The fifth annual Acumatica Summit Africa drew a record crowd of over 900 registrations for the event at the Sandton Convention Centre last week, where business and technology leaders came to discover the ERP leader’s latest innovations and roadmap.
AI-enabled enhancements featured prominently, as Acumatica executives showcased the new 2026 R1 release, which includes AI Studio, AI agents, more automation, an improved UI, enhanced Insight XL reporting for live Excel data integration and improved 360-degree dashboards.
Acumatica outlined its vision for the future of cloud ERP, in which practical, AI-first innovation produces real-world results for customers.
In his keynote address, Acumatica CEO John Case noted: “Acumatica is obsessed with the performance of our customers.”
To help enhance their performance, Acumatica believes in a very open platform and future-proof technology, he said.
Case noted that Acumatica focuses on the midmarket segment, with industry editions designed to support specific industry verticals including agriculture, the chemical sector, construction, education, energy and utilities, equipment rental, the food and beverage sector, government contractors, healthcare, non-profits, property management, telecommunications, transportation and travel and hospitality.
“We’ve designed Acumatica for maximum usability, along with hundreds of third parties who complete us,” he said. In addition, he emphasised that customers using Acumatica own their data, and that Acumatica has a complete security model. “We’re nimble, pragmatic, accountable and always act with integrity,” he said.
This has contributed to Acumatica’s explosive growth and the fact that over $500 billion was transacted within the Acumatica ecosystem last year.
New 2026 R1
Case highlighted Acumatica’s focus on AI: “Our AI strategy is AI that works for you, your role and your company. We have been integrating AI into Acumatica for two years now, with a whole wave of AI innovation yet to come. Our rallying cry is ‘building the future of business together', and AI is key to that.”
Bernard Ford, Regional Director at Acumatica Africa, added: “The Acumatica platform is perfectly suited to AI and puts AI first. The Acumatica system tells the story of how business outcomes were achieved and helps you predict the future.”
Sergey Marenich, Senior Director of Application Development at Acumatica, said the latest Acumatica 2026 R1 transitions ERP from a system of record to a system of intelligence by embedding AI across all modules.
One improvement he was particularly proud of was the more modern UI. “It was a huge project to change the UI layer. For the user, it means a better look and feel and less clicks. There is improved visibility and fewer surprises,” he said.
“We are provisioning users with more data at their fingertips,” he said. “Our strategy is to deliver future-proof, adaptable, industry specific and AI-first ERP.”
Acumatica awards
During Acumatica Summit Africa, top partners were also recognised. Brilliant Cloud was named Acumatica Africa’s Partner of the Year for Africa and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Champion of the Year; while AppSOLVE received the Growth Champion of the Year award and Nexsol won the Rookie of the Year award.
Customer of the Year was Dukathole, a brick and paver manufacturer. Dukathole migrated to Acumatica shortly before the pandemic, and the implementation proved so successful that the company's parent company, ChromTech Holdings, is set to go live with Acumatica across the entire group later this year.
The Acumatica Summit Africa was presented in partnership with Diamond Sponsor Nectari and Platinum Sponsors EWA, Yooz and Simplexity Payroll/HRM, as well as a number of gold sponsors and 30 independent software vendors exhibiting at the event.
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