Home > PSA Software > Certinia PSA > Certinia PSA vs Polaris PSA

Certinia PSA vs Polaris PSA

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Our analysts compared Certinia PSA vs Polaris PSA based on data from our 400+ point analysis of PSA Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Overview Pricing Benefits & Features Analyst Ratings Comparison Charts User Ratings Analyst Summary Screenshots
Certinia PSA Software Tool
SelectHub Award Winner
Polaris PSA Software Tool
SelectHub Award Winner
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Product Basics

Analyst Rating

92 Detailed Analysis

User Sentiment

Great User Sentiment (536 Reviews)

Analyst Rating

88 Detailed Analysis

User Sentiment

Excellent User Sentiment (202 Reviews)
Certinia PSA (formerly FinancialForce PSA) offers users complete clarity over their business' sales, finances and services. It enables users to manage clients, team members, projects and financial information in one PSA system. Users receive uniform data points so they can better monitor resources and make accurate estimates.

Sales engagement, project management, time and expenses and resource management are some of Certinia PSA's top capabilities.
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Polaris PSA streamlines professional services workflows for project-based businesses. Its core strength lies in automating administrative tasks like time tracking, invoicing, and project reporting, freeing up valuable time for client work. While ideal for agencies of all sizes, it particularly caters to those juggling multiple projects and juggling complex client billing structures. Users praise its intuitive interface, powerful reporting tools, and seamless integrations with popular accounting software. Compared to similar offerings, Polaris PSA stands out for its focus on scalability and customization, allowing businesses to tailor the platform to their specific needs. Pricing follows a tiered model based on the number of users and project complexity, ensuring cost-effectiveness for growing companies.

Pros
  • Intuitive interface
  • Comprehensive features
  • Strong integrations
  • Robust reporting
  • Reliable support
 Cons
  • Steeper learning curve
  • Occasional bugs
  • Limited customization
  • Higher pricing
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$175/User, Monthly
Free Trial is available →
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Tailored to your specific needs
$49/User, Monthly
Free Trial is available →
Get a free price quote
Tailored to your specific needs
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Windows
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Linux
Android
Chromebook
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Linux
Android
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Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
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FAQ
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Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Master Record: Users can utilize a master record of customer data with immediate transparency and seamless teamwork throughout their projects, resources and clientele. 
  • In-depth Insights: Certinia PSA enables users to gain deep analytics and robust insights from their company to make timely and wiser business choices. 
  • Automatic Business Practices: Users can automate all of their business practices from opportunities to pinpointing revenue.  
  • Flexible and Cohesive: This solution is adaptable and works with small and large companies. Its cloud deployment enables users to seamlessly collaborate with every essential employee, internal and external stakeholders. 
  • Full Transparency: Certinia PSA can showcase resource data 24/7 so users can immediately pull up needed resources or preserve them. 
  • Accessibility: Users can access the time and expense management and upload snapshots of expense receipts with the mobile app. The app can streamline the time and expense tracking process by making it available at any time on any connected device.  
  • Receive Accurate Predictions: Users can implement the billing and revenue recognition module to generate accurate forecasting and predictions. It includes thorough scheduling information and an analysis of revenue impact. Users also receive current and future perspectives with full transparency of their sales pipeline.  
  • Adjustable Dashboards: Having trouble sharing the right metrics with the right people? Executives, resource and project managers, financiers and consultants can implement Certinia PSA's flexible dashboards to study and evaluate key performance metrics. 
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  • Enhanced Project Visibility and Control: Gain real-time insights into project status, resource allocation, budgets, and timelines. Identify potential risks and bottlenecks early on, allowing for proactive adjustments and course corrections to ensure projects stay on track and within budget.
  • Improved Resource Utilization and Optimization: Effectively match the right people with the right projects based on skills, availability, and workload. Streamline time tracking and approval processes to ensure accurate billing and payroll. Optimize resource allocation to maximize productivity and efficiency.
  • Streamlined Financial Management and Reporting: Automate invoicing, billing, and revenue recognition processes, reducing errors and accelerating cash flow. Generate comprehensive financial reports and analytics to track project profitability, identify trends, and make informed business decisions.
  • Boosted Collaboration and Teamwork: Foster seamless communication and collaboration among project teams, clients, and stakeholders through centralized project information, shared workspaces, and real-time updates. Break down silos and enhance knowledge sharing to improve decision-making and project outcomes.
  • Enhanced Customer Satisfaction and Retention: Deliver projects on time and within budget, while maintaining high levels of quality and customer satisfaction. Establish a single source of truth for project information, fostering transparency and trust with clients. Strengthen client relationships and increase the likelihood of repeat business.
  • Data-Driven Insights for Strategic Decision-Making: Leverage the power of real-time data and analytics to uncover actionable insights, identify areas for improvement, and make informed strategic decisions. Improve project outcomes, optimize resource utilization, and drive overall business growth.
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  • Streamline Resource Allocation: Certinia PSA's resource management accessory enables users to comprehend every quality of a resource schedule such as project time, PTO, non-billable time and more, to maximize staffing and dominate project management. Users can track resource skills, certifications and availability and oversee and tailor utilization measurements to achieve their resource scheduling demands. 
  • Monitor Every Resource: Users can employ the resource management tool to review capacity, backlogs and availability throughout projects. This module can proactively display resource schedule information online 24/7. Users can find, preserve and generate needed resources right away or in the future. 
  • Establish Practical Expectations: This solution offers a sales engagement tool for users to actively participate in the sales cycle to formulate trustworthy quotes and monitor customer expectations. Users can project requirements and prices to create realistic expectations. When users gain visibility in the brainstorming stages of sales, they can boost margins and clientele gratification.    
  • Transparency in the Sales Channel: Users receive whole visibility in the sales channel with the sales engagement tool to plan ahead by recognizing gaps in supply and demand beforehand. Users can also forecast resource requirements before deals close so they can make informed business decisions. 
  • Communicate with Stakeholders and Clientele: The PSA communities accessory enables users to share current data, reports and project plans with internal and external stakeholders. Users can initiate prompt discussions and share the necessary documents. This tool also allows users to convey and work together with customers by sharing project statuses, data and files.  
  • Manage Partners and Subcontractors: Users can employ the PSA communities module to ensure partner and subcontractor stakeholders are in the know by sharing related costs, availability and project influences. This accessory can exhibit partner and subcontractor costs as they occur, automatically submit time and expenses and monitor invoices and vendor cost budgets. 
  • Develop New Projects in One Click: The project management accessory authorizes users to create new projects with one click and all of the significant information is automatically entered. Users can benefit from advanced project templates to reduce time and guarantee cohesive delivery methods for projects to reach positive outcomes.  
  • Launch Elaborate Procedures: Users can execute workflows and strategies with the project management tool. Managers receive configurable views of their assignments, intricate workflows are promptly activated to meet the most complex assignments and resources can be assigned to specific projects or jobs with thorough work breakdown structure (WBS) support. 
  • Gantt Conspicuity: The project management tool also offers hands-on Gantt charts to fully see plans, dependencies and timelines. Users can search and filter project information and dive into single resource schedules. The drag-and-drop component enables users to move or place assignments and effectively respond to changes.  
  • Facilitate Time Entries and Approvals: Users can implement the time and expense management tool to easily modify time for responsibilities and jobs in one place. Users can copy from other schedules or previous weeks. This module allows users to approve procedures through emails, social channel feeds and mobile devices. Bulk approvals come in handy for large quantities of timecards or expenses.  
  • Mobile-Friendly: The time and expense management module is available on the Certinia app so users can input or validate timecards and expenses. Users can also load snapshots of expense receipts. 
  • Oversee Project Profits: Users can leverage the project financials accessory to study the financial progress of a project. They receive authorization to revenue, bookings, backlog, billing, budgets and rate realization any time anywhere. This module enables users to effortlessly filter data by region, practice or group breakdowns. Users can also monitor the project's revenue costs and margins with the project or portfolio-mode views. 
  • Seamless Billing: The project financials module can be utilized to automate the bid to bill process that can be shared with a user's sales, services and finance departments. Users can also bill by time and expense, flat fee and retainer and combine several billing types for one project. This accessory also produces invoices or mixed billing events for the financial backend of a user's choosing.  
  • Set Budget and Watch Progress: Certinia PSA's project financials component has a revenue recognition extension that permits users to create revenue recognition standards to match your business needs or procedures. Users can upload revenue transactions into their financial system and receive complete transparency over what's ready to bill, what's already been billed and what's been invoiced. This tool can monitor actuals against budgets immediately as it occurs. Users can employ access and workflow restrictions to control budget approvals and requested modifications.  
  • Swift Billing and Easy-to-Find Revenue:  The billing and revenue recognition accessory permit users to pass along bills to their preferred financial system. This tool offers instant assembly of billing data as their projects are finished and submitted for flexible approval. Users can implement a protected audit trail for guaranteed compliance and effortlessly input revenue transactions into your financial application. 
  • Real-Time Data and Insights: Users can employ the dashboard and reporting accessory to promptly display performance and essential KPIs. This feature has vigorous, adaptable dashboards and reports and significant data so users can make crucial and punctual administrative decisions. Users can also develop a library of status reports for their archives and adjust automation options to email customizable reports and files. 
  • Role-Based Dashboards: The dashboard and reporting feature is equipped with personalized management dashboards. These dashboards are flexible for executives, resource managers, project managers, financiers and consultants. Users can also create data access rights that align with a particular role and divide metrics to review extra practical metrics.  
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  • Live Intelligence: Harvest live information through its SmartBeats interface that provides a 360 degree view of how actions impact business. Visualize and filter data within MissionControl and display recommendations relevant to a user’s role. 
  • Project Management: Reference historical metrics to create pipelines and budgets for new clients. Oversee beats in each stage or improve collaboration with instant updates and feedback. Push notifications to manage project statuses and expenses. 
  • Financial Forecasting: Track resource costs, billing rates and finance benchmarks using SmartBudget. Simulate prices, revenue and other factors to strategically bid on accounts. 
  • Client Management: Organize customers, vendors, funding institutions or sales partners under the client entity. Share workload reports and presentations to define project metrics. Deliver account support in the consolidated view to assess project recommendations, billing and client profiles. 
  • Governance:  Achieve compliance by setting validation rules for forms and attachments. Simplify complex workflows by creating checklists and forming breakdown structures to monitor process adherence. Adapt to users in different time zones, currencies and languages. 
  • Time and Expense Tracking: Create customized or pre-populated timesheets for faster submission. Track time and expenses from a desktop or mobile device with built-in GPS tracking and geofencing capabilities. Enable automatic approvals, upload receipts or manage availability and budgets. 
  • Resource Allocation: Configure dimensional reports to determine availability and pinpoint underutilized resources. Reduce training time and create positions based on skills needed or assign placeholders to account for pending projects. Leverage the recommendation engine Smartmatch to analyze talent and recommend applicants based on skill rating to expedite hiring efforts. 
  • Billing and Invoicing: Create rate structures to accommodate versatile contracts and eliminate invoice discrepancies. Offer flexible billing plans specific to the user level, role or other combinations. Manage invoices, track delinquencies and monitor financial health in real-time. 
  • Integrations: Connect platforms like Slack, Microsoft Teams and Quickbooks for seamless workflows. Increase revenue and engagement with the use of its open APIs. 
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Product Ranking

#16

among all
PSA Software

#15

among all
PSA Software

Find out who the leaders are

Analyst Rating Summary

92
88
93
58
97
100
95
89
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Project Collaboration
Project Financials
Dashboard and Reporting
Mobile Capabilities
Time and Expense Management
Dashboard and Reporting
Project Financials
Resource Management
Time and Expense Management
Platform Capabilities

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

Certinia PSA
Polaris PSA
+ Add Product + Add Product
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Dashboard And Reporting Mobile Capabilities Platform Capabilities Project Collaboration Project Financials Project Management Resource Management Time And Expense Management 93 97 95 92 100 100 93 94 95 58 100 89 93 87 100 85 100 100 0 25 50 75 100
82%
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Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

80%
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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 536 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 202 reviews
84%
of users recommend this product

Certinia PSA has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 84% when considering 536 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

92%
of users recommend this product

Polaris PSA has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 92% when considering 202 user reviews from 2 recognized software review sites.

4.8 (9)
n/a
4.2 (438)
n/a
4.2 (49)
4.6 (198)
4.7 (22)
n/a
3.6 (18)
5.0 (4)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Certinia PSA and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Mobile Capabilities, Project Collaboration and Project Management.

Mobile Capabilities Award
Project Collaboration Award
Project Management Award

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Polaris PSA and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Time and Expense Management. Polaris PSA stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award
Time and Expense Management Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Friendly Interface: Precisely 62% of users stated that the program has an easy implementation process and an intuitive user interface.
Strong Performance: Certinia PSA is a single source of information that streamlines procedures and manages projects, teams, patrons and financial tasks, as stated by 65% of users.
Oodles of Features: This solution is equipped with a wide range of features including time tracking, resource planning and allocation, reporting, forecasting, bank reconciliation and more, according to 67% of users.
Smooth Integrations: Roughly 94% of users say the software can merge with other solutions such as Salesforce, Excel, NetSuite, Certinia Accounting, other CRM programs and more.
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Intuitive Interface: Users consistently praise Polaris PSA's ease of use, even for those without extensive technical backgrounds.
Flexible Customization: The software allows for tailoring to specific workflows and business needs, ensuring a seamless fit within existing processes.
Comprehensive Project Management: Users appreciate the ability to manage all project aspects, from planning and scheduling to resource allocation and budgeting, within a single platform.
Accurate Time Tracking: Polaris excels at capturing billable hours precisely, streamlining timesheet submission and approval processes.
Streamlined Invoicing: Generating accurate invoices based on project data is effortless, leading to faster client billing and improved cash flow.
Robust Reporting: The software provides insightful reports on project performance, resource utilization, profitability, and other key metrics, empowering data-driven decision-making.
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Customization Limitations: Certinia PSA's customization options may not be as extensive as some users require, potentially leading to workarounds or compromises in tailoring the platform to specific workflows.
Usability Challenges: The user interface and overall user experience of Certinia PSA can be complex and require a significant learning curve, particularly for new users or those transitioning from other PSA solutions.
Reporting Flexibility: Generating customized reports or accessing specific data points within Certinia PSA may require advanced knowledge or technical expertise, potentially hindering efficient data analysis and decision-making.
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Learning Curve: Users report a steeper learning curve compared to simpler PSA tools.
Initial Setup Complexity: Setting up Polaris PSA can be complex for smaller teams or those with limited technical expertise.
Limited Workflow Customization: While flexible, some users find it challenging to tailor the software to highly specialized workflows.
Performance Issues: Users have reported occasional lag or glitches, especially on older hardware or with large datasets.
Software Bugs: While uncommon, some users have encountered bugs that require technical support to resolve.
Pricing Concerns: Polaris PSA's pricing can be higher compared to some basic PSA tools, especially for smaller businesses.
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Certinia PSA is an effective PSA application that extends a full variety of features to its users. Its interface is user friendly and the implementation process is straightforward, avoiding confusion. It also integrates with other programs such as NetSuite, Salesforce, Salescloud, Certinia Accounting, other financial management solutions and more. Certinia PSA's overall performance expedites routine operations and governs projects, teams, customers and financial duties with ease, making it a robust and handy software.

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User reviews for Polaris PSA paint a picture of a powerful, albeit demanding, PSA tool. Many praise its intuitiveness and flexibility, with one user calling it "a breath of fresh air compared to clunky legacy systems." It stands out in its comprehensive project management, effortlessly handling everything from planning to billing within one platform. Another user loved "ditching the patchwork of apps we used before and having everything in Polaris." However, Polaris' learning curve can be steep. "It's not as pick-up-and-play as some simpler tools," admitted a reviewer. The initial setup can also be complex, especially for smaller teams. This complexity, while offering deep customization, led some to feel limited in tailoring it to specific workflows. "We have a unique process, and while Polaris is flexible, it took more work than expected to get it just right," shared one user. Performance isn't always flawless, with occasional lag and bugs reported, particularly on older systems. Despite these hiccups, many appreciate Polaris' robust reporting and data-driven insights, with one user exclaiming, "Finally, we can make informed decisions based on actual data, not just gut feeling!" Ultimately, Polaris PSA shines for its comprehensiveness and power, but demands investment in training and setup. Users often compare it to Asana or Monday.com, finding it more robust but less user-friendly. If you're a growing team seeking a one-stop PSA solution with deep customization and powerful reporting, Polaris is worth a look. Just be prepared to dedicate some time to mastering its intricacies.

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