Explorer Eclipse: Construction ERP for Heavy Civil and Specialty Contractors
| Vendor | Explorer Software (JDM Technology Group) |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
| Ownership | JDM Technology Group (privately held; not part of Constellation Software) |
| Deployment | Cloud-hosted or self-hosted (on-premises/data center) |
| Target market | Heavy civil, general, and specialty contractors in North America |
| Industries | Construction: heavy highway/civil, commercial and residential building, electrical, energy, environmental, mining, oil and gas, utilities, infrastructure |
| Pricing | Not published; quote-based |
| Website | explorer-software.com |
What Explorer Eclipse is
Eclipse is a construction ERP built by Explorer Software for heavy civil, general, and specialty contractors in North America. More than 30 modules tie construction accounting to field operations: job costing, project management, payroll, equipment, analytics. One caution before anything else. This is not Epicor Eclipse, an unrelated distribution ERP that happens to carry the same product name.
Vendor, history, ownership
Explorer Software was founded in 1984 and works out of North Vancouver, British Columbia. In 2007 it acquired Shafers, a field service management product; that line survives today as Evolution FSM, Explorer's second offering alongside Eclipse.
Ownership sits with JDM Technology Group, a privately held global group of construction software companies whose portfolio also includes Computer Guidance Corporation, RedSky, and Maestro Technologies. The group reports more than 50,000 users across roughly 40 countries. The Canadian address should not put US buyers off: Explorer sells and supports Eclipse in the United States and runs a US-based annual user conference.
Modules and capabilities
Financial management forms the base, with general ledger, cash management, and multi-currency. Above it sit the construction-specific pieces, and that is where the product earns its keep: job costing with contract and change order tracking, project management, payroll and workforce management, procurement and accounts payable, sales and receivables, material and inventory management, equipment management, document management, and service management. Mobile access pulls timesheets and field data into the same system, while reporting and analytics modules produce real-time dashboards across jobs. Everything is licensed modularly, so a contractor can start narrow and widen the footprint later.
Who buys it
Midsize contractors, primarily. Heavy civil and highway work gets far more attention here than in competing suites, most of which were designed around commercial building first. Beyond that, the base spans general, specialty, sub, building, and service contractors, with vendor-side sector coverage across commercial and residential building, electrical, energy, environmental, mining, oil and gas, utilities, and infrastructure. Contractors running a dedicated service division can pair Eclipse with Evolution FSM for dispatch and maintenance work.
Licensing, hosting, cost
Two hosting routes exist: vendor-managed cloud, or self-hosting on the contractor's own infrastructure, whether on-premises or in a data center of choice. Explorer publishes no price list. Quotes follow module selection, user count, and deployment model. Since implementation, data conversion, and training routinely swallow a large share of a construction ERP budget, compare offers on a multi-year basis; our ERP TCO calculator gives that estimate a structure.
Where it wins, where it loses
If you are a midsize heavy civil or highway contractor tired of bending a building-contractor product around your work, Eclipse belongs on the shortlist, and the pairing of Eclipse ERP with Evolution FSM is genuinely useful for firms that mix projects with recurring service work. The case against it is scale. Explorer is a small firm inside a decentralized group, competing with Trimble Viewpoint, Sage, CMiC, and Foundation, all of which carry deeper partner benches and larger consultant pools. Contractors who expect a thick third-party ecosystem or quick access to experienced implementers should buy elsewhere. Ask for reference customers in your exact contractor type, not in construction generally. And keep the naming straight while you research, because directories and review sites regularly blend this product with Epicor Eclipse, which serves distributors and has no connection to Explorer Software.
What the Explorer Eclipse website looks like
Current view of the vendor homepage, captured by our editorial team.
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