Acumatica vs Workday Financial Management

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Our analysts compared Acumatica vs Workday Financial Management based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Accounting Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Product Basics

Acumatica is cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. It handles core business processes like financials, manufacturing, payroll, service management, order management and customer relationship management (CRM) for medium-sized companies and large enterprises.

A standout feature is its open architecture, making it easy to customize and connect to existing apps. Data security functions include multi-factor authorization (MFA) and IP access restrictions.

Recent reviews are positive about its user-friendly interface, scalability and functionality. While costing more than some basic ERP software, Acumatica offers robust features like project management, advanced reporting and inventory control, making it a good choice for growing businesses seeking to centralize and automate operations.

Compared to its competitors, users appreciate its flexibility and accessibility. However, its extensive customization options is a double-edged sword, requiring developer knowledge for complex modifications and integrations. While Acumatica's breadth of functionality is impressive, it can present a steeper learning curve for users new to the platform.

Acumatica offers a subscription-based model based on depth of functionality. This pricing structure allows unlimited user access to the system. The final price depends on added modules, consumption levels (including storage and transaction volumes) and licensing costs.
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Workday Financial Management is a cloud-based accounting software designed for mid-sized and large enterprises. It automates core financial processes like record-to-report, procurement, and expense management, aiming to streamline operations and improve data visibility. Its strengths lie in its user-friendly interface, real-time reporting capabilities, and global compliance support. However, its subscription-based pricing model can be costlier than traditional on-premise solutions. Users praise its intuitive design and powerful analytics, but some note occasional integration issues and a steeper learning curve compared to simpler systems. Overall, Workday Financial Management is a robust option for companies seeking a modern, scalable accounting platform with a focus on automation and global reach, but its premium pricing might not suit smaller businesses or those with less complex financial needs.

Pros
  • User-friendly interface
  • Real-time reporting
  • Global compliance support
  • Scalable for growth
  • Integrates with other Workday apps
Cons
  • Higher subscription costs
  • Steeper learning curve
  • Occasional integration issues
  • Limited customization options
  • Reporting can be complex
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Product Assistance

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Product Insights

  • Focus on User Experience: Acumatica contains a range of automated capabilities for creating tax filing reports, billing and invoicing, calculating realized gains and losses, and managing taxes. The user-friendly experience coupled with fewer manual processes foster quick user adoption.
  • Access Everything in One Place: Review all business functions, databases and workflows in one place. Personalized dashboards fix the generalized view problem and let users see vital information.
  • Get Real-Time Visibility: Real-time visibility into business processes helps reduce inconsistencies and communication errors.
  • Support Global Operations: Set up shop in various locations and support transactions across multiple currencies.
  • Maintain Financial Health: Gain better control over your company’s financials by either segmenting or centralizing accounting among various locations and entities.
  • Comply With Complex Tax Regulations: Reduce tax headaches by accounting for use, sales, withholding and other considerations. Avoid penalties and fines with built-in tax management capabilities that ensure adherence to tax guidelines.
  • Choose From a Strong Partner Ecosystem: Acumatica has a vast network of partners offering industry-specific solutions and implementation services. Get the right options to align the system with your specific business needs.
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  • Enhanced Efficiency and Streamlined Operations: Automates manual tasks, eliminates data silos, and provides real-time visibility across financial processes, leading to faster close cycles, reduced errors, and improved operational agility.
  • Data-Driven Decision Making: Offers robust analytics and reporting tools that deliver actionable insights into financial performance, enabling informed strategic planning, cost optimization, and resource allocation.
  • Global Compliance and Scalability: Supports complex global operations with built-in compliance features and multi-currency capabilities, ensuring seamless expansion into new markets and adherence to local regulations.
  • Improved User Experience and Productivity: Provides a modern, intuitive interface that empowers finance teams with self-service capabilities, reduces training requirements, and boosts overall user satisfaction.
  • Enhanced Collaboration and Visibility: Fosters collaboration between finance and other business departments through integrated workflows and shared data, promoting transparency and alignment across the organization.
  • Reduced Risk and Improved Controls: Strengthens internal controls with advanced security features, audit trails, and automated compliance checks, mitigating financial risks and safeguarding sensitive data.
  • Increased Agility and Adaptability: Enables rapid configuration changes and customizations to adapt to evolving business needs and industry regulations, ensuring continuous optimization and competitive advantage.
  • Talent Optimization and Retention: Supports talent management initiatives by streamlining payroll and expense processes, providing employee self-service capabilities, and enhancing financial transparency, leading to increased employee satisfaction and retention.
  • Sustainable Growth and ROI: Delivers tangible cost savings through automation, improved efficiency, and reduced compliance risks, contributing to significant long-term return on investment.
  • Future-Proofed Platform: Continuously updated with new features and functionality, ensuring your accounting system stays ahead of the curve and adapts to evolving industry trends and technologies.
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  • Financial Management: Manage accounting, budgeting, financial reporting and cash management on one platform. In addition to core functions like general ledgers, accounts receivables and payables, it offers automated bank reconciliations and multi-currency to support efficiency and global operations.
  • Distribution Management: Manage sales, inventory, and purchasing processes with one module. Top features include order management, inventory control and warehouse management. Its ability to handle complex inventory valuation methods and real-time inventory visibility sets it apart.
  • Order Management: Get better control over the entire order-to-cash process. From order entry and tracking to fulfillment and invoicing, it provides complete visibility and control.
  • Built-In CRM: Build and maintain strong customer relationships. Use sales force automation, marketing automation and customer service management tools to make every interaction meaningful. Integrated sales forecasting, lead scoring and customer lifecycle management drive sales growth and improve customer satisfaction.
  • Manufacturing: Get real-time visibility into shop floor activities. Create and manage multiple work centers. Manage everything from bills of materials (BOM) creation to work order management based on job dispatch lists.
  • Service Management: Use an extensive service management toolkit that includes service request creation, service contract management and installation management features. Enhance service delivery and improve technician productivity by offering a technical portal to start and end appointments.
  • Inventory Management: Capture key inventory details like class ID and item types. These support cycle routing with better visibility into stock levels. Build kits to stock with the option to disassemble kits into smaller components.
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  • Grant Management: Meet grantor and business requirements for budgeting, billing, reporting and compliance. Minimize the possibility of reporting errors, any loss due to absent funds or risk associated with non-compliance. Make sure that all grantor’s requirements get met in terms of timeframe, balance, terms and conditions. Control unnecessary spending by keeping a tab on the monetary status in real-time. Ensure that workers are paid for individual projects. 
  • Analytics and Reporting: Create internal reports and external regulatory statements ensuring no patchwork database. Use reconciliations and analytical tools. Ensure robust security while deriving insights for strategic decision-making. Let executives and leaders view monetary, operational and management visualizations. Gain a complete view of the business by combining transactional and operational parameters. Know and understand what is happening, where and why by analyzing details across dimensions. 
  • Financial Planning: Make informed, faster decisions with flexible tools and data-driven insights. Respond quickly to change by creating strategic plans for budgeting expenses to forecasting revenue. Gain a complete picture by populating models with data. Connect to cloud, on-premise and data warehouse. Ensure reliable data access with an automated data flow. Involve everyone in the planning process with role-based access to models. Create reports by automatically connecting to Microsoft Excel, Word and PowerPoint. View numbers, charts and variance alongside each other, reflected instantly. 
  • Audits and Internal Control: Keep the business secure, identify risk and document every translation with audit and internal controls. Adjust controls and processes, set thresholds, evaluate workflows and prevent unauthorized transactions with a flexible framework. Limit permissions to people with single access and authorization control. 
  • Global Foundation: Operate and expand in different countries or around the world. Get built-in flexibility and support for global time zones, currencies and address formats. Leverage support for multiple charts of accounts, tax, banking and payment format. Deploy faster with built-in country-specific configurations. 
  • Expenses: Minimize expense processing time and reimburse faster. Record the transaction by scanning the receipt. Get better travel rates and discounts by uncovering the latest trends in real-time with a delivered expense dashboard. Control cost and keep all the travel policies in one place. Prevent the possibility of fraud by tracking out of policy spends.  
  • Accounting Centre: Gain detailed insights and reduce the time to close with comprehensive accounting information and data lineage back to source transactions. Minimize errors, boost efficiency and gain better control and visibility. Manage and modify rules with one accounting engine written in business language. Get detailed budgetary and operational reporting with a virtual subledger. Recognize revenue by modifying operational data. 
  • Revenue Management: Gain complete visibility with flexible features and view and analyze all the system’s aspects. Minimize risk by establishing, approving and tracking customers at every step of the contract cycle. Reduce revenue leakage and gain rich insights into write-offs and billing rules. Boost accessibility, accuracy, profitability with intercompany invoices. Get end-to-end revenue management and comprehensive revenue recognition while staying compliant with GAAP and IFRS standards and protocols. 
  • Budgetary Consolidation and Close: Keep track of the output by any factor such as spend by supplier, campaign, profitability and project activity. Reconcile accounts and embed them in the transaction system. Automate tasks, route approvals and reports with a close period checklist. Get real-time currency and earning calculations to analyze the financial results within a specific timeframe.  
  • Accounting and Finance: Keep a tab on the monetary impact of transactions by identifying and addressing issues promptly without running a batch process. Close faster with real-time consolidation. Automate finance and accounting operations, make modifications or corrections any time and get recommendations on payment matching. Manage accounts payable, contracts, billings and payments from one place. Gain complete transparency into records from procurement to disposal. Control and optimize the cash flow. 
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Product Ranking

#28

among all
Accounting Software

#357

among all
Accounting Software

Find out who the leaders are

Analyst Rating Summary

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Banking and Cash Management
Financial Statements and Revenue Management
General Ledger and Chart of Accounts
Journal Entries
Multi-company Accounting and Asset Management
Banking and Cash Management
Budget and Expense Management
Platform Security
Tax Management
Multi-company Accounting and Asset Management

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

Acumatica
Workday Financial Management
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Accounts Payable Accounts Receivable Banking And Cash Management Budget And Expense Management Financial Statements And Revenue Management General Ledger And Chart Of Accounts Integration And Extensibility Inventory Management Journal Entries Mobile Support Multi-company Accounting And Asset Management Platform Capabilities Project Accounting Reporting And Analytics Tax Management 0 81 100 80 100 100 0 73 100 0 100 0 80 0 98 0 70 100 100 66 63 0 57 81 0 87 0 80 0 100 0 25 50 75 100
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Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 2062 reviews
Great User Sentiment 324 reviews
89%
of users recommend this product

Acumatica has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 89% when considering 2062 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

84%
of users recommend this product

Workday Financial Management has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 84% when considering 324 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

5.0 (13)
n/a
4.5 (1217)
3.8 (77)
4.5 (126)
4.4 (55)
4.3 (110)
4.4 (153)
4.4 (596)
4.0 (39)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Acumatica and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Multi-company Accounting and Asset Management.

Multi-company Accounting and Asset Management Award

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Workday Financial Management and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Budget and Expense Management.

Budget and Expense Management Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

User-Friendly: While there were some mixed reviews concerning disjointed navigation and the need for in-depth end-user training, 75% of reviewers said that Acumatica is easy to use.
Reporting: Over 50% of users were in favor of Acumatica’s reporting. Those who were not in favor said that the reporting feature required IT assistance to generate specialized reports, as the custom report tool isn’t friendly for those without developer knowledge.
Customization: Nearly three-fourths of reviews that mentioned customization applauded the vast amount of opportunities for customization, while one-fourth of reviewers complained that users need IT assistance to complete customizations.
Functionality: Acumatica provides robust functionality — almost 82% of reviewers said the system came with every tool they needed and more. Reviewers also mentioned that yearly updates are rolled out, so functionality is always improving.
Integration: Of the users that mentioned integration in their review, 100% were satisfied with the connectivity to other systems.
Cloud-Based Scalability: Easily adapt to business growth by adding modules or users without data disruption or complex upgrades.
Seamless Integrations: Connect with various third-party tools and platforms through open APIs and connectors, streamlining data flow and operations.
Centralized Data: Consolidate all business information in one system, improving data accuracy, accessibility and reporting capabilities.
Mobile App Access: Manage key tasks and access data on the go with the mobile app, boosting productivity and flexibility.
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Streamlined Processes and Efficiency: Automates manual tasks like journal entries, reconciliations, and financial reporting, saving time and reducing errors.
Real-Time Visibility and Insights: Provides instant access to financial data and customizable dashboards, enabling proactive decision-making and improved cash flow management.
Global Compliance and Scalability: Supports multi-GAAP compliance, multi-currency transactions, and international tax reporting, simplifying operations for global organizations.
User-Friendly Interface and Adoption: Offers an intuitive interface with guided workflows and role-based dashboards, making it easy to learn and use for finance professionals of varying skill levels.
Seamless Integration and Collaboration: Integrates smoothly with other Workday applications and external systems, fostering collaboration across departments and streamlining financial processes.
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Support: Almost 70% of reviews concerning support were negative, given that Acumatica requires users to partner with a third party for support. In addition, there were some grievances surrounding the “Help” documentation.
Implementation: Between long implementation cycles and a requirement for a VAR to implement the system, 75% of reviewers said that they weren’t happy with the process.
Higher Cost Than Basic Options: Initial investment and per-application pricing can be steeper than some basic accounting software, especially for smaller businesses.
Steeper Learning Curve for Complex Needs: Extensive customization and advanced features may require dedicated IT resources or consultant support, increasing implementation costs.
Limited Industry-Specific Features: May lack specialized modules or functionalities for highly regulated or niche industries.
Reporting Customization Restrictions: While customizable, financial reporting options might not offer the depth and drill-down capabilities of dedicated reporting tools.
Occasional System Bugs & Glitches: 80% of users who mentioned platform speed report occasional bugs and glitches, requiring troubleshooting and potential downtime.
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Steep Learning Curve: Workday's interface and functionality can be complex for users unfamiliar with its specific terminology and workflows, requiring significant training and onboarding.
Limited Customization Options: While Workday offers some customization, it may not fully accommodate specific accounting needs or reporting requirements, potentially leading to workarounds or integration with additional tools.
High Implementation and Maintenance Costs: Workday's initial implementation and ongoing maintenance can be expensive, especially for smaller organizations, requiring careful budgeting and resource allocation.
Integration Challenges: Integrating Workday with existing legacy systems or third-party applications can be complex and time-consuming, potentially disrupting workflows and requiring specialized technical expertise.
Limited Offline Functionality: Workday's cloud-based nature can pose challenges in situations with limited internet connectivity, potentially impacting critical accounting tasks and data access.
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User reviews, coupled with our extensive research, confirm Acumatica’s reputation for flexibility and scalability. Still, certain features and overall performance have drawn mixed reviews.First, the positives. A majority of user reviews highlight Acumatica’s functionality and its ease of use. Popular mentions include the quoting and billing, accounts location, and inventory management features. Other honorable mentions are the accounts payable and invoice routing tools.Reviewers specifically mention that managing administrative functions is a breeze and accessible from anywhere. One user even mentioned that their business is retiring other legacy systems because Acumatica fulfills those needs by offering tools to manage various business functions on one platform with complete access to past data.For those who swear by Excel, Acumatica offers a comforting bridge with its robust Excel integration. The export to Excel feature is available on every grid. No more tedious manual transfers.However, drawbacks like the less-than-ideal calendar feature and tricky project management tools have been noted. Users say that project management, while capable of managing multiple projects at once, could have fewer steps.The platform’s performance can be a hiccup. Multiple users experienced glitches, especially when dealing with large datasets or navigating through generic inquiries. The system also logs out after 60 minutes of idle time. Defining user inactivity timeout is only available for Acumatica 2023 R1 and beyond.Beyond user reviews, our research team delved into the strengths and weaknesses of Acumatica. According to our research, it’s the best in the game for order and service management.Acumatica's biggest differentiator lies in its open architecture and customization options. Unlike some competitors with limited customization or reliance on pre-built modules, Acumatica lets you tailor the platform to their specific workflows and processes.The caveat is that molding the platform will take time and a great deal of expertise (either through internal IT or external support). Implementation will get drawn out, and expediting this process without proper alignment with your business needs will deter you from getting complete value for the amount you pay.The timeline and pricing might not be suitable for smaller firms or startups. Some users also wished the private cloud perpetual (PCP) licensing model wasn't discontinued. We suggest looking for other options if you don’t want to pay a monthly recurring fee.So, is Acumatica right for you?Acumatica is a strong contender if your business demands a highly adaptable system and you're prepared to invest time and resources in customization. However, if you prioritize rapid implementation and lightning-fast performance, you might want to explore other options.

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Workday Financial Management (WFM) user reviews paint a mixed picture. While users praise its streamlining capabilities, real-time insights, and global compliance features, they also face challenges with its initial complexity, limited customization, and high costs. Compared to competitors like Oracle NetSuite and SAP Business One, WFM shines in automating manual tasks and offering intuitive dashboards for data-driven decision-making. However, its steeper learning curve and potential integration hurdles can be daunting for smaller firms or those accustomed to simpler systems. Users particularly appreciate WFM's ability to automate journal entries, reconciliations, and financial reporting, freeing up valuable time for analysis and strategic planning. The real-time visibility into financial data with customizable dashboards also empowers users to make proactive decisions and manage cash flow effectively. For global organizations, WFM's support for multi-GAAP compliance, multi-currency transactions, and international tax reporting simplifies operations and streamlines reporting across diverse regions. However, users also highlight WFM's learning curve as a major hurdle, especially for those unfamiliar with its unique interface and terminology. The limited customization options can also be frustrating when specific accounting needs or reporting requirements don't perfectly align with the system's functionalities. Additionally, the high implementation and maintenance costs can be a barrier for smaller organizations, making WFM a better fit for larger enterprises with the resources to invest. Compared to competitors, WFM's strengths lie in its automation capabilities and data-driven insights. Users often find Oracle NetSuite more user-friendly and customizable, while SAP Business One offers better integration with existing systems for some businesses. Ultimately, the choice between WFM and its competitors boils down to individual priorities and needs. If automation, real-time data, and global compliance are top concerns, WFM stands out. However, if ease of use, customization, and cost-effectiveness are paramount, other options might be more suitable.

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