ActiveCollab vs. Emburse SpringAhead

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
ActiveCollab
Score 5.4 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
Emburse SpringAhead
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
SpringAhead is an expense reporting, billing, and time tracking platform that was owned and supported by Certify Travel and Expense created from the 2017 merger of Certify, Nexonia, and other companies, and now from Emburse, the company formed from the merger of Certify and Chrome River Technologies in March 2019.N/A
Pricing
ActiveCollabEmburse SpringAhead
Editions & Modules
ActiveCollab Project Management
$8
per member/per month
Self-Hosted Plan
$999.00
license
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ActiveCollabEmburse SpringAhead
Free Trial
YesNo
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
ActiveCollabEmburse SpringAhead
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
3.6
13 Ratings
72% below category average
Emburse SpringAhead
-
Ratings
Task Management5.212 Ratings00 Ratings
Resource Management1.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Gantt Charts3.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Scheduling1.011 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow Automation7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Team Collaboration6.113 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 Access1.110 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
27% below category average
Emburse SpringAhead
-
Ratings
Quotes/estimates6.97 Ratings00 Ratings
Invoicing6.96 Ratings00 Ratings
Project & financial reporting1.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with accounting software7.94 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
ActiveCollabEmburse SpringAhead
Small Businesses
Stackby
Stackby
Score 9.4 out of 10
Dext Prepare (with Receipt Bank)
Dext Prepare (with Receipt Bank)
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Planview AgilePlace
Planview AgilePlace
Score 9.4 out of 10
BILL Spend & Expense
BILL Spend & Expense
Score 8.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Planview AgilePlace
Planview AgilePlace
Score 9.4 out of 10
Webexpenses
Webexpenses
Score 8.7 out of 10
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User Ratings
ActiveCollabEmburse SpringAhead
Likelihood to Recommend
2.2
(13 ratings)
6.5
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
7.1
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
ActiveCollabEmburse SpringAhead
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.












Read full review
Emburse
It's definitely well suited for all organizations with knowledge workers who use computers to do their work and are able to log in and enter their time on a regular basis. I've always had access to it as part of my job and love using SpringAhead. It may be less appropriate in a role where the worker does not have regular access to a computer to enter their hours digitally.
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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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Emburse
  • Allows for tracking of time very easily. Users can add all their project's time in one place instead of drilling into each project.
  • Managers can approve their team's time all in one place. We do not need to drill down to find the info and approve. Users who don't report to the manager but are part of the project can still be approved by the project manager.
  • Reports are easy to read when looking at historical information. Reports can be run with multiple parameters that the user needs.
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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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Emburse
  • Automated reminders to employees would be great
  • A more modern and up-to-date user interface
  • The approvals system for projects vs. users could use some work
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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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Emburse
No answers on this topic
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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Emburse
We selected SpringAhead because of price and usability. This tool is easy to set up and configure. It is a cloud application allowing access from anywhere. There were no training requirements. When you have a small use case this tool is the way to go. We moved off SpringAhead to get more functionality and it has required a lot more training and effort to maintain and utilize
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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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Emburse
  • Positive - tracking return on project investments
  • Positive - being able to plan on future projects
  • Positive - being able to manage costs and attendance
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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.