Honest Review of Unit4 2025

Managing a business at the enterprise scale is never straightforward. In fact, it’s one of the most challenging things any entrepreneur or business leader will ever do. There are just so many moving parts.

That’s why solutions like Unit4 make so much sense. These provide enterprise resource planning (ERP) functionality to the business.

What’s interesting about Unit4, though, is that it is more focused on people-based enterprises, especially those in the public sector. It wants to provide software that automates more tasks and ultimately, ensures that organisations like yours can deliver better final results.

But is the service any good? That’s ultimately what we’d like to find out there. Fortunately, this review does just that. It looks at the pros and cons of the service, who will benefit from it, and, ultimately, whether we recommend it.

Pros

So, what did we like most about Unit4? What made it special and why would we recommend it?

Purpose-Built For The Public Sector

The biggest draw of Unit4 is the fact that it is purpose-built for the public sector and local government. While most ERP tools are for “business in general” to target the broadest possible market, Unit4 is not like this at all. It offers tailored solutions that fit public sector workflows, which is incredibly helpful for managers and staff in these organisations. For example, we noticed that Unit4 offered built-in workflows and best practice templates for HR, procurement and finance in this sector.

Furthermore, we also liked the fact that it offers systems to maintain regulatory and fiscal compliance “baked in.” Public sector organisations usually need to integrate these themselves by adding them to existing ERP, but not with Unit4.

Cloud And SaaS Deployment

The cloud and SaaS development is another significant benefit of Unit4. We found that we could simply order it online, like other software-as-a-service, and get the functionality we wanted instead of having to worry about infrastructure and in-house development.

Usually, most ERPs require ongoing maintenance and staff constantly checking whether it is going to work on a particular system. However, with Unit4, that wasn’t the case. The company behind it simply updated the service and ensured that we could access it when needed to manage operations. It was just as simple as using a regular cloud-based CRM or ERP.

Integrated And Unified Data

We also noticed that Unit4 integrated and unified all our data into a single source of truth. This meant that it was easier to do things like HR, procurement and planning.

Naturally, we were just playing with the software in our review, but it was easy to see how this approach would avoid siloes. Anyone wanting to access the software could so across teams, so there weren’t bottlenecks in this regard.

Efficiency And Automation

Another pro of Unit4 was its ability to deliver greater efficiency and automation than most other solutions, especially for public sector tasks. For things requiring a solid back office setup, it was solid. For example, we noticed we could use it for things like payroll, expenses, and invoice processing, meaning that staff were freer to simply do what they want on high-value tasks.

Many public sector organisations spend a lot of their time doing paperwork, which harms the experience for numerous stakeholders, including citizens and staff. But with Unit4, we could automate a lot of this, leaving us with more time to engage with customers and find solutions to their needs.

Better Budgeting And Forecasting

Unit4 also gave us significantly better budgeting and forecasting than a lot of the other ERP solutions we’ve seen. Again, that’s because it is tailored to the needs of government officials, not random companies in the private sector.

For example, the budgeting tool allowed us to become more flexible and adjust to financial shocks, something that many local governments have to do when the economy turns bad. There was also some nice functionality for budgeting and scenario planning, making us feel as if we were in a position to weather a storm in the future, should one arise.

Flexible And Agile

Finally, we noticed that Unit4 was flexible and agile. We didn’t need to use a lot of code, and we found multiple configurable options that were ideal for our setup and evolved with us.

Cons

Of course, Unit4 wasn’t perfect. We noticed some minor cons when using the software.

Lower On-Premise Support

Unit4 no longer offers on-premise support, which was a key feature historically. This isn’t a problem if you plan on using the cloud version, but you must be willing to accept the SaaS model if you want to proceed. While there are some on-prem ERPs still available, Unit4 is no longer one of them.

Limited Built-In Features

Another issue we noticed was the limitations on some of the built-in features. We would have liked to have seen a CRM module in the standard stack, although not having one isn’t that big of an issue for us.

Learning Curve

Finally, we noticed a mild learning curve when using Unit4. You will get benefits from the tool if you invest time in it, but it does require some training. That is something to bear in mind if you can’t dedicate a lot of resources to it immediately. However, the long-term benefits will almost always recoup the short term costs.

Who Should Use Unit4

Unit4 is essentially for public sector organizations and enterprises looking to manage multiple processes across domains. The software works best, in our opinion, with the largest organizations, particularly those looking to serve citizens and not regular consumers.

Final Verdict: Is Unit4 Worth It?

In our opinion, Unit4 is one of the best ERP software’s for public sector organizations out there. Hardly any other solutions come close to its comprehensiveness and the amount that it is able to do, given minimal training investment.

Because of this, we’ve given it a five out of five star rating, and highly recommend it to anyone in the public sector looking to enhance efficiency.