This is not goodbye to Acumatica, but broadening my horizons.
ErpSeal.com is my focus going forward.
1. Introduction
2. Waxing Nostalgic
3. Lessons Learned
4. ErpSeal.com Moving Forward
This is my last post here on AugForums.com as I have made the difficult decision to stop contributing to this AugForums.com website.
The site will continue to be hosted here at AugForums.com, but there will be no further contributions to it.
My tim@augforums.com email address will not be going away, but you will notice that my replies will increasing come from my new tim@erpseal.com email address.
If you have an account on this site, you can still log in and access everything as usual, but the forums have been converted to read-only mode.
The recently created Discord Server (launched January 2026) which you can find at AugForums.com/Discord will remain active and this is the main way that I will participate in the Acumatica community moving forward.
Other than that, ErpSeal.com is my focus going forward.
ErpSeal.com is built from scratch for a new era, where I will serve the Mid-Market ERP community at large, not just the Acumatica ecosystem.
Acumatica will remain my focus when it comes to ERP details because Acumatica is the ERP that I know best, but I’m going to expand outside of my Acumatica comfort zone to address topics like Artificial Intelligence, Business Intelligence, and Business Process Improvement from an ERP-agnostic perspective.
If you want to learn more about ErpSeal.com and why I made the difficult decision to start from scratch on a new website, you can click here to jump to the bottom of this post
Waxing Nostalgic
But first let’s spend some time to wax nostalgic about the last 13 years.
This blog post marks the end of an era for me and it’s the last blog post that I will make here on AugForums.com.
The past 13 years have been a lot of fun and I’m full of gratitude.
I’m writing this in May 2026, but back-dating it a couple of weeks to April 30, 2026 so that it lines up exactly 13 years apart from the first blog post on this site from April 30, 2013, when I first sat down to install Acumatica.
Back in 2013, when I first sat down to install Acumatica on my computer, I thought to myself, “hey I should probably take some notes on this so I can refer back to them later.”
My first inclination was to open up a Word document and take my notes there, but I knew from experience that I would probably have trouble finding those notes later.
Nowadays we have LLM tools like ChatGPT that can search our private files and private content with ease, but back in 2013 the best thing that I knew of was a Google search. And a Google search was limited to public content.
Because of that, I decided to start a blog for the sole purpose of making my notes about Acumatica available to Google so I could find my notes via a Google search in the future.
After blogging for a few years, I then added Forums to allow other people to contribute content as well, and eventually added a Podcast, which continues to be my preferred mechanism for content contribution these days.
Community work is largely a “labor of love” and that is the phrase that I think best describes my efforts here on AugForums.com for the last 13 years.
Many people have made comments to me over the years about AugForums.com and how they assumed it was some kind of clever marketing activity that Acumatica employed me to do. That would have been nice, but that was not the case. This has always been an independent “labor of love” that I would mainly describe as a hobby. I have never been compensated by Acumatica for my efforts here.
Although I was not compensated by Acumatica for my efforts here on AugForums.com, I did have a lot of fun learning things and connecting with people the past 13 years.
AugForums.com connected me with people that I never would have connected with otherwise, opening doors to worlds that I never knew existed, and I am so grateful for that.
Even though I still largely will view the past 13 years on AugForums.com as a hobby, I was able to move some of it into my day job and I will be taking those lessons into my new endeavor at ErpSeal.com moving forward.
Lessons Learned
In addition to those private professional lessons (which I will keep confidential), here are some public lessons that I learned here on AugForums.com over the last 13 years.
Lesson #1 – Blogging for Trailblazing
Blogging is a great tool to use when you are blazing a new trail into the unknown. Forcing yourself to write down your thoughts in the moment is more valuable than you realize at the time. I used to think that you need to be an expert before you share knowledge, but blogging taught me that is not the case. Actually, I think it’s the opposite. I think your perspective is more valuable when you are learning something for the first time because you are able to articulate things in a way that people who are learning that same thing for the first time can understand. Once you become “an expert”, you tend to unintentionally “talk down” or “talk over” people in ways that they can’t understand because you tend to gloss over all of the little obstacles that you forgot about long ago.
Lesson #2 – Video Content is ok to embrace
I avoided creating video content for a long time. The first reason was because I wanted my content to be indexable by Google and video content was not indexed. Now I’ve learned to simply upload my videos to YouTube and YouTube does a great job of extracting the transcripts. The second reason was because I felt that video content was shallower than written content. I actually still believe that, and I find that content created with the camera on feels more shallow to me than content created with the camera off. Despite that, I’ve learned to embrace video because it creates a level of trust that outweighs the level of shallowness. The final reason was because I wasn’t able to talk for more than a couple of minutes at a time without completely running out of things to say, but repetition on the Podcast (click here) has made me more comfortable with that and I have a few other tricks that I use as well.
Lesson #3 – Forums are Fun and Chaotic, but challenging technically
I really enjoyed using Forums to share information because blogging got really lonely and Forums allowed everyone to contribute, which breathed fresh life into my written content endeavors. I used a WordPress plugin called wpForo here on this site and I’m really happy with that choice. I selected wpForo at the time because it was the only forum plugin I could find that looked good on mobile and it seemed to be heading in a good direction. That is still the case, by the way, with the latest version of wpForo introducing AI-enabled search, which allows people to build a private forum that is still easily searchable. But I underestimated the infrastructure challenges that come with a large volume of content, especially when it comes to things like images and video content. My hosting bill kept increasing and there was a never-ending list of small technical tasks that I needed to attend to. That’s why I have now moved the forums on this community over to Discord:
AugForums.com/Discord
Lesson #4 – Communication Platforms are Noisy and Less is More
I still appreciate communication platforms and I will continue contributing to things like the new AugForums.com Discord server, the Community.Acumatica.com forums, Reddit, etc. But in my opinion, the value of online communication platform forums is slowly diminishing because so much of the content nowadays is AI-generated, and it’s getting harder and harder to extract the insights from all of the noise. That’s one reason why on ErpSeal.com I am putting my focus on Video Training Courses instead of Forums. A carefully constructed 5 hour Video Training Course can take you from Point A to Point B in a way that you could not have gotten to on your own. Even if you could have gotten there on your own, it would take you a lot longer. The massive amount of data that humanity has amassed in the digital world is more than any of us can consume in our lifetime. We all still only have 24 hours in a day and we need to choose wisely how to spend that time so less is more.
Lesson #5 – Celebrity is Overrated
Several people in the Acumatica space have referred to me as a rock star. My standard response to that these days is this: “if you pick a small enough niche, you can be famous at anything.” Small towns in the United States know that well. Casey, Illinois, has the World’s Largest Rocking Chair. Cawker City, Kansas, has the World’s Largest Ball of Twine. The desire to be famous for something is strong, but celebrity is overrated. Two of my favorite people in the data space are Mico Yuk and Jen Underwood. If you listen at the 32:48 mark on this Podcast episode (click here), you’ll hear Mico ask Jen about blogging and Jen responds with something that is SUPER insightful. I won’t share my private communications with Jen, but you would be shocked by some of the things that she has had to deal with. Her blog used to receive tons of traffic, but she has since taken it down. She even removed herself from LinkedIn. Bottom line, there is a cost to celebrity and celebrity is overrated.
So, overall, was this AugForums.com thing worth it? I think that it was.
If I could go back in time, would I do it again? I don’t think that I would. But time travel is still impossible at this point (as far as I know 😀) so I don’t waste too much time thinking about that.
ErpSeal.com Moving Forward
Now let’s talk about what’s next with ErpSeal.com
I decided to start from scratch on a new website for two main reasons:
- From a technical perspective, I have done a lot of tinkering on this AugForums.com WordPress site over the years and there was a lot of technical baggage that I didn’t want to carry with me.
- From a psychological perspective, I wanted a fresh start, with a new name, and I wanted something that was ERP-agnostic, that anyone from any Mid-Market ERP ecosystem could relate to.
Animal names and color names have always seemed good ideas for things to include in a brand name and I decided to go down the route of animal names so I explored animal characteristics, looking for an animal that had the characteristics that resonated with me the most.
I landed on using “seal” in the name, summarizing an ErpSeal with these 5 characteristics:
- Curious & Observant
An ErpSeal looks beyond transactions and dashboards to uncover patterns, root causes, trends, and opportunities hidden in ERP data - Approachable & Humble
An ErpSeal is not “an expert” but a “professional learner” who communicates complex ERP concepts to others without ego or intimidation - Communicates with Honesty & Integrity
An ErpSeal presents ERP data truthfully, explains assumptions clearly, and prioritizes clarity over spin - Agile with Agency
Agile = Adapting quickly to changing situations
Agency = Belief that you can influence outcomes through your own actions - Social & Collaborative, but not intimidating or hierarchical
An ErpSeal bridges the gaps between ERP Systems, Artificial Intelligence, and Humans without hidden agendas and without being manipulative
In addition, I like that seals are native to my hometown of San Diego, which I still frequently visit to see family. I might even be able to use SeaWorld merchandise on ErpSeal.com at some point 😀
I also like that a Seal makes me think of Navy SEALs, who I have a tremendous amount of respect for. Ironically, the Navy SEAL training program is located in San Diego. Only 20%-30% of people who enter that training program on Coronado Island actually make it through and become Navy SEALs.
Officially the term “SEAL” in Navy SEAL is not related to the seal animal, but SEAL is an acronym that stands for “Sea, Air, and Land” (SEAL).
Here are some Navy SEAL quotes that I enjoy:
- “Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast.”
- “Two is One and One is None.” (have a backup plan)
- “Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable.”
- “Earned, Never Given.”
- “If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.”
Unofficially, I personally think that Navy SEALs also embody those five Seal animal characteristics listed above.
Back to the ErpSeal.com domain name.
If you have ever tried to buy a domain name, then it’s quite possible that you have wound up owning dozens of domain names in the never-ending pursuit of finding that perfect one.
I personally don’t own dozens of domain names, but I’ve definitely tried out dozens of domain names in my head and tried to own them in my mind.
Eventually I discovered what I refer to as the 72-hour rule. I call it the 72-hour rule because the vast majority of domains that I have thought of over the years do not survive 72 hours. I would start off by thinking it’s the greatest thing ever and then, less than 72 hours later, I either don’t like it anymore or have forgotten about it altogether.
AugForums.com was a domain that I sat on for weeks before purchasing it. And even when I expanded out from just being about online forums to other things, I still kept it because the main thing that mattered to me was that it was recognizable. I basically gave up on ever having a meaningful domain name. And things stayed that way for many years.
ErpSeal.com was the first domain name in a long time that survived the 72-hour rule for me. I eventually decided to buy it for the reasons discussed above about wanting a fresh start and wanting to grow outside of just the Acumatica ecosystem.
So ErpSeal.com it is. It’s not perfect, but I like it and I’m hoping that it will last another 13 years.
I’m taking a “less is more” approach to ErpSeal.com and trying to avoid the technical sprawl that I wound up with on AugForums.com.
ErpSeal.com is simply focused on 3 things:
- Public Videos – including the Podcast Live Broadcast
- Private Video Training Courses – taking you from Point A to Point B
- Blog – occasional written posts for updates, event notes, etc.
And I’m endeavoring to serve the broader Mid-Market ERP community at large, not just the Acumatica ecosystem. It feels uncomfortable leaving the “comfortable waters” of the Acumatica ecosystem, but it’s time for me to expand.
In addition, I’ll be able to focus on the ERP-adjacent topics that I’ve always been passionate about. If you’ve spent any amount of time on this site, you know that I’m passionate about Business Intelligence, specifically the Microsoft Power BI product, and Reporting in general.
Artificial Intelligence is going to have a massive impact on Mid-Market ERP systems over the next few years and I’ve been learning a lot in that area so AI is definitely an ERP-adjacent topic that I’ll be leaning into on ErpSeal.com
Business Process Improvement has also always been a topic that I’ve been passionate about. I really enjoy Reporting, but I like to say that Business Process and Reporting are simply “two sides of the same coin”. You can’t touch Reporting without also touching Business Process and you can’t touch Business Process without also touching Reporting. So I’ll cover Business Process topics on ErpSeal.com
And Accounting! Good old Accounting! I’ll be able to dust off that Accounting knowledge from my days as a Financial Auditor at Deloitte where I got my CPA license since Accounting is a fundamental ERP-agnostic topic that I’ll be able to cover on ErpSeal.com, with the goal of making Accounting less scary for people, especially new people who are entering our industry.
With that, I’m signing off. Thank you for being part of the AugForums.com journey the past 13 years.
Here’s to the next 13+ years on ErpSeal.com!
Sincerely,
Tim Rodman, (CPA-Inactive)