERP system. With a couple of clicks you can analyze you sales data and then quickly change views to look at the data in a completely different way. It very robust in all the options you have. The company is developing based on their customer needs, you can tell that they all want to help us achieve success with this product.
Cons:
This is hard to say because their are few cons. We have requested enhancements and we have some support issues that are submitted. But we have no visibility , (web portal), to review what we already submitted. It would be nice to have a support portal to check open cases and enhancements we have submitted.
Happy PHOCAS User
Comments: I speak for all at 3E when I say this product is used daily and relied upon to be the source of good data for analytics from our ERP System.
Pros:
Ease of use. Depth of its capabilities. Intuitive - Minimal Training needed for general user.
Cons:
I wish I had more time to learn the product backend features.
Powerful tool for all level of users!! Simple, Intuitive, and Flexible!
Comments: Very user friendly, lots of learning opportunities, great customer support, very intuitive.
Pros:
I love the ability to customize your data. I can run a high level report to summarize data another employee may need and with a few clicks can drill down to the details needed to create a more in-depth analysis of the data. I also love the flexibility of changing views, measures, dates, etc. with ease without starting from scratch.
Cons:
I honestly can't think of anything I don't like. Customer Service in very customer-centric and work to use feedback to always make improvements.
Good BI Tool, Not Great
Comments: Good, basic BI tool that can give sales teams good information to understand their customers and opportunities to grow sales and margins.
Pros:
Easy to pull in our ERP data. Good to summarize trends and KPI metrics. Matrix feature is great to find correlated products "like" customers aren't buying. Ability to filter (called "Focus") on a dimension and all of the widgets within the dashboards will update to just show the info relative to that filter. Ability to quickly change dimensions and measures to show information in different ways. The customer service department is awesome - will help whenever and however they can.
Cons:
Custom calculations are hard to use. Graphing tools are not robust (i.e. no data labels, data tables, combo charts are limited, etc.) Needs an additional user license that fits in between the Viewer and Full Licenses to give additional user features like exporting, but not the ability to design dashboards. Formatting and sorting the data is below average. The back-end Designer tool takes awhile to master. Wish there was a handbook or instructions on how to use the different features of the software.
Phocas is a very robust BI tool that has a lot to offer.
Comments: Phocas gives us visibility into many aspects of our business. I need to carve out more time to learn and become comfortable with Phocas. Our sales teams loves being able to easily pull data regarding customers.
Pros:
Easy to implement. The support is great.
Cons:
It's difficult to learn and remember how to do things.
Comprehensive Reporting & Business Building Tool
Comments: My overall experience with Phocas has been excellent, we use the system to monitor growing and declining sales to protect out business and easily identify buying gaps to help increase sales.
Pros:
Ease of use, speed of reporting and level of detail available that can be accessed. Automated reporting saves a lot of time. Support from the account managers when required is excellent.
Cons:
Sometimes some of the functionality could be improved further to allow more flexibility. An example here would be multiple options for subscriptions i.e. a weekly report that you could also set to receive at monthend without the need to create a new favourite. Nest function is a fantastic addition to the functionality but due to the way Phocas works you have to start at the bottom layer of data then build layers above.
Fast USer Adoption
Pros:
The software is easy to use and implement. User adoption was very fast. I like that you can quickly and easily build your own database in Designer without an IT resource.
Cons:
If the data could be real time instead of on sync
Easy to use
Pros:
building dashboards is easy, building reports (favorites) is easy.
Cons:
The data. Just like any other reporting software. If you don't have a good structured dataset (source files) then it makes it harder. That's not a bad thing about THIS software, though ;)
Feedback
Comments: Its been nicer to have all the information shown in 1 spot in a easy to read format, still has some areas that could be developed more and make it clearer to navigate through all the information available.
Pros:
The charts and graphs are easy to read and understand
Cons:
Its hard to navigate drilling down into the sub category's to sort information.
Analytics in today's business environment
Comments: My overall experience with Phocas has been good from the start. They are prompt in with a response when you have an issue and will help you get the results you are looking for when utilizing custom searches and in-depth calculations.
Pros:
Phocas is incredibly easy to use and helps you dig into an type of business analytics you can think of for your business.
Cons:
There are not many of CONS that I have with Phocas, but the biggest issue I have is the lack of graphics for dashboards and the ability to truly customize those graphics. Also, the graphics can be a little quirky at times.
Excellent Business Intelligence
Comments: Managing a sales force performance is key and the data provided by Phocas allows quick and easy benchmarking. There is also a superb level of output for the sales force to use to be better account managers and category champions.
Pros:
The ability to dive into category data, and split by customers, customers groups, date ranges, sales rep, is excellent. Also the ability to present customers purchasing data to them via matrix reports and charts is very impressive.
Cons:
Writing custom reports is a great feature but can be tricky if you don’t do it very often.
Extremely User-Oriented
Comments: Outstanding and user friendly
Pros:
The ability to view our sales data in a easily consumed and manipulated form is invaluable.
Cons:
The only unpleasant aspects about the software is certain data can only be accessed if provided from a third party agency. In this particular situation, you aren't dealing with Phocas' excellent service team and might have to wait longer periods of time to get what you want.