Yet another vendor of ERP software for mid-sized companies has launched a software-as-a-service (SaaS) version of its product, offering manufacturers an alternative to vendors such as SAP, Epicor, and QAD.

Three-year-old Acumatica said the new SaaS-based version of its ERP and CRM applications runs in Microsoft’s Windows Azure cloud computing development, hosting, and service management environment.

The subscription-based service includes financial management and CRM modules as well as a distribution management module that Acumatica launched in August. The distribution management product is an add-on module to the financial management suite for managing purchasing, ordering, tracking inventory, filling orders, and delivering customer support. The suite includes an inventory module, an order entry module, and a purchasing module.

The SaaS version of the Acumatica ERP offering is priced beginning at $984 per month for unlimited users if customers agree to a one-year pre-payment.

Included in the Acumatica SaaS offering are customization tools that allow users to build custom reports and dashboards, and to modify business logic, change workflows, and build new modules. Customizations are maintained separately from core applications, minimizing the impact of core upgrades and updates on the customizations.

The Acumatica offering also includes a migration service for customers that choose to switch between SaaS and on-premise implementations of the company’s applications.