ActiveCollab vs. BILL

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
ActiveCollab
Score 4.4 out of 10
N/A
Active Collab is a project management solution built around features such as task management, collaboration, time tracking, and invoicing.
$8
per member/per month
BILL
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
BILL is an online service for SMBs which provides a central dashboard for managing Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, and cash flow management. It syncs with all major accounting systems like QuickBooks, Sage, Intaact, and NetSuite.
$45
per month
Pricing
ActiveCollabBILL
Editions & Modules
ActiveCollab Project Management
$8
per member/per month
Self-Hosted Plan
$999.00
license
Essentials
$45
per user/per month
Team
$55
per user/per month
Corporate
$79
per user/per month
Enterprise
Custom Pricing
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ActiveCollabBILL
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup Fee$6.25 per member, per month, annual billingNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Features
ActiveCollabBILL
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
3.7
13 Ratings
68% below category average
BILL
-
Ratings
Task Management5.912 Ratings00 Ratings
Resource Management1.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Gantt Charts3.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Scheduling1.011 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow Automation7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Team Collaboration6.513 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology7.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Document Management3.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Email integration4.09 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Access1.510 Ratings00 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking2.09 Ratings00 Ratings
Change request and Case Management1.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Budget and Expense Management2.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Professional Services Automation
Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
5.7
8 Ratings
26% below category average
BILL
-
Ratings
Quotes/estimates6.97 Ratings00 Ratings
Invoicing6.96 Ratings00 Ratings
Project & financial reporting1.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with accounting software7.94 Ratings00 Ratings
Payment Management
Comparison of Payment Management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
-
Ratings
BILL
3.5
4 Ratings
52% below category average
Customizable Approval Policies00 Ratings5.52 Ratings
Financial Document Management00 Ratings3.34 Ratings
Payment Status Tracking00 Ratings1.64 Ratings
Payment Audit Trail00 Ratings3.64 Ratings
Duplicate Bill Detection00 Ratings8.32 Ratings
Advanced OCR00 Ratings1.01 Ratings
Electronic Funds Transfer00 Ratings1.43 Ratings
Accounts Payable
Comparison of Accounts Payable features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
-
Ratings
BILL
3.9
2 Ratings
34% below category average
Automated Accounts Payable Processes00 Ratings4.92 Ratings
Vendor Management00 Ratings5.62 Ratings
Tax Form Preparation00 Ratings1.01 Ratings
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ActiveCollabBILL
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SAP Ruum
SAP Ruum
Score 9.0 out of 10
Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.7 out of 10
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Quickbase
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Score 9.2 out of 10
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User Ratings
ActiveCollabBILL
Likelihood to Recommend
3.7
(13 ratings)
2.5
(64 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(13 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(6 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.3
(6 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
7.1
(3 ratings)
1.0
(17 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(5 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
ActiveCollabBILL
Likelihood to Recommend
ActiveCollab
Scenarios where ActiveCollab works well 1) ActiveCollab works well for small teams specifically T&M teams.Its invoicing feature is unique & can make your life easy. 2) It is very easy to use & posses good range of filters like on the task list, we can drag/drop tasks, Filter by assignee's,
tasks lists, due dates, or completed tasks. 3) It has some simple but awesome features like when you're in
the middle of writing something i.e a comment on story and get interrupted,
it retains what you wrote. 4) It allows you to tag team members in threads of comments to grab their attention, its really needed when teams are distributed. Thus helping team members to collaborate easily & stay on same page. 5) It integrates pretty well with other web apps like quickbooks , Slack, Trello, HubSpot, Zapier etc Scenarios where ActiveCollab did not work well 1) Tasks can not have multiple assignee's here so if two members are working on same task it did not allow you to reflect that. 2) Sorting capability is not their under invoicing 3) It did not work well for larger teams 4) Search option is not very detailed & you may end up wasting lot of time searching one particular bug or issue.












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BILL
It depends, Bill.com certainly has a strong reputation and I agree it can be a great solution in the right scenario but I think the implementation and initial setup are critical and need to be well thought out based on the setup of the organization you are a part of.
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Pros
ActiveCollab
  • Great for project and task assignments, project workflow and communications.
  • Solid web-based platform that doesn't require software downloads, also includes great mobile platform.
  • Great reporting tools for managing billing, estimating, project workflow and other essential project details.
  • Allows for both the agency and its clients to interact on a single platform using role-specific permissions.
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BILL
  • The fact that bill.com automatically processes most information on the invoice is really helpful - leads to quicker processing
  • The "to do list" feature ensures you see the tasks that need to be completed ASAP
  • The reports section is very helpful in year end prepping for audits
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Cons
ActiveCollab
  • It isn't possible to set members of staff as part time, so if someone is unavailable on certain days you must manually enter them as OOO every single day that they are not in, that other teammates work. Hours also can't be edited individually - everyone is treated as working the same hours in a day, rendering capacity planner useless for flexi working teams
  • Subtasks cannot be assigned their own hours and deadlines, meaning the To Do list view can't be seen in actual date order and capacity planner does not reflect all time allocated to an individual's schedule unless every task is set up as a separate task rather than subtask
  • There is no way to see all tasks of a certain type across multiple campaigns (e.g all copywriting tasks vs all technical tasks) - support team suggested exporting data and making spreadsheets
  • Kanban view isn't available for people's own task lists ('board' view here shows a list)
  • Not possible to have one task be assigned to more than one person
  • Notifications are not sent when tasks are updated, so you have to leave comments and tag people each time
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BILL
  • Currently, our company uses a different platform to submit expenses, we only use bill.com to receive them. So perhaps this isn't actually a place where bill.com could improve, but the expense submission process may not have been robust enough for our company.
  • The bill.com platform wasn't the most beautiful or pleasing to use, but this is a minor fault.
  • I'd love a way to set up recurring payments (e.g., my phone bill is reimbursed each month).
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Likelihood to Renew
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
BILL
While our firm does not use Bill.com internally, we know many customers that use Bill.com and are very happy with it. Based on the feedback from current users, I would say that the product should have a strong renewal forecast. Once customers move their AP to the cloud, they would be unlikely to move it back given a choice.
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Usability
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
BILL
Bill.com continues to raise the bar with new features and improved interface. The Fast Pay option is another innovation that reduces administrative time when you have to get an overnight check out. The new Chat Support interface, powered by Zopim, which is world-class, adds to the responsiveness of Bill.com's support team and makes getting real-time answers that much easier.
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Reliability and Availability
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
BILL
The only time Bill.com was ever "unavailable" was then the Sync to Quickbooks function failed. That happened a time or two but was usually quickly remedied. I'm not sure if that's an issue with newer online versions of Quickbooks Enterprise -- at the time we were using a remotely hosted Quickbooks instance accessed via terminal server (vs a cloud offering like Bill.com is)
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Performance
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
BILL
pretty fast usually
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Support Rating
ActiveCollab
We have not required support for ActiveCollab as it works pretty seamlessly. We didn't have any issues with using the platform or with any billing issues. The self-service aspect of the platform is robust and easy to navigate so we have not encountered any errors that required assistance from the support team.
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BILL
I could not explain to them how I was trying to remove an old email account from my company page while granting the new email account access to the bank account that the first email account had added. The "set a bank account as inactive" button is labeled delete, but they don't seem to recognize that. I requested my Bill.com account be deleted on Wednesday so I could start all over with a fresh account; this seemed to be completed Wednesday night, but when I tried to create a new Bill.com account from the same email, it took me to my old bill.com account.
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Online Training
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
BILL
The online training provided by Bill.com is concise and since the firm consistently improves the platform functionality, users are able to select the training for the modules they specifically need.
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Implementation Rating
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
BILL
I heard from my leadership that it went very well.
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Alternatives Considered
ActiveCollab
ActiveCollab is easier to use and simpler in its setup. It has the right mix of features and simplicity. It's also project-oriented which is important for our workflow. Other tools are often too task-oriented, making it hard to track projects. Overall, ActiveCollab has a great mix of simplicity with good features.
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BILL
top solution out there to simplify accounting and finance tracking. Only negative note: they started charging for every single client ACH payment done through Quickbooks. Originally this feature was free, but then it grew to up to $10 per transaction. Reason for which we had to look into alternate solutions
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Return on Investment
ActiveCollab
  • Allows our team to stay organized and keep conversations on tasks.
  • The To-Do List email every morning helps me mentally prepare and know exactly what I should be doing as soon as I start work.
  • Powerful and useful integrations save lots of time (Google Drive, Slack, Dropbox, Zapier and more!).
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BILL
  • After receiving an offer to 'finance' outstanding invoices, I was enticed by the promise of a 3% total cost for a 60-day period, with the possibility of extending the financing for an additional 10 months (for an additional fee). Eager to access funds, I decided to finance an invoice worth $17,160.00. Within 24 hours, BILL deposited $16,645.20 (97% of the invoice amount) into my account.
  • However, when the customer paid their $17,160 invoice four days later, instead of the funds being deposited into my checking account as I expected, BILL chose to retire the loan and retain my $514.80 fee for the 4 day advance period. This unexpected turn of events resulted in an effective interest rate of a staggering 273.75%. It was clear that this arrangement was far from what I had initially understood, and the financial impact was outrageously high.
  • Frustratingly, my attempts to resolve this issue through customer service were in vain, as I spoke with three agents who provided no satisfactory solutions. To anyone contemplating using BILL's services, I strongly urge you to carefully scrutinize the fine print and consider opting for a more reputable finance company."
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ScreenShots

ActiveCollab Screenshots

Screenshot of the dashboard with an overview of projects.Screenshot of multiple task views currently showing a Kanban view of the tasklists and tasks.Screenshot of Overview of all recent activity.Screenshot of Calendar view with task dependencies.Screenshot of Permission settings (owner, member, client, client+).Screenshot of List of available Add-ons.

BILL Screenshots

Screenshot of BILL’s central dashboard, which displays upcoming bills, invoices, and ingoing and outgoing payments.Screenshot of BILL automatically pulls in bills via email and automatically starts the process. It also checks for duplicate invoices by looking at the invoice numbers and payment amounts to flag questionable invoices.Screenshot of BILL's desktop and mobile applications so users' teams can review invoices and send payments on-the-go.Screenshot of BILL’s mobile app, which can be used to review invoices, add comments, and approve from anywhere.Screenshot of The overview screen, where the status of invoices can be reviewed to get a bird’s eye view of tasks.