Certinia FM Cloud vs. Catalyst, by EBM Software

For accounting systems, users and/or evaluators often want to see some type of matrix or "heads up" comparisons of specific features and functionality of a system in key areas such as: 1) General Ledger 2) Order to Cash cycle 3) Purchase to Pay cycle 4) Cash management 5) Inventory and/or Cost Accounting (Projects/Jobs, etc) 6) Revenue Recognition 7) Fixed Assets management 8) Budgets 9) Tax 10) Reports and Analysis It would be great if this kind of matrix existed to be filled in by reviewers so that others could benefit from their perspectives about the applications and how they address or handle the specific features/functionality. With respect to FinancialForce, the company has found that nearly all the key features it needed were available from the application.

[Catalyst, by EBM Software] is well suited to track invoices from vendors to get them paid on time to avoid late fees. [Catalyst, by EBM Software] is less appropriate when paying vendor because that is not a function they currently have. If the system was an all in one system that could track and pay your invoices it would be an amazing software.

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• User interface is more modern and user-friendly than other software
• Dashboards allow for good visual interpretation
• Reports are able to be customized to better fit users' needs

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• The GUI is easy to navigate on the iPad mini, which we use for charting.
• The options are simple so there is very little room for mistakes.
• Charting is easy and the setup allows for necessary fields that must be completed so charting stays uniform.

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• Since SalesForce was not made with accounting in mind, building FinancialForce as a module on top of SalesForce gives problems because the overarching architect of SalesForce cannot facilitate all the accounting requirements.
• The FinancialForce integration team was not very good, and did not help us set up our FinancialForce very well. Their customer support is also lacking and takes a long time to respond and troubleshoot our problems.
• FinancialForce doesn't actually build financial statement reports. We were only able to run a trial balance, and we had to build the statements ourselves in Excel.

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• The browser closes unexpectedly at times when refreshing the page and you get logged out
• The incorrect vendor is chosen by Catalyst a few times
• The Catalyst file is occasionally not placed on time in the folder

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The company has now converted its legacy, "home grown" operations system and built it on the force.com platform, and the integration between it and FinancialForce is deeply entrenched. No other application would be able to replicate this functionality, and the company will be able to scale and leverage the force.com platform as it grows.

Change management is always an issue, but the evidence of the application's usability is that both long-time employees (used to the legacy systems for many years) and newer employees have been able to learn the system and improve their business processes.

Well.... when it works... it's good. When it doesn't it is very frustrating for our staff.

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Unless the internet is completely unavailable - which has not happened yet - the application is always accessible. Since FinancialForce is built on the force.com platform, it's uptime is tied to Salesforce security and system performance standards

If Visualforce pages are enabled, they sometimes slow down the load time.

The response time for FinancialForce is exemplary. Immediate acknowledgement of the support request by automatically logging a case/ticket on the provider side, then less than 24-hour follow up by a support team member with specific questions, information or resolution for the issue.

The support for Catalyst is great and they are usually within the 48 hour response time. There could be a little quicker upload time for invoices that are submitted. They usually show up until the next day on the system and sometimes gives us a stress on time. Overall, the support is quite good

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Through its Xtra login website available to its customers, FinancialForce offers a complete set of online, video tutorials, training and documentation. Each tutorial is "bite-sized", meaning it imparts instructional, step-by-step information in 2-3 minute narrated videos. For a particular cycle or process, like invoices to payments for example, each tutorial builds on the last so that the user can get a complete picture of the steps and process in less than 10 minutes.

The company decided to run parallel for three months in order to soften the impact of the change from the legacy "system" - which users had been interfacing with for over a decade - to FinancialForce. While not recommended, this did provide time for the in-house "super user" team of 2 people to become completely familiar with the application, and thus provide hands-on training and be a resource for the users who would be processing the daily accounting transactions.

FinancialForce Subscription & Usage Billing has more features, more useability, and manages higher numbers of customers. The systems I have used in the past are easier to navigate but couldn't handle this number of customers.

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[Catalyst, by EBM Software] is a very easy system to use and is very user friendly. It gives you different ways of researching an invoice and not just one. Catalyst also helps to allow us to research an invoice within seconds and eliminates a lengthy and confusing process. It is a great software for first time users to learn quickly and efficiently.

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• Beneficial to easily be able to track impact of fluctuating currencies.
• Integration with Salesforce.com reduced/elimintated manual entry which saves various colleagues time.
• Increased visibility over the entire sales cycle because of the integration between Salesforce.com & FinancialForce Accounting.

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• Catalyst is better than pencil and paper data analysis. But the app can be very frustrating when it's not working the way it did last week.
• The GUI is very simple. Sometimes too simple, like there is no way to go back in and edit SOAP note options.
• New feature roll-outs are mandatory. I understand that no one would opt in to being the guinea pig, but it would be nice if you weren't the first user to try it.
• The integration with billing software has streamlined the billing notes and saved us money over having two separate systems.

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Independently Invited by TrustRadius

A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info