Certinia
ERP and professional services automation on Salesforce.
About Certinia
Certinia runs ERP and professional services automation entirely inside Salesforce, which means project data, billing, revenue schedules, and financial reports all live in the same environment your sales and delivery teams already use. For a consultancy that manages engagements from proposal through invoice, that eliminates the spreadsheet reconciliation that plagues firms running separate CRM and accounting stacks. Time entries feed directly into project profitability dashboards, and revenue recognition fires automatically against contract milestones or percentage-of-completion rules without manual journal entries. The tool fits mid-market to enterprise professional services firms — management consultancies, staffing agencies, IT services companies — that are already committed to Salesforce and need genuine project accounting rather than a bolt-on. Resource scheduling, utilization tracking, and multi-currency billing are genuinely functional, not decorative. The revenue recognition engine handles variable-consideration and multi-element arrangements that break tools like QuickBooks and even NetSuite's standard configuration. The gaps are real. Certinia is not a general-purpose accounting platform — traditional accounting practices and product businesses will find it overbuilt and misaligned. The integration ecosystem is thin compared to NetSuite or Sage Intacct. You cannot evaluate pricing without a sales call, and the Salesforce licensing cost sits underneath everything, making total cost of ownership significantly higher than it first appears.
Best for
Professional services firms on Salesforce wanting integrated ERP with project and revenue management
Key Features
- Salesforce-native ERP integration
- Project accounting and resource management
- Revenue recognition automation
- Professional services billing automation
- Real-time project profitability tracking
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Project accounting is native and deep — budget versus actuals, resource utilization, and margin roll up in real time without exports or manual consolidation
- Revenue recognition handles multi-element professional services contracts including milestone billing, time-and-materials, and percentage-of-completion without custom workarounds
- Because it runs on Salesforce, CRM opportunity data flows directly into project setup — no retyping of client, scope, or contract terms at project kick-off
- Multi-currency billing and intercompany transactions work out of the box for firms operating across multiple geographies
- Salesforce's permission model, audit logging, and single sign-on carry over directly, so there is no separate security infrastructure to manage
- Professional services billing automation handles retainers, milestones, and expense pass-throughs in one billing run rather than separate workflows
Cons
- Total cost of ownership is deceptive — you pay Certinia licensing on top of existing Salesforce licenses, and both scale by user, making it expensive for firms with large headcounts
- No pricing is published; every evaluation starts with a sales conversation, which makes it impossible to budget-check the tool before investing time in a demo cycle
- The integration library is thin compared to NetSuite or Sage Intacct — connections outside the Salesforce and Microsoft ecosystems require custom API work or middleware
- Firms not already on Salesforce face a double implementation: standing up Salesforce CRM and then layering Certinia, which can stretch a go-live timeline past twelve months
- The user community is smaller than the major ERP platforms, which means fewer third-party implementation partners, less community documentation, and slower answers to edge-case questions
- General ledger functionality is narrower than standalone accounting platforms — complex consolidations or statutory reporting requirements in heavily regulated industries may need supplemental tools
Ledger Brief Take
This Salesforce-native ERP targets professional services firms already invested in the Salesforce ecosystem, offering genuine project accounting depth rather than basic financial reporting. The revenue recognition engine handles complex professional services scenarios that generic accounting platforms struggle with, making it a specialized play for consultancies and agencies rather than traditional accounting practices.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions accountants ask about Certinia.
How much does Certinia cost?
Certinia does not publish pricing. All contracts are negotiated directly with their sales team and priced per user. Factor in your existing Salesforce licensing costs — Certinia requires a paid Salesforce org underneath it, so the actual per-seat cost is the sum of both. Request an itemized quote covering both layers before any internal business case.
Does Certinia integrate with QuickBooks or Xero?
No native integration exists with QuickBooks or Xero. Certinia is the general ledger and accounting layer, not a reporting add-on to another accounting platform. Firms using QuickBooks or Xero would replace those tools with Certinia, not connect to them. If you need to retain either platform, Certinia is not the right fit.
How does Certinia compare to NetSuite for professional services firms?
NetSuite has a broader integration ecosystem, more third-party implementation partners, and published pricing. Certinia wins on Salesforce-native depth — if your pipeline, resourcing, and delivery all live in Salesforce, Certinia eliminates synchronization friction that even a well-configured NetSuite instance cannot. NetSuite is the better default if your firm is not Salesforce-first.
What type of firm is Certinia actually built for?
Mid-market to enterprise consultancies, IT services firms, staffing agencies, and managed service providers that run Salesforce as their CRM and need project accounting tied directly to client engagements. It is not built for accounting practices, product companies, nonprofits, or any firm where Salesforce is not already the operational hub.
Is data stored securely and where?
Certinia data lives in your Salesforce org, which means it inherits Salesforce's infrastructure — data centers certified to ISO 27001, SOC 1 and SOC 2, and GDPR-compliant data residency options depending on your Salesforce contract. Your data governance policies applied to Salesforce apply directly to Certinia without a separate configuration.
How long does a Certinia implementation typically take?
For a firm already running Salesforce, implementations typically run three to six months depending on billing complexity and data migration scope. Firms without an existing Salesforce org should budget nine to twelve months minimum. Certinia's own professional services team and a small number of certified partners handle most implementations — independent consultant availability is limited.