Acumatica 2026 R2, released October 2026, adds new features across financial management, customer management, distribution, construction, manufacturing and retail commerce, with the most attention on AI Assistant, AI Automation agents, vendor payment options and project management. This second major release of the year builds on the work in Acumatica 2026 R1 and makes the Modern UI the default interface, with forms that support only Classic UI scheduled to disappear in Acumatica 2027 R1.
With a release this broad, SWK Technologies has put together this list of the top additions and improvements to check out in Acumatica 2026 R2, the latest version of Acumatica Cloud ERP, organized by modules and roles:
AI Assistant and AI Studio
Artificial intelligence features received the broadest set of changes in Acumatica 2026 R2, with new tools for AI Assistant and the AI Studio framework that connects large language models to ERP records and processes. AI Assistant is subject to licensing under the Acumatica sales policy, so availability depends on your agreement.
- Widgets from AI Assistant – Users ask for dashboard widgets in a prompt or follow-up request, check the source data behind each one, refine the result and drag selected widgets onto an existing dashboard.
- Help Agent – AI Assistant now answers questions about how to use Acumatica in the same chat as data questions, drawing on the Acumatica documentation portal and the form or record that is currently open.
- Finance and Manufacturing Questions – New and updated generic inquiries let AI Assistant answer questions about account balances, reconciled cash accounts, customer and vendor balances on any date, production orders, schedules and costs.
- Tool Calling for Agents – AI Automation agents, which replace the former large language model (LLM) prompts, now retrieve the current record and update its detail lines, such as raising unit prices, applying discounts or adding a free item above an order total threshold.
- Generic Inquiry Data Sources – An agent pulls supporting data from one or more published generic inquiries while it processes a record, which gives the agent context beyond the current document.
- Agentic Workflows – Business events, import scenarios and automation workflows now start an agent action, and the value the agent writes to the record determines the next step in the process.
- MCP Servers – Administrators set up Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers that expose published generic inquiries as tools, giving AI clients such as Claude or ChatGPT read access to approved data under each user’s existing access rights.
- Data Masking and Token Tracking – Administrators select fields to mask before data reaches the language model, and the AI Automation History form now shows provider-reported token counts next to the counts that Acumatica calculates.
- Agent Migration – Prompts created in earlier versions are not converted automatically to the tool-calling format, so custom prompts need migration and testing after the upgrade before users run them.
Financial Management and Payments
The Financial Management suite in Acumatica 2026 R2 adds vendor payment options, mobile card acceptance, tax filing updates and several bank and approval controls.
- Vendor Payments Through AvidXchange – After enrollment with AvidXchange, AP payments prepared in Acumatica reach U.S. vendors by virtual card, ACH or check based on each vendor’s preference, without storing vendor bank details in the ERP. Teams follow each payment until the vendor collects it, download proof of payment and request a stop on payments already in progress.
- Faster ACH Payments Through BILL – The Pay Faster service from BILL, previously limited to check payments, now covers ACH payments to U.S. vendors paid in USD and processes them on the earliest available date.
- Foreign Currency Payments with BILL – Payments to international vendors now support bills in foreign currencies, with the exchange rate loaded from BILL and the exchange and disbursement details shown directly in the payment record.
- Tap to Pay on iPhone – Field service technicians and sales representatives accept contactless card and digital wallet payments in the Acumatica mobile app on a supported iPhone, with no separate card reader, through the Acumatica Payments gateway.
- 1099 Filing Through IRS IRIS – The Create E-File process now generates CSV files formatted for the IRS Information Returns Intake System (IRIS) instead of FIRE for 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC, ahead of the changeover that begins with the 2027 filing season. Each 1099 vendor needs a recipient type of business or individual before a valid file generates.
- Bank Matching by Payee – After a user matches a bank transaction manually and processes it, the system remembers the payee, cash account and matched vendor or customer, which improves automatic matching for later transactions from the same payee.
- Vendor Approvals – An approval workflow for vendor creation and changes holds each new or modified vendor in a pending status, keeping it unavailable for purchasing and AP documents until the required approvals finish.
- Refunds in Closed Periods – A refund for a payment released in an inactive, locked or closed financial period now posts to the current business date and open period instead of returning an error.
- Faster Payroll Processing – Acumatica Payroll calculates paychecks and releases large payroll batches up to 63% faster, with the largest gains for businesses that process hundreds of paychecks.
- Canadian Payroll Tax Engine – Canadian Payroll moves to a new tax engine shared with U.S. payroll, which converts much of the existing tax configuration and carries forward year-to-date totals, though some earning types and deduction codes need adjustment.
Customer Management (CRM)
Acumatica CRM (AKA the Customer Management module) in 2026 R2 adds activity prioritization, related item suggestions, live inventory availability and a customer portal that is ready for production use.
- Response Priorities and Sentiment – Artificial intelligence (AI) analysis assigns a response priority to incoming activities and generates summaries with customer sentiment for related opportunities and cases once an administrator activates the predefined agents.
- Related Item Suggestions – Opportunities, sales quotes and project quotes suggest substitutes, complementary products and added services for business accounts with the setting turned on, so representatives present alternatives well before a sales order exists.
- Related Item History – A new inquiry shows the related item that was ultimately sold and the opportunity or quote where the final substitution or addition took place.
- Live Inventory Availability – Opportunities and sales quotes display On Hand, Available and Available for Shipping quantities for stock items in the table footer, which reduces manual stock checks during quoting.
- Marketing Categories and SendGrid Groups – Mass emails sort into marketing categories linked to SendGrid unsubscribe groups, so a recipient who opts out of one category continues to receive the others.
- Modern Customer Portal in Production – The Modern Customer Portal is no longer experimental, adds a stock filter to the catalog and uses restriction groups to control which products each customer sees, while the older Self-Service Portal is unavailable for new installations.
Inventory Management and Order Management
Updates to inventory and order processing in the Acumatica Distribution Edition focus on delivery date accuracy, picking flexibility and carrier selection.
- Available-to-Promise Dates – Sales order lines calculate the earliest date the full quantity can ship, using the item class calculation rule and the supply and demand within the horizon set on the order type, and the order records the date it can ship in full. An optional setting on the order type keeps safety stock out of the quantity promised to customers during the calculation.
- Handling Units and Warehouse Zones – Picking strategies map units of measure to handling units and warehouse locations to zones, so pick lists and paperless picking guidance send workers to the right location for the right unit, such as a pallet, case or single item.
- Quantity Input Mode – A new mode for scanning in automated warehouse processes makes quantity entry a required step of each scan, which prevents pickers from skipping the adjustment and returning to the line later.
- Paperless Picking Without Guidance – A branch-wide setting or a personal setting for each picker turns off the guided sequence, so items are picked in any order while the picking queue and progress tracking stay in place.
- Picker Reassignment – A new Clear Picker button returns an in-progress pick list to the queue without undoing the items already picked, so the next picker continues where the previous picker stopped.
- Purchase Return Picking – Pickers handle purchase returns in automated warehouse processes, and an optional setting lets a manager verify the picked return on the purchase receipt before it is released.
- Rate Shopping – The redesigned Shop for Rates dialog box lists the least expensive carrier service first, colors each delivery date by whether it meets the customer request and sends rate requests only to the carriers a user selects.
- EasyPost Address and Service Controls – Shipping desk users compare a suggested address correction with the original address before the label is requested, and a new Service Methods tab keeps the carrier service list current.
- Shipment Settings for EDI – Shipments processed through Pacejet now store the bill of lading number and the planned delivery date and time, which an EDI product uses to build the advance ship notice for the customer.
Projects, Construction and Professional Services
The Acumatica Construction Edition and Professional Services Edition add project hierarchy, change management, material handling and cost forecasting to project accounting in Acumatica 2026 R2.
- Parent-Child Projects – Projects link in a hierarchy where phases, buildings or sites become child projects under a parent contract. The customer bills through the parent for all child work, or the parent consolidates child data for reporting while each child project keeps its own billing, and selected transactions roll up without duplicates.
- Vendor Portal – A new self-service portal gives vendors and subcontractors access to selected project information, including subcontracts and purchase orders, and lets authorized users submit compliance documents and monitor their status. The portal is currently experimental, available by request in production instances for testing and feedback, and will expand in future releases.
- Monthly Cost Forecasting – A new form spreads projected costs across calendar months using a front-loaded, back-loaded, bell or linear S-curve, then compares baseline, projected and actual costs month by month.
- Progress Worksheets with Quantities – Completed quantities for revenue budget lines and quantities recorded against cost budget lines produce a recommended completion percentage, based on either the work completed for the customer or the quantities used to perform it.
- Change Request Pricing and Commitments – Change request estimation lines take unit prices from unit costs and markups or from inventory sales prices, and existing purchase orders or subcontracts attach directly to a request before a change order is created.
- Taxes and Billing in Change Orders – Change requests now include calculated taxes before a change order exists, and change orders show how much has been billed and how much remains pending on projects that use progress billing.
- Project Material Transfers – Users create material transfers from the project material list to move goods between warehouses or locations before work begins, with the project, task and cost code carried forward automatically.
- Reclassify Project Transactions – A new form finds eligible project transactions and updates the project, task or accounting details without manually reversing and recreating each entry.
- Project Branch Alignment – Expense receipts, time cards, time activities and equipment time record project costs under the project branch while liabilities stay with the employee branch, and administrators choose whether the system inserts the project branch automatically, warns about a mismatch or blocks release.
- Budget Line Details and Revenue Analysis – Budget lines created from change orders, change requests and project transactions copy the description, unit of measure and unit rate from the source, and the revenue aging and analysis inquiries now include tasks billed with a Progress Billing step.
Manufacturing Edition
The Acumatica Manufacturing Edition adds a new scheduling option, expanded shop floor reporting and more precise replenishment methods in this release.
- Optimized APS – The new Acumatica Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) engine schedules individual work centers finitely or infinitely within the same production order, works forward from a start date or backward from a completion date and calculates dates to the minute.
- Shop Floor Kiosk Reporting – Production workers issue actual materials, substitute components, reverse issues made in error, receive byproducts and capture lot and serial attributes without leaving the kiosk.
- Project Material Provisioning – Project material lines create or link production orders directly and show production progress, so make-to-order project materials no longer depend on a sales order.
- Min./Max. and Fixed Reorder Quantity Methods – Material requirements planning (MRP) and distribution requirements planning (DRP) now treat safety stock and reorder points as separate settings, replenishing up to a maximum quantity or planning a consistent fixed quantity when projected on-hand inventory falls below the reorder point.
- Unified Release Process – The unified release process for manufacturing-related inventory transactions is now permanently enabled, and the legacy process cannot be restored after the upgrade.
Retail and eCommerce
The Acumatica Retail Commerce Edition adds return handling for Shopify, company synchronization for BigCommerce and new ways to monitor connector activity.
- Shopify Returns and Exchanges – Returns on Shopify online orders, including returns with exchange items, are managed in Acumatica, and shipment export sends the restock and fulfillment updates back to Shopify.
- BigCommerce Company Sync – Customer records now synchronize in both directions with companies in BigCommerce B2B Edition, covering locations, contacts, parent accounts, payment methods and payment terms.
- BigCommerce Tax Mapping – Substitution lists map BigCommerce taxes by name and rate, which handles taxes that share a name but carry different rates in the same store.
- Shopify Price List Export – New export mappings decide whether an exported Shopify catalog starts with every existing product or only products priced in the Acumatica price list, and whether new Shopify products join the catalog automatically.
- AI Assistant for Sync History – Plain-language questions summarize synchronization volumes, failure rates and common errors by store, connector and entity type.
Acumatica Platform
This release also adds platform changes that speed up reporting, tighten data access and prepare instances for a Modern UI-only experience.
- Modern UI by Default – The Modern UI is now the default interface and users can no longer switch to Classic UI, while forms that exist only in Classic UI still open with a warning that they will be unavailable starting in Acumatica 2027 R1.
- Data Warehousing for Generic Inquiries – Administrators store the result set of a large or frequently used inquiry in a dedicated table, refresh it on a schedule or on demand and reuse it across dashboards, OData, MCP servers and pivot views.
- Grouped Table Views – Inquiry results display in expandable groups with subtotals, totals and calculated values, so a hierarchical report no longer requires rebuilding the inquiry in Report Designer.
- DAC-Level Data Security – An optional setting limits the data access classes (DACs) available in the Generic Inquiry form and the DAC Schema Browser to those that a user’s screen access rights already permit.
- Default Filters and Shared Column Layouts – Generic inquiry views apply a default filter automatically, and administrators share a column layout for a published inquiry that individual users still personalize.
- Resource and API Monitoring – A new API Monitoring tab on the System Monitor form shows request volume, errors, throttling and license consumption, and SaaS instances gain automatic protection against excessive SQL usage.
- Audit History Purge and Tenant Monitoring – A new form removes older field-level audit history on a schedule or on demand, and a Tenant Operations dialog tracks snapshot creation, restoration and tenant copy jobs in progress.
- PostgreSQL for Production – PostgreSQL Server version 18.1 and later is now supported for production deployments after a preview in Acumatica 2026 R1.
- Interface Themes – Administrators set a system-wide dark theme on Site Preferences, and each user overrides it from the user profile.
- Updated Software Requirements – Windows Server 2016, Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Service Pack 1, 2017 and 2019, and MySQL Community Server 5.7 are no longer supported starting in this release.
Developer and Integration Updates
Acumatica 2026 R2 added new endpoints, monitoring tools for developers and migration requirements that affect customizations built on earlier versions.
- Default/26.200.001 Endpoint – The new system endpoint adds fields for response priority and sentiment generated by AI Automation, entities for file tags and project materials, an invoice and memo report request and date-only values that avoid time zone conversion errors.
- Contract Version 5 – Endpoints on the new contract version nest the $select and $expand parameters under OData 4.01 conventions and return drop-down values as an ID with a description, so integrations need updates before they move to the new endpoint, while endpoints that remain on Contract Version 4 keep their previous behavior.
- API Monitoring and Request Profiler – Administrators and developers trace slow or failing requests by endpoint, user and HTTP method, and capture request and response bodies when troubleshooting an integration.
- DAC-Based OData Filtering – Filters apply conditions to related entities and collections directly in the request, and the metadata now lists display names and the fields that cannot be filtered.
- OAuth 2.0 for the Customization API – Applications authorize requests to the customization project web API with access tokens instead of the Login method, which is obsolete and scheduled for removal in a future version.
- Asynchronous Credit Card Interfaces – Plug-ins and customizations that call credit card processing methods move to new asynchronous interfaces, while the legacy synchronous methods stay available but are marked obsolete and scheduled for removal in Acumatica 2027 R2.
- Mobile Framework Updates – Mobile screen mappings support dynamic styling of field values through JavaScript expressions, and MSDL scripts written for the WSDL schema require adaptation to view names and DAC fields before a customization project publishes.
Learn More About Acumatica 2026 R2 with SWK Technologies
SWK Technologies is an Acumatica Gold Partner and 2024 Partner of the Year, with certified consultants and support teams ready to match these updates to your workflows. Whether you plan to upgrade to Acumatica 2026 R2 or are evaluating Acumatica Cloud ERP for the first time, SWK helps you prepare for changes such as the Classic UI retirement and build the right technology fit for your business.
Contact SWK here to learn more about Acumatica 2026 R2 and start planning your upgrade today.