Apptivo is All-Inclusive, Modern ERP Cloud App Done Right (Just Add Speed and GUI Refresh)

I was using Teamwork (formerly Teamwork PM) for project management, a local install of vTiger CRM for contacts and opportunity management, and myriad other cloud-based apps to pull together administrative activities. I wanted an all-inclusive software with strong project management features that also allowed me to handle detailed invoicing and allowed customers to click a link to pay. Lastly, the CRM component had to be at least as good as vTiger (or Zoho CRM which I'd also given a trial run). Apptivo satisfied these needs. Pleased with the CRM, opportunity management, project management, field service management, and billing apps (especially since they've added Stripe as a payment gateway).

Pros

They do not nickle-and-dime you to death! One price includes everything. Their tiers are about number of users rather than adding/subtracting features. A more sensible model than some of the others.

I like how detail views are available from most places -- call logs, projects, tasks, and notes can be associated with a contact or company or opportunity.

The integration with email is excellent, right down to making it easy to connect your email boxes. One challenge I had that Apptivo solved for me was how to keep emails related to a particular project or opportunity all together in one place. Apptivo does a good job of this by assigning codes (or project numbers), and allowing you to select whether or not the email you are writing is related.

If you are writing emails using some other application (your desktop client or cloud-based app), you can use the same code in the subject line and Apptivo will pull that email into the app, and associate it with the relevant modules (project, client, case, etc.)

Cons

Apptivo is reliable, doesn't seem to ever lose information, etc. but it is often as slow as molasses in an ice storm. Waiting is a no-no; constant waiting is a annoyance that has made me close the app more than once and come back another time.

Apptivo communicates improvements and changes on a regular basis, however, it takes Apptivo a long, loooooong time to integrate changes that have been requested by clients, and improvements overall.

The incremental changes they report on are good but they are really things that should have been implemented 4-5 years ago. An example of this is Stripe (payment gateway) integration. I requested it over and over about 3 years ago but it was just implemented last year.

They could do better with customization (esp. dashboards), reporting, data import, data export and speed.

Low scores on API/integrations -- they have an API but not many other services have developed integrations for it. Neither have they developed many integrations (except for Google products). Even their WordPress module is outdated, clunky. Also, connection to phone services (to take better advantage of the ability to log calls).

The interface still has areas that are clunky and unattractive (although, in defense of Apptivo, I must say the interface has improved in aesthetics, colors and icons in the 4 years I've been using it).

Very useful CRM, accessible from anywhere, good value for money

Pros

The CRM functionality is intuitive to use. Not much setup is needed but still a lot of customization is possible. It can easily grow with the company and is accessible from anywhere. As a cloud based service you do not need to care about hardware, accessibility etc. Remarkable: There is an exceptionally responsive customer support. Overall very recommended for flexible startup companies.

Cons

While the CRM functionality is quite good the rest of the apps (like order management, invoicing, inventory etc.) are a bit limited in possibilities and use. As long as one is dealing within a single country this should be fine. As an international business with export to many countries there will be many compromises or workarounds. Especially regarding interaction with the customers (quotes, invoices etc.) the customization possibilities are very limited. From time to time new releases or features are deployed that can change appearance and functionality to the better or worse. While the response time of the customer support is better than anything else I have ever seen, the help with more sophisticated questions is often limited and needs long explanations. Fixing of bugs can take very long. Overall the software feels a bit slow.

Why I am choosing Apptivo

So, I have been test driving CRM's for the last 2 years. I have scanned and reviewed about 100 of the CRM's out there, and during the selection process only a few stood up to my requirements, being: -A solid sales pipeline (From lead to opportunity to sales to after-sales) -A great contact management system -The possibility to generate quotes that can be converted to work orders, to invoices etc -An integrated templated Project management system with pre-set task generation -Email (gmail) integration -Google apps for business integration -The possibility to add more functionality in the form of integrated apps when the need arises. At the end, and when all the nitty-gritty was tested, only 3 applications remained who were comparable, qua price and functionality. But where Apptivo stands out with head and shoulders above nearly ALL the CRM's I tested, is the quality and the availability of their support! As far as I know, ONLY Apptivo, has a free 24/7/365 online support chat from within the CRM, and I consider this as a huge plus point. I run a small B2B business supplying promotional products mostly in Southern Africa but rapidly growing and expanding our market. We are currently with six people, but I am confident that at our current growth rate, we will pass the 10 employee mark by the end of 2015. I have a deep passion for what I do and when it comes to the integration of a tool that in time becomes a keystone in my business, I need suppliers that share my passion. And this is exactly what the people of Apptivo do: Tested and proven, even today on a Sunday afternoon. Keep up the good work guys, I hope we will go a long way together! Edwin Spiessens Corp. Gifts and Gadgets cc South Africa www.gifts-n-gadgets.co.za Feel free to drop me any question at any time if you think I can help you by selecting a CRM: edwin@giftsngadgets.co.za

Pros

-A solid sales pipeline (From lead to opportunity to sales to after-sales)
-A great contact management system
-The possibility to generate quotes that can be converted to work orders, to invoices etc
-An integrated templated Project management system with pre-set task generation
-Email (gmail) integration
-Google apps for business integration
-The possibility to add more functionality in the form of integrated apps when the need arises.

As far as I know, ONLY Apptivo, has a free 24/7/365 online support chat from within the CRM, and I consider this as a huge plus point.

Cons

If I have to say anything then it will be that the look of the user interface is a bit dull, but i will take this a hundred times to bells and whistles, and a quarter of the functionality and support!

Customer Support is very Responsive

Our business started Apptivo when we were quite small, and there were several issues with the program when we first began using them. The support at Apptivo is awesome, every time that we have a difficulty using any of the programs feature, they have gotten back to us within hours or sometimes days. The recent issue with using their Ledger App took a bit longer to resolve but we enthusiastically appreciate their dedication to resolving the issues, and how thoroughly they did resolve it. The features we use most often include: Emailing Invoices and Estimates, keeping track of our Finances with their Ledger App, and keeping track of correspondence with Clients. There are some many other features to the program including tracking Inventory, tracking Accounts with Suppliers, and creating Projects with clients/collaborations with other professionals just to name a few. I will continue to use and support the Apptivo program. They continue to grow and offer more features, clearer and efficient options for tracking the growth of our business as it continues to grow!

Pros

Easy to use features - Sending out invoices - Receiving payments and notifications - Receving Emails and Client feedback - Tracking client info - Reviewing, Updating, and tracking Inventory and Accounts Payables. There are many other features but these we use in general.

Cons

Some errors with Invoices through paypal that require the client to input the info more than once, especially when there is Updates to the program. This has happened on some occasions, but is no longer an issue that we experience.

Great way to track projects. A lot of features that can be customized for your specific industry.

Being able to see any project at any given status at any time.

Pros

Being able to put numerous fields to retain all project information in several different formats. Ease of reporting by exporting data to excel and going from there. You only have to use what you need. Disabling certain apps prevents you and users with too much information. Great selection of apps to customize for each business. Really enjoy the product!

Cons

Invoicing is very basic. Not able to use it if you bill hourly. Not enough 1:1 support for highly complex project system setups. Need more reps to have access to custom care. Had pitfalls in reporting, but were addressed fairly quickly, but set us back as a company. Needing to double check items saved in the project you just updated, some data doesn't get saved on the first try. Not being made aware of when enhancements are made and what new features now exist. Reporting on specific users projects - needs ability to set priority is assigned roles and see those rankings constantly.

All-in-one ERP - broad coverage at a reasonable price

All-in-one business software, good support and value for the money.

Pros

An extremely broad range of applications. Apptivo beats most competitors in this respect; it really is an 'all-in-one' ERP in fact - not just a CRM. At the same time Apptivo is excellent value for the money. The 'in-app' live chat support is especially helpful, as you can deal with issues as they occur. The pricing is per user, broadening the base of potential organizations who will find Apptivo appealing from the outset, and scaling as the organization grows larger.

Cons

Being a 'jack of all trades', Apptivo cannot be expected to excel in every area. Some features - such as the two Wordpress plugins - seem neglected and are seldom updated or promoted. Given the popularity of WP it seems to be a missed opportunity to expand into the help desk market. Another example would be the customer portal, it seems a bit awkward. The customer must sign-up through Xinnect and then Apptivo as well to access their portal, even though Apptivo might not be relevant to them. It is also difficult to control exactly what clients will see, and they are shown a lot of irrelevant fields, even though there is a rudimentary role assignment mechanism. Combining this with cases (tickets) and answers (knowledge-base) should in theory provide an alternative to a help desk, but it is a long way round.

Best Bang for the buck on the market! Adaptability and ease of use with scalability!

Functionality and accurate data collection that was flexible to meet my needs! Hands down the best solution on the market for the price point!

Pros

Ease of USE and layout modifications! The layout is so easy and adaptable to collect the information simply from other users. Databases are only as good as the information you put into them. Apptivo makes it so SIMPLE getting the info in and thus making it powerful!

Cons

Very few, because it is cloud-based they are constantly adding customization features and options and sometimes the functional icons show up in the Customization Settings of the Administrator and there is no documentation for the new functionality as of yet. I would much rather have this problem than them not update the customization functionality though. This database is unbelievably scalable and constantly improving!

I have utilized several CRM solutions and the Apptivo CRM solution is a great solution for it's cost

Pros

Apptivo CRM is easy to use, and makes available lots of functionality to pick and choose from when building a customized solution. Apptivo's customer support is excellent, responsive, helpful and does a great job supporting me when I need help.

Cons

For non-technical users, modifying the screens to build a customized app, can be a challenge. However, Apptivo customer service is ready to jump in and help when needed. Customer support is accomplished via chat window, which can be tedious. However, Apptivo makes available voice support when requested. And, they provide lots of You-Tube based videos to demonstrate how to modify functionality.

It literally saved my hours and hours of precious time!

Pros

It helps to manage customer relationship, campaigns, billing, and invoices. This is helpful to manage payment and tax department very smoothly which is important for any business. It further helps to organize the calendar for all business activities and keep a record of all the important contact details. Document management is another key feature. All the important documents related to the business can be kept safely in a virtual location. It caters to widespread businesses like the travel industry, retail, and wholesale industry etc.. All important activities of a business can be interlinked with the help of this application. We can enhance our productivity with this effective management application.

Cons

When we started, our time zones were just IST and when employees from another part of the world started to sign up to the CRM, we faced a lot of problems to set autoresponders at the correct time. The time and date format don't change according to the location.

Great experience

We are a small & medium company located in Europe with subsidiaries in US and Asia. We were looking for a provider which could (1) allow each subsidiary to view each other's customers (to increase the lead generation); (2) enable us to standardize our data (previously we were entering data into Excel without proper format); (3) facilitate data analysis and (4) enable us to streamline and automatize as much as possible the process from price offer to invoicing. After extensive research, we selected Apptivo for our CRM solution. Having to deal with lots of lists of companies from different countries, dealing with multiple currencies, it was not easy to find a CRM which is easy to use, affordable and yet can meet our demand. We have been using Apptivo for one year now and we are very happy with our choice. It was a necessary step to professionalize our business process. There is probably much more we can do with the application which we haven't explore yet. We are now using CRM, HR, Suppliers, items and Invoicing app within Apptivo.

Pros

Easy to use, flexible, great value for money, great support (very friendly and quick), easy to import/export your data back into Excel.

Cons

We found a few small glitches (no space between "Mr." and "Name" when exporting the fields; or one functionality in invoicing did not work), but the support team was very quick in fixing those.

I like Apptivo, but have found it to have lots of glitches and is very slow at times

Apptivo helps to keep my partner and I organized. We particularly use the email and notes function. We are a builder, so everything is organized around projects. The scheduling program is terrible, by the way.

Pros

The concept of the software is great... it is very integrated and it seems like the owners are always trying to improve the program.

Cons

The problems are the number of glitches experienced; the difficulty in getting issues resolved; the fact that the program can be very slow to respond. Right now, for instance, when I click on an email sometimes it opens up and sometimes it doesn't. Not sure what is causing this, but it is extremely frustrating and inefficient. I tend to do things in Google. I am seriously considering abandoning Apptivo.

The interface, functionality and configurability of Apptivo CRM is superb.

Quick setup, compartmentalized functionality so we can add features as we go along, and of course the ability to track our contacts, customers, and sales. This makes it not just a CRM system, but also an invoice and accounting system and reporting tool. At its price point, its features and full support, it is hard to beat.

Pros

The heuristics of the interface provides the user with an natural environment to learn and work within. It's configurability is superb and it's modular functionality provides the right amount of compartmentalization that allows the user to focus on just the features the need. This enhances navigation and the user's learning curve. On top of all this, Apptivo provides top notch support, even through the trial phases of their product. Their support representatives are online 24/7, and in one instance, Mani provided me an upgrade and customization for my particular application. With such competent and helpful free product support, I have total confidence in our companies ability to roll out a great implementation of CRM. All of the features we desire are available on a mobile platform, so we really couldn't ask for much more.

Cons

A few minor quibbles, none functionally inhibiting. In creating views the product automatically alphabetized them and I would have preferred to display them in a custom order. Between Apps, which are really views, their is not a 2-way synchronization of fields, only a one-way push is offered. The product keeps a history of all changes, so we have yet to notice weeknesses in how user accounts are handled.

Apptivo is Awesome

Overall, I love the product now that I have learned to use it. I just wish that it were more user friendly in the beginning and that the customer service were more helpful when I want to learn something new. I have been hindered in learning how to use other apps within Apptivo because I don't want to go through the hassle of dealing with customer support.

Pros

Apptivo provides an excellent CRM for us to schedule emails and send a personalized email to several people at the same time. We schedule meeting reminder emails and workshop reminder emails all through Apptivo.

Cons

Customer support is lacking and the software is not very intuitive. It seems as though customer support is outsourced and that the CSR's don't know the product very well. Apptivo does not have a lot of instructional videos on Youtube and their written support is hard to locate.

I have been using Apptivo for 5 years now. Very good overall!

Integration, control over my process, paper reduction, information available always, on the go, basic reporting, personalization and company branding, professional presentation of my company, cost control,

Pros

Simple
It is growing in terms of features
It allows managing a complete end-to-end company
Invoicing App is very simple and powerful.
Mobile app works fine

Cons

Sometimes it is slow
Some Apps are very basic
Documentation is very simple, basically the screenshots
Personalization could be complex

We recently started to use it. So far, so good

Pros

Can access all areas of our business - Sales, Projects, Tasks etc. I like the ability to create Project Templates

Cons

We have to create Custom Lists for common views like Opportunities > Open> Sorted by close date. A pretty common KPI. We then have to export it just to view it on a weekly basis for staff meeting. A few steps to get standard data. Same with Open Projects, sorted by Due Date

I like using Apptivo better than my previous software salesforce, it is more intuitive.

Pros

I like that we can convert from estimates to invoices, it saves dual entry which for a salesperson is key. I am able to create these estimates very quickly and turnaround time is crucial for my customers.

Cons

I think it would be nice is apptivo made updates and releases/improvements to the software regularly and informed the users of this via a monthly email or newsletter. It is easy to get stuck in a rut of doing the same things in the system and I may not be getting all the functionality that the software has to offer.

Excellent Product, Excellent Support.

Pros

I like the fantastic support, customizable forms, and employment management. These features are really well put together. On the topic of customizable forms I'll just add that you can create a form that is as extensive (or simplistic) as you need. The search function for forms is fantastically easy and advanced search gives you the option to search for any data in any specific form you have which is really really good.

Cons

There are a couple changes needed for me to rate this 10 out of 10. I love this software, but until the following issues are fixed, we will continue to have a few frustrations with using it:
-You should be able to sort every column A-Z (or by date oldest to youngest) and vice-versa not just "Standard attributes."
-Again around filtering, if you create an input box for a date, not using the 1 standard attribute "Date Completed" Lets give the example of using a new field you create called "Sales Presentation Date". You can't sort the data by a range of dates. You can only do this for the 1 standard attribute field "Date Completed". We have several date fields that we NEED to be able to filter the range with (e.g. to find out how many sales visits a salesman has been on during a specific month), but we cannot do this because we cannot sort or filter by date range.
-Lastly the inability to PRINT directly from Apptivo is just frustrating. You have to export it to Excel (which should be a separate button and not part of a drop down menu) and then print.

Central to my operation

Pros

Apptivo does everything that I need for my business. It's simple to configure and has all the functionality essential for my business. I like its completeness and how all the modules are integrated

Cons

The mobile app is very limited and does not have the functionality of the web app. For a small business that operates on the go this is not ideal

Nice features. Great support

They have been a dependable partner for over two years now. Never had any downtime and it works as advertised.

Pros

The support is great. I can get to an active chat and they answer my questions instantly. The feature set covers most of what I need and the pricing is great. A great value when you compare it to Salesforce.

Cons

The features are not as extent as Salesforce but you can't beat the pricing for a small business.

I am happy with the service as it meets my requirements

Pros

I needed a CRM system that I could import existing data and then also create campaigns. I also wanted quite granular segmentation capabilities. I started with the free version and after a few days went for the paid option as I wanted to do some customization. For the price I think the service is very comprehensive and when I have asked for support it's been helpful and met my requirements. There are modules / components that I have not yet used but I like knowing they are there if I need them. The product video's online are very helpful. I should have started with them so some mistakes where made.

Cons

I often want to set up a calendar entry in different outlook mailboxes. Ideally I want to copy an address associated with a contact. However when I click on the address to copy and paste into outlook calendar the option take me into edit mode which take me longer to copy and paste as I have to copy a few times. Otherwise I have no other issues.