Unleashed Alternative: Mintsoft Vs Unleashed
When looking for an Inventory Management System (IMS), The Access Group has two products which could be considered, Access Mintsoft and Access Unleashed. Unleashed is specifically an inventory management system, however, Mintsoft can be considered an Unleashed alternative due to its inventory management capabilities within the order fulfillment software.
What we'll cover
The two software options have some functionality in common, and both offer unique features specific to their user’s business operations. In this article we’ll explore both softwares in detail, including:
What is Mintsoft Software?
Access Mintsoft is a cloud-based order fulfillment software, encompassing order, inventory and warehouse management tools. Its features enable businesses to automate time-consuming tasks, from the moment a customer places an order through to when the order is en-route, providing the ability to fulfill and despatch orders with ease.
Who is Mintsoft for?
Mintsoft has been specially designed to suit any size of business that fulfils ecommerce orders to the end consumers; this includes:
- Online retailers
- Warehouses
- Fulfillment houses
- Distribution centres
- 3PLs
What is Unleashed Software?
Access Unleashed is a cloud-based inventory management software that gives product-based businesses control over their stock on any device, anywhere in the world. The features offered by Unleashed help businesses save time, unlock cashflow and boost performance by unifying all their buying, warehousing, sales & production processes.
Who is Unleashed for?
Unleashed is designed for businesses that want to have clarity on and manage all parts of their supply chain; specifically businesses such as:
- Assembly manufacturers
- Wholesalers
- Distributors
- Stock-holding businesses
Key Features of Mintsoft
1. Order Fulfilment Software
Mintsoft offers a full suite of features that pull together the full order fulfillment process. The system users can centralise order management to reduce manual workloads, use the inventory and warehouse management tools to ensure stock control and fulfillment operations such as picking and packing are optimised, alongside unlimited courier connections to facilitate speedy and cost effective shipping.
2. Ecommerce Integrations
Retailers and fulfillment centres, 3PLs and their clients can benefit from the ecommerce integrations within Mintsoft - there are over 67 shopping cart and marketplace connections available to centralise orders, with automatic order sync and order notifications.
Retailers fulfilling their own orders can save time by controlling all sales channels from one place, removing the need to manually check for orders and update stock levels. Fulfillment houses and 3PLs can use the client portal to see all of their clients orders in the same way, and utilise the portal to ensure clients can always see order status from order received to shipped.
3. Efficiency Modules
Mintsoft’s core functionality is powerful enough for any business to optimise fulfillment and improve profitability, and the additional modules available can add an extra layer of automation. For example:
Order Rules - This additional module allows you to set up custom rules and workflows against products, couriers and warehouses to further automate common actions, such as auto-holding orders, selecting couriers based on weight or dimensions and prioritising urgent orders.
Batch Scheduling - This module automates the process of scheduling orders for processing; it provides the functionality to create batch templates with differing rules, schedule batches to be processed at time intervals that suit you and automatically generate batches for picking and send them to Mintsoft mobile app users.
Key Features of Unleashed
1. Supply Chain Management
The key feature of Unleashed is entire supply chain management of your production, processes and stock control, including:
- Purchasing of materials
- Bills of materials management and production planning
- Inventory management
- Sales order management across multiple channels
- Accounting (by integration)
- Supplier management
By centralising control of your business operations, you can save time, reduce errors, boost performance and grow your profits.
2. B2B Ecommerce Platform
Unleashed provides users the option to build custom ecommerce stores, to display and sell products to their B2B customers; enabling customers to have a seamless experience when ordering products, removing manual order entry and reducing costly errors by automating the sales process.
The online store offers customers the ability to browse the product catalogue, view stock availability, place orders, pay via credit card, and check order statuses. The benefits of using the online store for your business include having a fully customised storefront to maintain brand consistency, individual customer management - for example, setting customised pricing per customer and managing their details, as well as setting freight charges based on geographic locations.
3. Business Intelligence Reporting
Unleashed has built-in reporting tools to enable you to get instant KPI tracking in real-time and keep on top of business performance across all of your processes. You can monitor and get insights into your data across the following areas:
- Customers
- Inventory
- Sales
- Purchasing
- Production
Unlocking these insights gives you the confidence in your numbers to make data-driven decisions as the data used is straight from Unleashed, key performance metrics are displayed in-app, and you can drill-down in to data sets and easily manipulate views to get the information you need.
4. Demand forecasting and inventory optimisation
Unleashed offers a market-leading demand forecasting and optimisation tool called Advanced Inventory Manager (AIM).
AIM uses data from within Unleashed to automatically right-size inventory levels, allowing you to avoid the twin perils of stock outs and overstocking. AIM users are able to significantly improve cash flow – and a further tool within the AIM module allows for rapid forecasting of future demand, in order to best plan inventory levels to match.
Features Unique to Mintsoft
There are many features that both Unleashed and Mintsoft offer, however, there are a few unique to Mintsoft, which makes it perfect for B2C order fulfillment.
For example, Mintsoft has the capability for retailers to manage their product listings across many popular marketplaces, as well as a Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) connection that allows you to view FBA orders, manage stock held at FBA facilities, raise Amazon-compliant replenishments and send orders for Amazon fulfillment from other sales channels, all from within the Mintsoft platform.
Mintsoft also has over 89 pre-built shipping and courier integrations, allowing businesses to choose the most cost effective and appropriate shipping for every order. This process can be automated to choose the correct shipping partner based on parcel dimensions, delivery location, urgency and contents. Additionally, if your delivery partner is not already an integration, the Courier API Connector service can help you to connect the system with your chosen couriers.
Features Unique to Unleashed
Both Mintsoft and Unleashed offer stock control and inventory management capabilities, however Unleashed is unique due to its ability to manage processes prior to the point of sale. You can take full control of the purchasing of stock and materials based on your bill of materials and the volume of finished goods required, production and assembly processes and track production costs.
As previously mentioned, Unleashed also offers the ability to build a custom B2B ecommerce platform to manage sales from both long-standing customers and one-off purchasers.
Unleashed has been built and designed with specific industries in mind, and is a great choice for any business in the following industries:
- Food & Drink
- Electronics
- Furniture & Home
- Building Materials
- Health & Medical
Mintsoft vs Unleashed: Pricing Comparison
Mintsoft and Unleashed both offer pricing on a monthly basis, while Unleashed also offers annual pricing at a discounted rate, and both have tiered pricing options to choose from, however the pricing structures do differ.
As both products are part of The Access Group, there are additional packages that will need to be purchased alongside the software, these include Customer Success Plans and on-boarding flight paths - the cost of these will vary depending on the level of service you choose and your business requirements.
Mintsoft Pricing
Mintsoft’s monthly tiered pricing is suitable for growing ecommerce and fulfillment businesses as the tiers are defined by monthly order volume, starting at £159 per month for retailers and £375 for warehouses and fulfillment houses. Additional modules such as order rules, batch scheduling and FBA are offered at additional cost. There is no limit on the number of users with any of Mintsoft’s pricing options.
Unleashed Pricing
Unleashed’s pricing structure is tiered based on the amount of user licences required, with packages starting at £249 per month for 3 users. As mentioned previously, Unleashed can be paid for monthly or annually, and extra user licences and add-ons are available at additional cost.
Can Mintsoft and Unleashed work together?
Mintsoft and Unleashed as stand-alone solutions offer great benefits and features; however if you need a selection of both of their capabilities, for example, production, B2B and B2C sales, and shipping, you may be wondering which would be best for your business.
Luckily, as both solutions are owned by The Access Group, the systems integrate with each other and work together, so you can have the best of both softwares.
An example use case of when you’d need both softwares is if you’re a business that manufactures or assembles products, and needs to import orders from both ecommerce sales channels for B2C sales and B2B wholesale orders for fulfillment, and despatching orders through outsourced shipping services.
In this example, Unleashed empowers your production, assembly, inventory and B2B sales needs, while Mintsoft collates ecommerce orders, fulfillment and shipping requirements.
By using both systems together, your business can sell on more channels, fulfil orders effectively, use data for reordering and assembling to replenish stock - all to work in a smooth and effective manner; reducing costs and manual intervention, and improving overall operational efficiency.
