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Case Study

How AD Member Central Pipe Had the Smoothest Epicor Eclipse Integration They've Ever Seen — In Under 4 Weeks

PVF (PIPE, VALVES & FITTINGS)

Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana

Epicor Eclipse

Central Pipe is a multi-location PVF wholesaler and proud member of Affiliated Distributors (AD), serving customers across Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Like most distributors their size, they run their business on Epicor Eclipse — and like most Eclipse shops, they've learned to be cautious when it comes to new software integrations.

That caution is earned. Anyone who's managed IT at a wholesale distributor knows the war stories: implementations that dragged on for months, integrations that never quite worked right, vendors who disappeared once the contract was signed. When Central Pipe evaluated Dill, Brittni Pittman — the company's Director of IT and the person who has overseen nearly every integration since 2014 — approached it the same way she approaches all of them: eyes open, expectations measured.

What happened next surprised her.

The Challenge

Eclipse Integrations Are Rarely Easy

Epicor Eclipse is the backbone of a large share of the PVF and HVAC distribution world. It's powerful, it's proven, and it's also notoriously difficult to integrate with outside systems. Central Pipe knew this better than most. Over the years, Brittni had managed integrations that were painful, slow, and required far more internal resources than anyone had anticipated.

When Central Pipe decided to add an online payment portal and AR automation, they needed a solution that could sync with Eclipse reliably — pulling invoices and customer data in, pushing payment records back out — without creating a second job for their team. They'd seen what a bad integration looked like. They weren't interested in another one.

They also knew their customers. PVF contractors and commercial buyers aren't going to navigate a clunky portal. If paying online is harder than dropping a check in the mail, they'll drop the check. The portal had to work simply and intuitively — or it wouldn't get used at all.

The Solution

Dill Handled the Heavy Lifting

From the moment Central Pipe began the implementation process, it was clear Dill operated differently than other software vendors.

"After we shared our business preferences, the Dill team handled nearly all of the integration," Brittni said. "We simply verified that balances matched as expected."

That's not how most implementations work. Typically, the distributor's IT team is in the thick of it — mapping fields, troubleshooting sync issues, running test after test. With Dill, Central Pipe's role was to review and confirm, not to build and fix.

The reason, Brittni found, was that Dill had done this before — specifically with Eclipse.

"The Dill team understands our ERP Epicor Eclipse more than a lot of other implementations that we've done," she said. "It easily syncs both ways. It's almost as if the Dill team are experts in Eclipse."

That depth of ERP knowledge isn't something you can fake. It's the difference between a vendor who has integrated with Eclipse a handful of times and one who has built a real practice around it. For Central Pipe, it meant the integration worked the way it was supposed to — and kept working.

The Results

Implementation: The Smoothest in 14 Years

Brittni Pittman has been managing software implementations at Central Pipe since 2014. In that time, she's seen the full range — from projects that went smoothly to ones that went sideways.

Dill was different from anything she'd experienced before.

"Implementation was wonderful. The Dill team was extremely helpful if we had issues. I've done a lot of different implementations before, and Dill by far was the smoothest and easiest one with our Epicor Eclipse ERP."

When Central Pipe prospects ask her directly about the Eclipse integration — as they sometimes do when evaluating Dill themselves — she doesn't hedge:

"I understand your concerns; we have also faced challenges with Eclipse integrations in the past. However, the integration with Dill was very easy. Having been involved in almost all our integrations since 2014, I can say Dill was by far the easiest."

Going live within weeks, not months, Central Pipe was able to start realizing value almost immediately — without pulling their IT team away from other priorities.

Customer Support: A Different Standard

For most software vendors, support means a ticketing system and a 48-hour response window. For Dill customers, it means something different.

"Customer support has been exceptional," Brittni said. "Every time we've reached out to the Dill team, we've gotten responses very quickly. I've never seen a turnaround like that."

It's not just speed. When Central Pipe has needed the system adjusted to fit the way they do business, Dill has delivered.

"Any time we have requested a tweak to match our business preferences, the team has handled it quickly and efficiently. They are consistently timely and precise in delivering what we need."

That last word — precise — matters. Getting a fast response is one thing. Getting the right answer fast is another. For a distributor running a complex, multi-location operation on Eclipse, imprecise support creates more problems than it solves. Central Pipe hasn't had that problem with Dill.

What Their Customers Think

For all the technical wins, the real test is whether the portal gets used — and whether customers like it.

At Central Pipe, the answer is yes on both counts.

"The feedback has been very positive," Brittni said. "Customers appreciate the ability to pay online via credit card or ACH. They particularly like the portal's functionality, which allows them to view invoices and choose to pay individually or by aging buckets. Customers also really like the transparency the portal gives them."

The ability to pay by aging bucket — selecting everything 30 days, everything 60 days, or just individual invoices — is the kind of feature that matters to commercial buyers managing multiple job accounts. It gives them control without adding complexity. And the transparency piece is significant: when customers can see exactly what they owe and when, the conversations that used to get adversarial become routine.

Conclusion

Central Pipe came into the Dill evaluation with reasonable skepticism — the kind any experienced IT director develops after years of managing software projects that promise more than they deliver.

What they found was a vendor that backed up its promises with results: an integration that actually worked with Eclipse, an implementation that was live in weeks, and support that's still responsive long after the contract was signed.

For other AD members running Eclipse who are weighing whether to add a payment portal or modernize their AR process, Brittni's experience speaks for itself.

"I've done a lot of different implementations before, and Dill by far was the smoothest and easiest one with our Epicor Eclipse ERP."

Ready to see how Dill integrates with your ERP? Get a demo at usedill.com/demo and go live in 2–4 weeks.