GREAT Time Management, AWFUL Email Platform
January 18, 2020

GREAT Time Management, AWFUL Email Platform

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Accelo

Everyone in our organization is using Accelo. The software was meant to be best used to hold all of our clients and their retainers in one place and to integrate those retainers against logging time. This is so that we could accurately see how much time we were using for any given client, against their retainer. When we get close to using the entire retainer, we alert the client. This helps with losing money by going overtime allotted. However, it's a hub of other things like email (or "requests" as Accelo calls them) and contains numerous bugs and issues that have caused many headaches with communication issues between our clients and us.
  • Timing Client Work: You are able to better manage your time on your clients.
  • Housing Client Info in one Area: You can view all you need for any given client in one area.
  • Email Errors: Countless issues with missed emails, scraped links, screenshots not going through, images/colors/hyperlinks all being stripped from emails.
  • Ease of Email: You can't just "send an email" to anyone. The email address HAS to be linked to an account (client). First, you must add an email address to a client before you can send an email. This is painful when you're trying to communicate with sources like Google and having to create many different 'companies' to add emails to the company before emailing them.
  • Save Money on Lost Time. You won't go over your client retainers in any given month if you use Accelo properly. This ultimately saves your company time and money.
  • Lost or Broken Communications. They need to get it together with their email system, aka "request inboxes" ... There are too many lost or broken emails for them to be trustworthy with this. My suggestion is to make sure you know everyone you communicate with (including outside sources like Google or other companies) and set them up in Accelo, then send test emails. Also, when in doubt, use your Outlook or other primary sourced email when you want to make sure an email goes through with all appropriate files.
We switched from Teamwork to Accelo. Teamwork outperforms Accelo when it comes to tasks and email communications. However, Accelo does exceed Teamwork when it comes to impeccable time management. Being able not to overspend time on a client has had a significant benefit in ROI.
I give a five because sometimes it's excellent and fast, but other times I have to follow up after days of not hearing anything. Then you're switched between agents trying to figure out the problem. Many of them don't look through the entire list of communications, so you either have to explain it all again, or you find yourself doing the same testing you just did with a previous agent.

Do you think Accelo delivers good value for the price?

No

Are you happy with Accelo's feature set?

No

Did Accelo live up to sales and marketing promises?

No

Did implementation of Accelo go as expected?

No

Would you buy Accelo again?

No

Accelo is excellent when you have multiple clients, and you need to get a handle on not just the time spent on clients, but also where your employees are spending (or not spending) their time. It doesn't turn you into a micro-manager; it merely gives owners or management a more unobstructed view on where any issues are. However, Accelo has a LOT of work to do to clean up what should be a straightforward process of emailing. Communication is incredibly important, and there are so many bugs as previously listed to workout. This is our 2nd year with Accelo, and I currently have three open tickets with them regarding issues with email. The upside is that they might get to the point where these issues are no longer issues anymore, but that day is not today. Today is Jan 16, 2020, by the way.

Accelo Feature Ratings

Task Management
10
Resource Management
Not Rated
Gantt Charts
Not Rated
Scheduling
1
Workflow Automation
7
Team Collaboration
5
Support for Agile Methodology
Not Rated
Support for Waterfall Methodology
Not Rated
Email integration
1
Mobile Access
6
Timesheet Tracking
10
Change request and Case Management
6
Budget and Expense Management
10
Quotes/estimates
6
Invoicing
8
Project & financial reporting
10
Integration with accounting software
Not Rated