Professional services automation software provider Certinia has shared its latest product update which provides a number of significant enhanced capabilities. The enhancements are designed to enable services businesses to generate more accurate forecasts, make more informed decisions and boost team productivity. Read on for the details!
Certinia, formerly known as FinancialForce, describes itself as delivering “a Services-as-a-Business platform that powers and connects all aspects of services operations, from services estimation and delivery to customer success management and financial planning and accounting” – and has boosted it products and services with the undeniably useful power of AI – something everyone company is seeking to leverage, not just for themselves, but their customers, too.
Now comes Certinia’s Spring 2024 Release – which is Autumn for us in the Southern Hemisphere – which boosts services businesses with AI-powered forecasting and productivity enhancements, as described in a media briefing I attended via Zoom last week, and which has been explained in detail by the company’s Chief Product and Strategy Officer, Dan Brown (pictured above), in a blog post you can read here, and which is largely reprinted further below.
You can also watch my video interview with Dan Brown embedded immediately below for more information, the article continues thereafter!
I first discovered Certinia – which has around 100 customers in Australia, and 1300+ more in 30+ countries – when I conducted a video interview with the company’s Global Analytics Evangelist, Joe Thomas, who was in Australia in March, 2024, to attend the Forefront Data & AI Summit NSW 2024, which brought together senior data and AI leaders, who explored the transformative effects of current innovations, fostering cross-industry collaboration, and maximising the strategic potential of data.
In my March 2024 article titled “VIDEO INTERVIEW: Certinia Global Analytics Evangelist Joe Thomas explains how AI is changing everything through augmented insight”, Thomas explained, in our video interview, a range of topics, including the concept of “Pragmatic AI’, and the idea that AI could easily also stand for “augmented insight”.
Indeed, AI was added to Certinia’s portfolio in December 2023, with the announcement of advanced new AI capabilities and a wide range of enhancements to its Services-as-a-Business platform.
So, what does Certina’s Chief Product and Strategy Officer, Dan Brown, explain in his blog post?
First and foremost, Brown said the product upgrades are designed to help its customers transform their professional services to deliver predictable and profitable value.
“At the forefront of our latest product release is our continued commitment to harnessing the power of AI, empowering professional services organisations to drive informed decision-making and unlock tangible results,” he said.
“Infusing pragmatic AI capabilities throughout the services journey promises enormous gains for services organisations as they streamline their end-to-end processes, leading to stronger growth, profitability, and customer satisfaction.
“This release features a range of new and enhanced capabilities — including several major developments incorporating AI into our platform — to help services businesses generate more accurate forecasts, make more informed decisions, and boost their team’s productivity.”
He said that every enhancement has been developed to help services organisations drive more certainty in their businesses, from opportunity to renewal. “We are excited about the range of updates and new capabilities to our Services-as-a-Business platform and the value it will unlock for our customers.”
Below, Brown breaks down the upgrades starting with the AI enhancements.
Unlocking real-world benefits with AI
We continue to lead the way in helping global enterprises integrate AI into their finance and professional services operations, delivering actionable insights that drive informed decision-making. By simulating the likelihood of closing opportunities on a related estimate and conducting what-if analysis, users can strategically adjust inputs to maximise their chances of success. This capability enables businesses to swiftly approve statements of work and kickstart projects, giving them a competitive edge in the market.
Accelerating accurate and timely estimates
This release introduces enhancements that enable users to accurately scope projects and easily analyse estimates. With a predefined set of questions specific to each services product in Services CPQ, organisations can achieve seamless connectivity across teams, from sales to finance, resulting in a more cohesive customer experience. Additionally, Services CPQ offers an estimate overview, allowing the extended team to analyse estimates, identify areas of risk, and make informed adjustments. These enhancements will drive more accurate estimates, streamline the review and approval process, and increase the speed of quoting, ultimately reducing the time between closing the deal and starting the project.
Optimising resource utilisation with efficient staffing decisions
With the latest work plannerenhancements, resource managers can easily view and manage resourcing and scheduling for various types of work, including billable and non-billable tasks. These improvements include the ability to pivot between hours and percentages, as well as new filters for matching resources based on skills and distance. Updated resource request features allow for better management and visualisation of scheduled hours for suggested resources. This enables resource managers to visualise future assignments and consider capacity and scheduling needs at the point of assignment, ultimately leading to scalable and higher quality staffing decisions.
Reduce resource assignment complexity and benchment with resource info at a glance.
Connecting delivery to project financials
Aligning delivery management with project financials is essential for protecting revenue and profit. Project managers can now monitor the progress of a project compared to the original plan. With insights into scheduling variance, budget utilisation, and forecasted revenue, project managers can gain a financial perspective of the project’s performance.
With this release, we’re also providing project managers with enhanced control to proactively identify and address any necessary course corrections when there are deviations from the planned delivery. By viewing resources’ schedules in Gantt charts and overviews of key performance indicators, project managers can easily assess project progress and take prompt action. This reduces the risk of schedule delays, budget overruns, and inaccurate revenue forecasts.
In addition, with automated billing event splits, project managers no longer have to worry about reaching a billing cap and halting the billing process. Instead, they can continue billing up to the cap and split the remaining amount. This eliminates the need for manual intervention, reducing administrative oversight and minimising the risk of payment interruptions. Project costs can also be splitand attached to milestones allocated to specific budgets, allowing for more accurate project costing and improved profit accuracy. As a result, project managers can ensure more precise reporting, improved customer satisfaction, and reduced billing delays.
Time and resource-saving capabilities for greater efficiency
This latest release empowers accounting teams to lighten the load of routine tasks, resulting in saved time and resources, and enabling them to prioritise more strategic initiatives. Mass actions for cash entry and flexible cash matching will reduce manual effort in accounts receivable workflows. Ul enhancements will also simplify the process of replacing users in accounting playbook records, improving efficiency and reducing the risk of missed tasks during team member unavailability. Through our partnership with Envestnet, accounting teams can convenientlyimport bank statements directly from their bank accounts for end-to-end bank reconciliation, saving time and effort. Lastly, early adopters for AP Automation can also access automated rule-based processes for recording and approving vendor invoices, which streamlines the allocation of payable invoice lines.
Empowering finance and operational teams as business storytellers
Brown added that Certinia is empowering finance teams to take the lead in data-driven decision-making. This release introduces the ability to providereport-level commentary within Report Builder, enabling users to add contextual commentary and forward-looking statements directly to reports. This feature improves efficiency, reduces time spent on report preparation, and enables faster and more informed decision-making.
For full release details and additional resources, more information can be found in the Release Hub on Certina Community.
