# SimpleApps > SimpleApps builds custom and e-commerce websites, mobile apps, and other integrations for Prophet 21, Epicor's ERP for wholesale distribution. > URL: https://www.simpleapps.com/ --- ## SimpleApps: Websites, Mobile Apps, and AI for Prophet 21 URL: https://www.simpleapps.com/ Prophet 21 runs your business, but it was not built for websites, mobile apps, or AI integration. Our Augur Microservices are the integration layer that keeps what we build in step with Prophet 21. That means customer-specific pricing on a website, stock by location in a warehouse app, and new orders landing back in Prophet 21. We build all of that on our platform, and other developers can build on it too. The Augur Platform Augur Hosting Prophet 21 e-commerce and custom websites. The site keeps item details and stock levels current, and each customer can see their own pricing, orders, quotes, and invoices. It imports new orders into Prophet 21 for review. Visit our hosting showcase. Augur Microservices Our own services and APIs are the integration layer behind every site and app we build. They work whether Prophet 21 runs on-prem or on Epicor Cloud. When something does not fit, we extend a service or add one. Other developers can build on them too. Augur Mobile Sometimes you need an app for that. Native apps for the warehouse and the field: barcode scanning and order entry. All on the same integration layer. Augur Intelligence Connecting Prophet 21 to AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT. Ask what's on backorder, which accounts have slowed down, or when an order shipped. The answers come from Prophet 21 data. From SimpleWeb to Augur We have worked with Prophet 21, and the distributors who run it, for over 25 years. We built SimpleWeb, our e-commerce platform, in 2011, and rebuilt the back end as Augur Microservices in 2021. Augur Hosting and Augur Mobile followed. Augur Intelligence, launched in 2026, connects Prophet 21 to AI. --- ## Augur Hosting: Prophet 21 E-Commerce Websites | SimpleApps URL: https://www.simpleapps.com/augur-hosting/ Augur Hosting: E-commerce websites for Prophet 21 distributors Augur Hosting is a full e-commerce website for Prophet 21 distributors, built and hosted by SimpleApps. The site syncs items, pricing, and orders from P21, so it shows each customer the same numbers the ERP would. SimpleApps builds it for how distributors sell. Logged-in accounts get real customer pricing, and reps can shop on behalf of an account. It includes fast reordering, will call, and a self-service view of orders and invoices. One site can serve both anonymous shoppers and logged-in B2B accounts. What's built in Prophet 21 integration Items, pricing, inventory, and orders, all in step with Prophet 21. Customer pricing Each logged-in customer gets their own pricing, based on contracts or price libraries. Quantity breaks and units of measure included. Account portal A self-service view of order and invoice history, tracking, and balances. Rep tools Reps and inside staff shop on behalf of a customer, with that customer's pricing and limits. Fast reorder Saved carts, favorites, and scan-to-cart for reps restocking in the field. Quotes The site creates quotes, or imports them from Prophet 21. Either loads into the cart for checkout. Search Product search ranked by each site's Prophet 21 data and tuned for each site's needs. Checkout Tax and shipping estimates, plus payment on terms or by card with Element/WorldPay, UnifiedAR, and others. Card data never touches the site: the card provider tokenizes payments and holds the data. Stock levels Stock by location, synced from Prophet 21 and kept current. Multi-site One Prophet 21 back end drives one website or several, each with its own brand and its own items. Every distributor combines these features differently. The showcase covers the range: sites from mostly B2C to strictly B2B, with P21 on-prem and in the cloud. Fast, and easy to find We use Google's Core Web Vitals as a guide to help improve performance and usability, so every site works on any phone, tablet, or laptop. A rep at the counter or in the field pulls up an item, and it is right there, even as the item count grows. For sites that sell to the public, every product and category page renders as real HTML on a clean URL, with its own title, metadata, and product structured data. Search engines and AI assistants can read every item. When an existing site moves onto Augur Hosting, its link structure and search standing are part of the plan. Google Analytics and other tracking are set up as part of the service, e-commerce conversion tracking included. It all runs in the distributor's own accounts, and the data is theirs. The distributor or their agency can add their own tags, pixels, and Search Console verification. Built on our integration layer Every site runs on Augur Microservices, the integration layer behind our custom sites and API clients. It stays in sync with P21 whether Prophet 21 runs on-prem or in Epicor Cloud. Because these are our own APIs, the Prophet 21 APIs are not required. Custom sites Not every Prophet 21 project is an e-commerce site. We also build custom sites and apps on the same integration layer, connected to P21 but built for a different job than selling online. Internal tools, workflow apps, and integrations between Prophet 21 and other systems. Built, hosted, and supported like the e-commerce sites. We build it, and keep it running Design control stays fully with the distributor: an existing design, or one created together with SimpleApps. We build the site to match, wire it into P21, and host it. Timelines follow size and scope: most builds run three to eight months, and the longest run about a year, usually when item data needs gathering and categorizing first. New items sync from the ERP. Item content the ERP does not hold, like attributes and images, lives on the platform. Day-to-day content can go a few ways: some keep it in-house, some hand it to their SEO or marketing agency, and others leave it to us. Most updates are self-serve: uploading images, changing copy, and adding coupon codes need no ticket. The team helps whenever asked. When a site needs a tool that does not exist yet, we build it. These sites are mission-critical. When one has a problem, a person answers, by phone, chat, or text, and we drop what we are doing until we fix it. See one working The showcase sites are open to browse anytime. A short demo goes further: a walk through a working site, logged in, from customer-specific pricing to a finished order. Request a demo --- ## Augur Hosting Showcase: Prophet 21 Sites | SimpleApps URL: https://www.simpleapps.com/augur-hosting/showcase/ Augur Hosting Showcase American Products, Inc. ↗ Hardwood flooring and supplies: finishes, adhesives, equipment, and abrasives. Mostly B2C. Organic search drives most of its traffic. Card payments through UnifiedAR. Prophet 21 runs on-prem. A client since 2015. Olander ↗ Fasteners since 1962: Heli-Coil inserts, sockets, machine screws, and hardware. A mix of B2B and B2C. Card payments through Element/WorldPay. Prophet 21 runs in the cloud, hosted by Echopath. A client since 2020. Direct Supply Inc ↗ Surface materials, cabinetry hardware, and fabrication tools and supplies. A mix of B2B and B2C. Card payments through UnifiedAR. Prophet 21 runs in the Epicor Cloud. A client since 2023. Fittings Unlimited ↗ Hydraulic and pneumatic fittings and adapters, over 35,000 items. Strictly B2B, and more than 60% of its sales now come through the site. Prophet 21 runs in the Epicor Cloud. A client since 2024. Tires4That.com, Inc. ↗ Niche and specialty tires, wheels, inner tubes, and accessories for agricultural, construction, industrial, and recreational equipment. Mostly B2C. EstesGroup hosts Prophet 21. A client since 2019. Spec-Tech Industrial Electric ↗ Industrial controls and electrical components: level controls, HMIs, PLCs, transformers, contactors, drives, and process controls, from over 50 manufacturers. A mix of B2B and B2C. EstesGroup hosts Prophet 21. A client since 2019. Have a Prophet 21 project in mind? Get in touch. --- ## Augur Mobile: Prophet 21 Mobile Apps | SimpleApps URL: https://www.simpleapps.com/augur-mobile/ Augur Mobile Augur Mobile is a line of custom native apps for Prophet 21 distributors. SimpleApps builds each one for a specific job, not off the shelf. One might be a mobile commerce app that runs alongside the website, another a tool for the warehouse and the field. Either way, the app puts P21 within reach on a phone or tablet. Built for the job There is no standard feature set. These are some of the jobs an app might take on. Mobile commerce A shopping and reorder app that runs alongside the website, on the same customer pricing. Barcode scanning Scan an item to look it up, add it to an order, or count it. Works at receiving, at the counter, or on the shelf. Item lookup An item's price and on-hand across every branch, from anywhere on the floor. Order entry Take an order on the spot, on real customer pricing, from the counter or the field. Rep ordering An outside rep places orders as a customer through impersonation, with that account's pricing and limits. Receiving Check in a purchase order against what arrived, and flag what does not match. Offline Keep scanning and counting where the signal drops, then sync when the connection is back. Built on our integration layer Every app runs on Augur Microservices, the integration layer behind our websites and custom sites. The apps stay in sync with P21 whether Prophet 21 runs on-prem or in Epicor Cloud. Most of what an app does runs on our own APIs, so the Prophet 21 APIs are not required. A few features that write back into Prophet 21, such as cycle counts and receiving, use the Prophet 21 APIs and need them in place. We build it, and keep it running We build the whole app with React Native, so one codebase runs on iPhone and Android. SimpleApps publishes and maintains it in the App Store and Google Play, keeping it working as P21 and the app platforms change. Or, if a distributor has their own app developer, that developer can build on the same Augur Microservices APIs we do. Have a Prophet 21 project in mind? Get in touch. --- ## Augur Microservices: Prophet 21 Integration APIs | SimpleApps URL: https://www.simpleapps.com/augur-microservices/ Augur Microservices The Augur Microservices are our integration layer between Prophet 21 and the internet. They are the same APIs behind every e-commerce website, custom site, mobile app, and system-to-system integration we build. Any developer can build on them too. Because these are our own APIs, the Prophet 21 APIs are not required. When a distributor already has them, we can use them for a few extra features. Each service covers one data domain (items, pricing, inventory, customers, orders) and keeps that data in step with P21. Some power the commerce flow behind an e-commerce site: item details, inventory levels, customer pricing, cart, checkout, shipping and tax estimates, and payments. Finished orders land back in P21 ready for review. Others run server to server, syncing the same data with outside systems, no user in the mix. Beyond the core domains, integration services push items and inventory out to channels like Amazon and Google Merchant Center, and SimpleApps builds custom services to fit a single client's requirements. Whatever sits on the other end, we handle the P21 side. We have done that work since our first API in 2013. That holds whether Prophet 21 runs on-prem or in the Epicor Cloud. The services Items Every item and its inventory: attributes, variants, units of measure, and current stock by location. Customers Accounts, contacts, and ship-to addresses, kept in step with Prophet 21. Orders After the sale: order and invoice history, tracking, returns, and balances customers log in to see. Pricing Each customer's real Prophet 21 price (contracts, price libraries, and company defaults), calculated the way P21 would. Commerce The buying flow: cart and checkout, from first click to placed order. Reps can place orders as a customer through impersonation. Payments Card processing through Element/WorldPay, UnifiedAR, and others. Card data never touches the site. Logistics Live shipping rates from FedEx, UPS, and freight carriers. Search Product search, tunable to push the bestsellers to the top. Data Import Back-office imports into Prophet 21 through SISM, not only new web orders. Augur Microservices validates and cleans them before they land. Built to extend Because we own the integration layer, we can shape it to the need. When something does not fit the services as they stand, we extend one or add a new service. Two ways to use them We build it → The website, the logins, and the checkout are already built. We build the site on these services and keep it running. Developers build on them ↗ Prefer a custom front end on WordPress, Magento, or anything else? Any developer can build on the same APIs we do: every call requires an authenticated token we issue, scoped to that client's own data. Full developer docs live at augur.build. Have a Prophet 21 project in mind? Get in touch. --- ## Augur Intelligence: Prophet 21 AI Connector | SimpleApps URL: https://www.simpleapps.com/augur-intelligence/ Augur Intelligence: AI connector for Prophet 21 Augur Intelligence connects Prophet 21 to AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT. A question asked in plain language, the way it would be put to a coworker, comes back answered from the data in P21. There is no SQL to write and no report to wait on. A five-minute question often waits two days until the one person who knows where to look can get to it. Asked here, Augur Intelligence answers it in minutes, read from P21 itself. What it does today Plain-language queries A question in plain English, answered from hundreds of Prophet 21 tables. It finds the right fields and joins on its own. Inventory and run rate On-hand, allocated, and available by location, with run rate over any window. It can flag one branch running short while another sits on months of stock, and suggest a transfer. Suggested buy Recent demand against what is on hand and on order, sorted by priority, so the next purchase order starts with what matters most. Orders and quotes History by customer, item, and date. Which quotes never became orders, which accounts have slowed down, how one quarter compares to the last. Customer and contract pricing What a customer pays for an item, from the same contracts, price libraries, quantity breaks, and company defaults Prophet 21 uses. Contract prices included, with the dates they run between. Reports and dashboards Any answer becomes a chart, an Excel export, or a dashboard the assistant builds from the conversation and refreshes on demand. Service history from a photo A photo of a service tag, read on the spot. It pulls the serial number and returns the full service history from Prophet 21. On the desk or the floor SimpleApps hosts the connector, so the same questions work from a laptop at a desk or a phone in the warehouse. Read-only by design It reads Prophet 21 and never changes it. A suggested buy or transfer is a recommendation for a person to act on, not something it places. Past the chat window An answer does not have to stop at the screen. A distributor can save a question and ask it again next week against a different customer or item. Dashboards and in-house tools can pull the same numbers from Prophet 21 at the moment they ask for them. Some distributors work this way now: they ask their way to the right answer once, then put it behind something their own team uses daily. What people ask it Real questions, asked in plain language: What should I be ordering today for location 100? Give me the run rate for this item at each location over the past 90 days. Which customers received a quote for this item but never ordered it? Which accounts haven't purchased in the past six months? List the customers on credit hold with their year-to-date sales. How many orders have closed each week since the first of the year? Which items should I be cycle counting more often? Give me the service history of this item. (with a photo of the tag) How it works Augur Intelligence is a connector between an AI assistant and P21. The assistant works out what to ask, a dedicated query server pulls the matching data, and the answer comes back in plain language. That query server reads the live production Prophet 21 database directly. It uses the same connection path into Prophet 21 that Augur Microservices uses for our websites and apps, from a single static IP. Each query pulls only the data a question needs, so it stays light on the database. The query server enforces that, not the AI: it refuses a query that would run too long or return too much. And the query server retains nothing: data passes through to the assistant and is not stored, for any reason. Querying a production system is where care matters most, so the query server is read-only at the database level. That will never change. It works the same on-prem or in the Epicor Cloud, where Epicor grants read-only access on request. Because the read side never touches the Prophet 21 APIs, those APIs are not required to ask questions. The assistant writes its own queries, so it is not limited to a fixed set of screens or reports. Why that matters. Bring your own intelligence The AI is the distributor's own, and so is the data relationship. With a Claude or ChatGPT subscription, the agreement already in place with that provider governs data handling. With a local model, the AI runs on the distributor's own hardware. Either way, Augur Intelligence is the connection to P21, and the assistant does the work. The assistant is the intelligence. When a better model ships, the same connection uses it. Nothing changes on the distributor's side. Where it's headed Augur Intelligence is live today and in active development. Right now it answers freely across the business, so it goes to the owners and C-suite who are already trusted with the whole picture. A dedicated user list gates connecting: only users a distributor has created can reach it at all. SimpleApps is building the access controls to open this up to more of the team, targeted for the second half of 2026. The limits live in the query server, not the AI, so a person only gets back what their role allows, no matter how they ask. Once those controls land, any user a distributor approves can have it. After that comes the agentic side: careful write-back into P21. It happens one step at a time, and a person always approves the change. SimpleApps is targeting the first of these for late 2026. Those changes go through the Prophet 21 Entity APIs and follow Epicor's standards for updating the ERP, so they will need those APIs in place. Reading never will. “Augur Intelligence has provided unparalleled visibility to my P21 data without customizing on my own. Basically, it puts the power of Claude behind your P21 data without costly customized integrations, portals or dashboards.” Michelle Timmerman President, Direct Supply Inc “Augur is why a customer’s 8am web order is on our purchasing buy list by 9, with nobody typing it twice.” Jacob Turner IT Manager, American Products, Inc. “We’ve taken thousands of manual spreadsheets going back more than 15 years, legacy ERP data, and customer and vendor catalogs and turned them into a massive part-number cross-reference that our team can actually use.” Shawn Graves Director of Sales and Marketing, Fittings Unlimited See it in action Some of this sounds too good to be true. That is fair, so see it rather than take our word for it. A short demo runs Augur Intelligence against a real Prophet 21 database, working through real questions, so the answers are real. Recorded videos each cover a different area, start to finish. Request a demo --- ## Augur Intelligence Videos: Prophet 21 AI Demos | SimpleApps URL: https://www.simpleapps.com/augur-intelligence/videos/ Augur Intelligence Videos Each video is a real walkthrough against a real Prophet 21 database, not a rehearsed ad. The questions get asked the way they would on an actual call, typos included, and every answer comes straight from the data, not a script. 6:31 This video could not be loaded. Please try again. A Capabilities Overview A live walkthrough against a real client's Prophet 21 database, using Claude Desktop connected through Augur Intelligence. It lists companies, finds items by a term buried in the item description rather than a fixed field, and checks inventory availability by location, returning on-hand, allocated, and available-to-sell together. Asked for weekly order volume on an item, it also splits out e-commerce orders from other order types and charts the result. The videos show what Augur Intelligence can do. If a specific question is not covered yet, ask, and we will record a video that answers it. Whether it fits any particular Prophet 21 need is a live conversation, not a recording. Request a demo --- ## Augur Intelligence: Built Into Prophet 21, Not Bolted On | SimpleApps URL: https://www.simpleapps.com/augur-intelligence/not-bolted-on-ai/ Augur Intelligence reads Prophet 21 directly, not through a bolted-on layer Vendors bolt most AI features onto the product's own screens and reports. For software built to serve many kinds of businesses, that is a reasonable tradeoff. A question one screen already answers comes back fast. A question that spans two or three screens does not. The assistant sees only what each screen shows. Augur Intelligence reads the Prophet 21 database directly, the same live production database behind every screen. It does not matter whether the numbers a question needs live on one screen or several. If the data connects, the assistant can follow it. One question, not one screen “Which customers received a quote for this item but never ordered it?” Distributors ask that one. Answering it means comparing who got a quote against who placed an order, for the same customer and item. Prophet 21 has a screen for quotes and a screen for orders, not one for the difference between them. An assistant limited to a fixed set of screens and reports needs a new report built for a question like that. Asked of Augur Intelligence, it is one question and one answer, read from P21 itself. Reaching what a screen never had to show Prophet 21 lets distributors customize screens, but no screen or report can expose every field in the database. Screens and reports get built for specific jobs, not as a complete window into everything P21 stores. Some data exists only in the database itself, outside every screen, report, and export. An assistant built on those screens and reports inherits the same limit: if none of them was ever built to show a field, the assistant cannot show it either. Reading the database directly does not carry that ceiling. If the data is there, a distributor can ask Augur Intelligence about it, including data nobody thought to put on a screen. Reaching more data does not mean reaching it without limits: only the users a distributor approves can connect. Why this is possible SimpleApps builds only for Prophet 21. Supporting one ERP makes a direct connection practical. A vendor built to serve many different kinds of businesses cannot safely open that kind of access once and trust it everywhere: every customer's setup is different enough that the same connection would need separate testing and trust for each one. A vendor built around a single system starts from a much smaller gap to close. Augur Intelligence connects straight to the Prophet 21 database. The connection is read-only: the assistant answers from the data and cannot change it. It works against live production data, not a copy. It does not pull from a fixed set of screens and reports; instead, it writes its own queries against the data. The Augur Intelligence page covers how the connection works. Direct without guessing Reading a database directly is not automatically more accurate than reading a screen. A screen already applies the business's own rules before it shows a number: what a status means, which values get excluded from a total, what a blank field stands for. An assistant that reads raw data without knowing those rules can return an answer that looks right and is not. The difference is experience. SimpleApps has spent years working directly in Prophet 21 databases. That experience, how a price gets calculated across contracts and price libraries, what a quote is versus what an order is, the conventions that make P21 what it is, is what goes into Augur Intelligence. It also means recognizing what is specific to one distributor, beyond what is standard across every P21 install: a distributor's own user-defined fields are read the same way, without being told about them in advance. Direct access without that experience would carry the same risk as any other raw connection. Built on it, the connection carries the rules a screen would have applied, so the assistant is not left to infer them. And it still reaches further into the data than a screen built for one purpose ever could. See a real question answered Recorded videos show Augur Intelligence answering questions like this one against a real Prophet 21 database, not a staged one. Request a demo Further reading: Semantic Layers for Reliable LLM-Powered Data Analytics, on how much business context changes the accuracy of AI systems that write their own database queries. --- ## What Is Prophet 21? Epicor's Distribution ERP | SimpleApps URL: https://www.simpleapps.com/prophet-21/ Prophet 21: Epicor's ERP for Wholesale Distribution Prophet 21, or P21, is Epicor's ERP for wholesale distribution. It is the system of record for pricing, inventory, purchasing, orders, and accounting. That covers the whole business, from the sales counter to the warehouse to the books. Distribution has different needs than manufacturing or retail. Those needs include high item counts, negotiated pricing, and inventory spread across multiple warehouses. Prophet 21 is built around exactly that cycle. It runs on-prem or in Epicor Cloud. What the Prophet 21 ERP system does Prophet 21's functional footprint centers on the distribution order cycle rather than production. Order management and pricing Quote-to-cash, counter sales, and customer-specific pricing are native to the system. So are contract pricing, rebates, quantity breaks, and price libraries. Price pages go into price books, and books into libraries. A book can belong to more than one library, and a library can hold more than one book. A distributor has to explicitly set a customer's pricing method to libraries for them to apply at all. Otherwise, they are ignored, no matter how many exist. An item can show up in more than one page, book, or library. A "use the lowest price" option can automatically resolve the lowest applicable price when that happens. Customer relationship management (CRM) Native CRM tools track prospects, customers, and contacts from first opportunity through quote to order. Contact records go beyond addresses and phone numbers. They also include buying-history patterns, communication logs, and a shared account view. It is aimed at distribution sales rather than a full enterprise CRM, and some distributors pair it with a dedicated CRM product. Inventory management Multi-warehouse stock control, replenishment, demand forecasting, unit-of-measure conversion, and lot and serial tracking. Warehouse management Directed receiving, put-away, picking, cross-docking, and cycle counting. Barcode and RF scanning are supported on the warehouse floor. Purchasing and procurement Supplier management, purchase order automation, landed-cost handling, and drop-ship support. Accounting and finance The general ledger, accounts payable and receivable, cash management, and financial reporting. This is standard ERP-level functionality rather than a distinguishing strength on its own. Service and maintenance Prophet 21 has a native Service and Maintenance module. It covers service quotes and orders, technician scheduling, preventive maintenance schedules, warranties, and service contracts. Reporting and dashboards Report Studio, built into Prophet 21, covers self-service reports and dashboards. Epicor Data Analytics and Epicor Grow provide the business intelligence layer. On the sales side, opportunity and pipeline reporting feed sales forecasts and rep dashboards. Platform, APIs, and Automation Studio Prophet 21 runs on Microsoft SQL Server. It has both a browser-based web client and an established desktop client. Functionality continues to move to the web client over time. DynaChange is the no-code customization layer: screen changes, user-defined fields, business rules, and portals, without touching code. Beyond that, Prophet 21 offers APIs and Automation Studio for low-code workflow automation. It also offers EDI connectivity for trading-partner transactions and e-commerce connectivity for B2B web portals. SISM, the Scheduled Import Service Manager, handles batched data loads on a schedule, such as EDI files, price updates, and invoice imports, with a review step before anything commits. The user community Distributors have an active independent user community to draw on. P21WWUG runs forums and an annual conference. Members trade practical, hard-won answers with each other there. What Prophet 21 is built for Prophet 21 is scoped to distribution, not every function a business might need. Field service is a partial exception. The Service and Maintenance module above covers service orders and warranty claims. Full mobile field-service management comes through Epicor Field Service Management instead. That includes a technician app, equipment tracking, and offline access. It is a separate Epicor product built to integrate with Prophet 21. Human resources and payroll functionality is limited compared to a dedicated HR system. Those needs are typically met with a separate add-on. Manufacturing functionality is intentionally basic. Prophet 21 is built around the distribution order cycle, not production. Industries and trades served Prophet 21 serves distribution trades like industrial, electrical, fasteners, fluid power, HVAC, and janitorial. It also serves medical supply, paper and packaging, PVF, plumbing, safety supply, and tile. These trades share a few things in common: high item counts, negotiated customer pricing, and stock spread across more than one warehouse. That is exactly the combination Prophet 21 is built around. A handful of adjacent trades also show up among Prophet 21 users. Those include marine supply, building materials, and welding and gas distribution. They appear less consistently than the core list above. Many distributors running Prophet 21 have under 50 employees and under $50 million in revenue. The installed base runs well past that too. It reaches distributors with hundreds of employees and well over $50 million in revenue. Deployment: on-premises or Epicor Cloud Prophet 21 runs either on-premises or on Epicor Cloud, hosted on Microsoft Azure. The two are not just a hosting difference. On the cloud version, direct database access goes to a separate, read-only copy kept in close sync, not the live production database itself. Writes have to go through Epicor's REST APIs instead of a direct database connection. That is a real architectural change from how integrations have traditionally connected to the system. Epicor has set a fixed timeline for the on-premises version. Release 2028.1, expected May 2028, is the final on-premises feature release. Active support continues through June 30, 2029. Full detail is covered on the Epicor Cloud page. How Prophet 21 compares to other ERPs Prophet 21 is a mid-market ERP built specifically for distribution. Broader platforms like NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and SAP also run distribution businesses on a general-purpose framework. Acumatica offers a distribution edition on its general platform. Infor CloudSuite Distribution is another distribution-specific ERP, the successor to Infor Distribution SX.e. Frequently asked questions What is Prophet 21? Prophet 21, or P21, is Epicor's ERP built specifically for wholesale distribution. It covers pricing, inventory, purchasing, orders, and accounting in one system. It runs either on-premises or in Epicor Cloud. Who makes Prophet 21? Prophet 21 is owned and sold by Epicor. Epicor acquired the company through its 2011 merger with Activant Solutions. Activant had acquired Prophet 21 in 2005. Prophet 21 itself was founded independently in 1967. Is Prophet 21 cloud-based? Prophet 21 runs either on-premises or on Epicor Cloud, hosted on Microsoft Azure. Epicor has set a fixed timeline for the on-premises version. After that, new Prophet 21 functionality ships to the cloud version only. What industries use Prophet 21? Prophet 21 serves distribution trades like industrial, electrical, fasteners, fluid power, HVAC, and janitorial. It also serves medical supply, paper and packaging, PVF, plumbing, safety supply, and tile. Does Prophet 21 have its own pricing engine? Yes. Contract pricing, rebates, and price libraries are handled natively. None of them needs a separate add-on. See Prophet 21 at Epicor ↗ Epicor Cloud for Prophet 21P21WWUG: the Prophet 21 community --- ## Epicor Cloud for Prophet 21: On-Premises Sunset | SimpleApps URL: https://www.simpleapps.com/prophet-21/epicor-cloud/ Epicor Cloud for Prophet 21 Epicor Cloud is Epicor's own hosting option for Prophet 21, run on Microsoft Azure. Epicor calls the architecture premium multitenant. Each distributor gets a dedicated Prophet 21 instance and its own SQL database. Shared services sit underneath that. Epicor provisions and manages the environment inside its own Azure subscription. A distributor is not managing Azure resources directly the way a self-hosted deployment would. This is different from a distributor or a hosting partner running Prophet 21 on Azure or AWS independently. That kind of third-party cloud hosting still counts as on-premises for Epicor's purposes. It is covered in more detail below. Only Epicor's own product is Epicor Cloud. On-premises, third-party hosting, or Epicor Cloud Prophet 21 can run in three different places today. Those are a distributor's own on-premises servers, Azure or AWS through a third-party hosting provider, or Epicor Cloud, Epicor's own managed offering. Only the third option is what Epicor means by Epicor Cloud. That distinction matters because of Epicor's on-premises sunset. Epicor has set 2028.1, expected in May 2028, as the final on-premises feature release of Prophet 21. Active support continues through June 30, 2029. After that date, on-premises installations move to sustaining support only, with no new releases, security updates, or compliance updates. See Epicor's announcement ↗ That sunset applies to perpetual license holders. It also applies to distributors hosted by unaffiliated providers, including Azure or AWS. Running Prophet 21 on Azure through a third party does not escape the deadline. Only migrating to Epicor's own Cloud product does. After 2028.1, new Prophet 21 functionality ships to Epicor Cloud only. What changes: database access and APIs This is the single biggest practical difference between on-premises Prophet 21 and Epicor Cloud. On-premises, direct SQL access to the database covers both reads and writes. That access has been the normal integration path for most of P21's history. On Epicor Cloud, a distributor gets a separate read-only copy of the production database for queries. It is kept in close sync but is not the live database itself. Anything that needs to write data has to go through Epicor's API layer instead. That API layer is not one API but several, each built for a different job. The Transaction API handles transactional data in bulk. The Entity API works on individual records. The Interactive API keeps session context the way a logged-in user would, so Prophet 21's own business rules apply. The Data Services API is read-only, built for reporting and exports. DynaChange and Web Visual Rules have their own SDKs for the customization layer itself. For integrations built around direct SQL access, moving to the cloud means rebuilding on whichever API fits the job. Not every existing tool has a cloud-supported equivalent, and some are replaced rather than ported. Cases like that are concentrated in distributors that have been on Prophet 21 the longest and accumulated the most custom code. Security and compliance Epicor states that Prophet 21 in the cloud has SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type II compliance reports available to customers, produced through annual third-party audits. Epicor also states it uses independent, certified third parties for routine cloud system testing, including regular vulnerability scanning and penetration testing. Azure itself is the underlying infrastructure. It supports a broad range of compliance standards, including HIPAA and ISO 27001. That is a statement about the platform Epicor builds on, not a P21-specific certification claim on its own. Public materials describe high availability and built-in disaster recovery in general terms. No specific uptime percentage, recovery time objective, or recovery point objective appears in them. Migrating to Epicor Cloud How long migration takes depends on how customized the existing installation is. Reported timelines run six months to a year for a standard configuration, and one to two years for installs with heavy customization. Specific migration guidance for a given distributor typically comes through Epicor's own account team or an implementation partner. There is no single fixed public playbook. Client-side hardware is worth planning for too. Practitioners on the Epicor User Help Forum report that front-counter machines that were adequate for an on-premises install can need more processor, memory, and solid-state storage for the browser-based cloud client. Cost model Epicor publishes no price list for Epicor Cloud. Third-party pricing research describes the cloud subscription as bundling hosting and updates into one fee, where on-premises and third-party-hosted deployments have hosting quoted separately from the software license. Updates and new features Epicor runs and maintains the servers on Epicor Cloud. Updates, patches, and new features roll out on Epicor's schedule, not a distributor's own IT team's schedule. Epicor describes the Cloud product as where it concentrates future Prophet 21 innovation. Frequently asked questions What is Epicor Cloud? Epicor Cloud is Epicor's own hosting option for Prophet 21, run on Microsoft Azure and managed by Epicor directly. Each customer gets a dedicated Prophet 21 instance and its own SQL database. Does hosting Prophet 21 on Azure through a third party count as Epicor Cloud? No. Epicor Cloud specifically means Epicor's own managed offering. Running Prophet 21 on Azure or AWS through an unaffiliated hosting provider still counts as on-premises for Epicor's purposes. That includes its on-premises sunset timeline. What happens to on-premises Prophet 21 after the sunset date? Epicor has set 2028.1, expected in May 2028, as the final on-premises feature release. Active support continues through June 30, 2029. After that, on-premises installations move to sustaining support only, with no new releases, security updates, or compliance updates. Can Epicor Cloud customers still access the database directly? Reads only. Epicor Cloud provides a read-only copy of the production database for queries, kept in close sync but not the live database itself. Writing data goes through Epicor's API layer instead of a direct database connection. Is Epicor Cloud compliant with security standards like SOC 2? Epicor states that Prophet 21 in the cloud has SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type II compliance reports available to customers, produced through annual third-party audits. Epicor also runs regular vulnerability scanning and penetration testing. How long does migration to Epicor Cloud take? It depends on how customized the existing installation is. Reported timelines run six months to a year for a standard configuration, and one to two years for installs with heavy customization. SimpleApps products connect to Prophet 21 whether it runs on-prem or in Epicor Cloud. That includes Augur Intelligence and Augur Microservices, our integration layer, which works with Prophet 21 on either deployment. Have questions about the difference between on-prem and Epicor Cloud? Get in touch. P21WWUG: the Prophet 21 community --- ## P21WWUG: The Prophet 21 Community | SimpleApps URL: https://www.simpleapps.com/p21wwug/ P21WWUG: The Prophet 21 Community P21WWUG, the Prophet 21 Worldwide User Group, is an independent, non-profit, member-run organization for distributors on Prophet 21. Its officers are volunteers who hold day jobs at member distribution companies, not paid outside administrators. It is not part of Epicor, though it works closely with Epicor's staff and leadership. Epicor itself sponsors the group's annual conference. Its stated purpose covers two things equally. Members help each other get more out of Prophet 21 directly. The group also keeps open, constructive communication with Epicor on behalf of the community as a whole. That way, no distributor is left to raise the same issue alone. See P21WWUG ↗ Membership and resources Membership works by company, not by individual seat. One annual membership covers every employee at that company. The company's primary contact manages who gets forum access. That access covers a working discussion forum where members troubleshoot day-to-day Prophet 21 problems and business practices together. It also covers a shared library of Crystal Reports and SQL queries other members have already built. A report or query one distributor spent hours getting right does not have to be rebuilt from scratch by the next. The group's own archive of member discussion dates back to 2001. Members also get live and recorded webinars through the year, plus seven regional chapters that meet regularly. The chapters span Lake Erie, Lake Michigan, the Midwest, New England, the Southeast, the Ohio Valley, and Canada. Chapter meetings mix informal user discussion with vendor presentations. They are closer to home and more frequent than the annual conference. CONNECT CONNECT is the group's annual conference, organized by and for its own members rather than by Epicor or any single vendor. Sessions are taught by members, Epicor staff, and outside specialists. They cover everything from peer troubleshooting to Epicor's own roadmap and cloud migration strategy. Attendees come from every part of a distribution business, not just IT. Accounting, sales, inventory, purchasing, warehouse, management, and ownership all show up alongside systems staff. The session tracks are built to match, down to sessions designed for first-time attendees. The conference moves around the country each August. Dallas hosted in 2023, Chicago in 2024, and Dallas again in 2025. Most recently, CONNECT 2026 ran August 16-19 in Orlando. Why members stay involved A pricing question, a stuck import, or an unfamiliar report is rarely unique to one company. The forum, the file library, the regional chapters, and CONNECT all exist for that reason. Each puts a distributor in front of someone who has already worked through the same problem and is willing to share the fix. That peer-sourced model does not replace Epicor's own support. It fills the gap between a support ticket and a working answer, moving at the speed of the community rather than a ticket queue. Frequently asked questions What is P21WWUG? P21WWUG, the Prophet 21 Worldwide User Group, is an independent, non-profit organization run by and for companies on Prophet 21. It is not part of Epicor. Is P21WWUG affiliated with Epicor? No, it is fully independent of Epicor. It does work closely with Epicor's staff and leadership, and Epicor itself sponsors the group's annual conference. How is P21WWUG membership structured? Membership is by company, not by individual seat. One membership covers every employee at that company. What is CONNECT? CONNECT is P21WWUG's annual conference, organized by its own members. Sessions are taught by members, Epicor staff, and outside specialists. They cover everything from day-to-day troubleshooting to Epicor's product roadmap. What does P21WWUG membership include? Membership includes a discussion forum, a shared library of Crystal Reports and SQL queries, and live and recorded webinars. It also includes seven regional chapters that meet regularly and the annual CONNECT conference. Who runs P21WWUG? P21WWUG is run by volunteer officers, not by paid outside administrators. The officers hold day jobs at member distribution companies. Visit us at CONNECT SimpleApps has been sponsoring CONNECT since 2009. Sponsoring is one way to return a little of what the community has given us over the years. Prophet 21 is the only ERP we work with. This is not one conference among many for us. Showing up in person, every year, is part of how relationships get built and kept over time. The conversations at the booth tend to be less about a pitch and more about a specific problem. It might be an integration that behaves oddly after an upgrade, or a workflow a distributor has not automated yet. It might be a question about what changes once Prophet 21 moves to the cloud. That is the same reason the wider community keeps showing up year after year. It is the reason we do too. We will be back at the next CONNECT. Stop by our booth and say hello. Epicor Cloud for Prophet 21 --- ## About SimpleApps: Working with Prophet 21 Since 2000 URL: https://www.simpleapps.com/about/ About SimpleApps SimpleApps is a Prophet 21 integration provider. For wholesale distributors who run Prophet 21, we build the custom and e-commerce websites, mobile apps, and other integrations that sit on top of it, and we keep them running. We have worked with Prophet 21 since 2000, over 25 years. Our first e-commerce site went live in 2008, our own platform, SimpleWeb, in 2011, and our own API in 2013. In 2021, we rebuilt the back end as Augur Microservices, our integration layer between P21 and the internet, and in 2023 we launched Augur Hosting on top of it. See the showcase for a range of live sites. Augur Mobile followed, and in 2026 we launched Augur Intelligence, which lets AI assistants answer questions from Prophet 21 data. We are now moving every SimpleWeb site onto Augur Hosting. Prophet 21 is a deep system, built to run a distribution business. We know how it behaves, down to the parts that only surface under a real item count and real order volume. One example: we reimplemented the full Prophet 21 pricing calculation, contracts, price libraries, and company defaults, so a web page shows the same numbers P21 would, at web speed. Prophet 21 should be the source of authority for as much data as possible. Some data cannot go in Prophet 21, such as item attributes, so we extend our systems to carry what a client needs beyond it. Security has been a discipline here since we launched SimpleWeb in 2011. Anything that touches a live ERP gets locked down first and opened up deliberately. We work with a wide range of distributors. Our focus is narrow: Prophet 21, and how it connects to customers, vendors, and other systems. That work runs from full e-commerce websites to custom apps that pull Prophet 21 data, like internal tools or dashboards. What we build stays with us to host and support. Some distributors hand the whole thing over; others build their own front end on our APIs and lean on us for the P21 side. Have a Prophet 21 project in mind? Get in touch. --- ## Contact SimpleApps URL: https://www.simpleapps.com/contact/ Contact us Looking to see Augur Intelligence or Augur Hosting in action? This form is the fastest way to set up a demo, or reach out with a general question about a Prophet 21 project. Name Email Phone (optional) Message We try to respond within one business day. No drip campaign follows, only an answer. Send messageSimpleApps works exclusively with companies running Prophet 21. Or reach us directly Email: info@simpleapps.com Phone: (650) 394-7675 Mailing address: 1325 Howard Ave #146, Burlingame, CA 94010