Emburse Certify vs. Zoho Invoice

[Emburse] Certify seems to have been designed with large organizations in mind, particularly those with corporate card programs as opposed to "small business" cards. The integration with American Express Business accounts failed after less than a year, and was not reestablished before we pulled the plug on the whole project. Even worse, [Emburse] Certify's support team wasn't able to offer alternatives.

Incentivized

Zoho Invoice is well suited for any business, regardless of size, that needs to have a way to create invoices with hourly or flat rates. It's easy to create and archive projects. It also integrates into their other tools, including Zoho Projects. Zoho is great for businesses who want to accept online payments.You can use PayPal, Stripe, and a few others. Clients can also pay via ACH. It lets you know when a payment is processing AND when it clears. I believe that it would not be well suited in instances where a company creates lots of credit notes (because from the invoice screen the credit will appear to grow, but when you check active credit notes, it is the right amount) or estimates (I can't figure out how to use this feature)

Incentivized

• Customer service/support: They have an incredible team. We are fans of the chat option and 99.9% of the time our issues are solved within a 5-minute window.
• Listening to customers: they are always looking for ways to improve their product. They have free conferences sprinkled around various cities. They are worth trending. They provide "what's new in Certify" as well as round-table discussions specifically addressing how their customers are using the product and what they have learned along the way.
• Keeping their product up to date: Certify takes back various suggestions from the conference to enhance their product. I have been at every conference they have had and have actually seen customer suggestions get implemented into the program.

Incentivized

• Time tracking. Zoho invoice makes it super easy to track time and hours against specific clients and specific tasks.
• Unbilled / billed time reporting. Zoho Invoice gives a dashboard view of hours yet to be billed, which helps keep on top of invoicing so nothing is missed.
• Reporting. Zoho Invoice offers a robust reporting module for the price point. Canned reports can be customized easily.
• Invoice sending and tracking. Zoho Invoice makes it easy to create and send invoices. Invoices are easy to clone, which makes creating regular, repeatable invoices a snap.

Incentivized

• The ability to add a receipt after a report has been submitted would be helpful. This would simplify processing as opposed to disapproving the report and sending it back to the user for correction and re-submission.
• Though not a fault of Certify, our users drive multiple destinations every day, rather than occasional trips from city A to city B. Therefore, capturing mileage is a time-consuming process for our users.

Incentivized

• Zoho Invoice can be complicated if you want to create a more advanced custom invoice or custom recurring invoice.
• Zoho Invoice does not provide all of its functionalities on the mobile version of its platform.
• Zoho Invoice is expensive for some small business owners especially if they don't plan on using it often.

Incentivized

I am very used to Certify's components. But some users that I manage still have a hard time fixing their expense reports no matter how many times I try to teach them. The Editing expense Report and Adding Expense Report option sometimes gets confusing and causes some employees to enter transactions twice. There should be a better layout to make it easier for them to edit and finish their expense reports. I try to teach Certify as much as I can, but the usability should be a bit easier so it is less confusing.

Incentivized

Ease of access of using the dashboard the buttons I mean like if it is taught in 10th I would have worked it. Simple and minimal hi give good entry to be more transparent and sharable to clients in seconds. The client also get shocked by saying it's fast.

Incentivized

The measure of support is how well they respond when you really need them, like when the system is not performing correctly. We have been on the platform less than a year, and there have been at least 2 instances, where the platform was down. The 2nd time was the day before out fiscal year end. And they need a development website. When they are making changes to your LIVE instance, and things go wrong, the client is the first to know about it! I've come to understand that Certify has tiers of support. Those in tier 1, barely know more about the software than the users. I sent a request for a report that shows expense reports currently pending approval and after 5 days of back and forth I was told to build it myself.

Incentivized

We used Concur prior to Certify. It cost 5x as much and was not worth the money. We also looked at Expensify, which had minor issues compared to what we are dealing with in Certify. Certify does not compare to Concur. The platforms are in two different leagues. Expensify is a good comparison and it is compatible with major ERPs like Sage Intacct. Nexonia, is actually also an Emburse product and likely would have been a better fit given it's integration capabilities with Sage Intacct.

Incentivized

Zoho Invoice streamlines bill creation and sending by personalizing invoices with logos, identities, and terms. It offers detailed payment reports, an integrated payment system, and payment summaries for tracking success. It automates invoicing and payment tasks, saving time and money for companies. Zoho Invoice integrates with Stripe Payments, enhancing settlement processes and promoting digital payment adoption.

• We have reduced the amount of time our operations department has to spend booking flights to 0.
• Hotel bookings have been greatly streamlined and we are looking to eliminate human interaction with this process once CC authorisations are handled.
• We have eliminated the wait time between operational travel research and client approval time -- it can all be handled in one single step now.

Incentivized

• The biggest ROI for my business is that Zoho Invoice reduced the cost of invoicing so much, that I was able to invest that savings back into the business development allowing us to grow.
• Zoho Invoice provides the option of giving your clients a client portal through which they have access to their own accounts and can see and print their own reports as needed. That helps to create a transparency that our clients love.
• Zoho Invoice has been dependable. I have not had one issue with using the platform or its functions since I switched to it a few years ago.

Incentivized