Kimble PSA

Vorteile

Kimble lets you create templates for how you sell and deliver your services. You begin using it during the selling phase. Who will be your resources? What skills do they need? When will those resources be scheduled? The process follows all the way from the original proposal, through delivery, time and utilization tracking, and on through to invoicing. The unique thing about Kimble is that it's forward looking and forward planning.

The goal of any consulting company, and how Kimble is designed, is to reduce bench time and feel confident in taking on and planning delivery of products down the road. And as you do all that within Kimble you'll have a forward-looking financial picture as well. For us it's all about balancing the supply and demand. All project time, revenue, and costs for a project are mapped out for as far forward as your projecting. Usually you have extra FTEs doing just that work.

Take the time to do a proper implementation, and you'll need to dedicate plenty of time to testing all your use cases. There is a lot of knowledge transfer that has to happen, and we've had to resist the urge to rush through the implementation.

Nachteile

Not a dislike, but know that this is a tool to manage your business, and as such you'll want your delivery managers using it daily. You've got to engage with this product and it's process. If you don't, then it's just backward-looking time entry. Since you're reading this review I'm guessing you've had enough of that.

Vorteile

The instant visibility of how your company is doing - everything from proposals to invoicing, it shows revenue flow, resource availability, and project status. There is always more to implement, and we have the ability to implement what features we want, when we want it. By doing so, it also requires us to evaluate our business practices and align with best practices based on the way Kimble functions. Our Customer Success Managers have been amazing, responsive, and the team is always willing to help us implement additional functionality.

Nachteile

The administrator training and resources are lacking, where we need to depend upon ZenDesk and our Customer Success Manager to provide support. Most of the technical resources are based on how the technology functions, but it's difficult to find details on some of the options on the administrative side, and best practices on how customers use different features (such as usage of the Other Activities fields, and such). I think what is missing is the practical usage and governance suggestions around how to setup and use features, particularly as you are implementing them.

Vorteile

Using Kimble has enabled us to ensure everyone is working accurately under contract, can self bill and be paid easily.

There are also lots of features for reporting and creating your own, bespoke, reports if you have people that can do such things.

The phone app is better now and works well.

The customer service people are always very willing to help and clearly try to resolve issues.

Nachteile

I have nothing to compare against so some of these issues may be industry-wide, however:
- It is not an intuitive system either as a user or as an administrator. For a SME, we don't tend to have people working full time on the system and so, unless you use it consistently, it is easy to forget odd conventions that lead you in a wrong direction.
- It is too big for what we need. There are so many options, it is bewildering and I do wonder if a paired back 'lite' version at a more reasonable price would help.
- The pricing is terrible. Having to buy packs of licenses is out-of-date and, in the current climate, being told we have no options to spread an annual payment across 12 months means Kimble itself is now on our corporate risk register (the only option offered was a 6 month split but with a 6% premium added because of the tie-in with Salesforce. In the days of pay-as-you-go, this is outdated and unfair.

Vorteile

Kimble is a fully featured product that is growing in functionality with each release, with much of that led by the user base. Being based on the Salesforce platform, the integration facilities are excellent and the ability to customise the application are also very good. The support team are also very good.

Nachteile

While the application is fully supported within Lightning, most screens are not fully Lightning-enabled as yet and it is not yet possible to customise them fully.

Vorteile

Kimble supports the bulk of our business, from first conversations with a client, to resourcing and from managing a live project, to invoicing. Kimble automates what would otherwise be laborious manual processes and rewards up front effort. For example, resourcing information entered during the sales process allows you to quickly find the right person for that role based on availability and skill set and consultant's timesheet entries become invoicable items that finance can quickly process.

Nachteile

The user interface could be improved. Kimble has a complex data structure, which makes it really powerful but somewhat confusing to the standard user. A friendlier, more intuitive interface would help users get up to speed quickly and properly benefit from the tool.