Abacus is a web and mobile application that helps manage employee expenses and reimbursements. Some key features include: Real-Time Expense Submission, Integrated ACH Payments, and Dynamic Custom Reporting.
Abacus was acquired by Certify in summer 2018 and is now part of Emburse, formed from the merger of Certify and Chrome River March 2019.
$9
per active user/per month
Emburse Certify
Score 6.4 out of 10
N/A
Certify is travel and expense management software developed by the company of the same name in Maine, which merged with Chrome River in 2019 to form Emburse.
N/A
Pricing
Emburse Abacus
Emburse Certify
Editions & Modules
Starter
$9
per active user/per month
Professional
Custom Pricing
Enterprise
Custom Pricing
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Emburse Abacus
Emburse Certify
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
$8 Expense report
Additional Details
—
Certify AP has volume based pricing based on processed invoices
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Emburse Abacus
Emburse Certify
Features
Emburse Abacus
Emburse Certify
Expense Management
Comparison of Expense Management features of Product A and Product B
Emburse Abacus
-
Ratings
Emburse Certify
7.6
Ratings
12% below category average
Employee Expense Reporting
00 Ratings
8.20 Ratings
Corporate Card Reconciliation
00 Ratings
7.00 Ratings
Payment Management
Comparison of Payment Management features of Product A and Product B
Abacus is great for smaller companies that need to automate expense management. It is a very user-friendly system that makes it easy for all employees to understand without any training. We have heard of issues with their AMEX program. Companies that have tens or hundreds of corporate AMEX cards should likely explore other options
[Emburse] Certify seems to have been designed with large organizations in mind, particularly those with corporate card programs as opposed to "small business" cards. The integration with American Express Business accounts failed after less than a year, and was not reestablished before we pulled the plug on the whole project. Even worse, [Emburse] Certify's support team wasn't able to offer alternatives.
It is a very useful platform it helps me effectively, it allows me to put restrictions on the dates, till a card could be used.
Embrace Abacus has provided me much relief and saved my time which was spent in chalking out the financial status of my organization.
Emburse Abacus has equipped me with amazing features which are helping me to automatically set various limits about the expenditures and I always remain up to date about any purchase.
Customer service/support: They have an incredible team. We are fans of the chat option and 99.9% of the time our issues are solved within a 5-minute window.
Listening to customers: they are always looking for ways to improve their product. They have free conferences sprinkled around various cities. They are worth trending. They provide "what's new in Certify" as well as round-table discussions specifically addressing how their customers are using the product and what they have learned along the way.
Keeping their product up to date: Certify takes back various suggestions from the conference to enhance their product. I have been at every conference they have had and have actually seen customer suggestions get implemented into the program.
I think this just has to do with how we use it but when go in to select a "category" or "event," it looks a little cluttered and can be hard to find what you are looking for.
It will not allow you to attach 2 items unless you are doing a split. This is not really an issue but there are times where I would like to include a screenshot with additional information and I have to put everything into one picture.
The ability to add a receipt after a report has been submitted would be helpful. This would simplify processing as opposed to disapproving the report and sending it back to the user for correction and re-submission.
Though not a fault of Certify, our users drive multiple destinations every day, rather than occasional trips from city A to city B. Therefore, capturing mileage is a time-consuming process for our users.
I am very used to Certify's components. But some users that I manage still have a hard time fixing their expense reports no matter how many times I try to teach them. The Editing expense Report and Adding Expense Report option sometimes gets confusing and causes some employees to enter transactions twice. There should be a better layout to make it easier for them to edit and finish their expense reports. I try to teach Certify as much as I can, but the usability should be a bit easier so it is less confusing.
I have never had to contact Abacus support and have not heard stories from any of my colleagues having to do so either. Our accounting department stresses the ease of Abacus and has not voiced any concerns with the software or the product support team or the product support process.
The measure of support is how well they respond when you really need them, like when the system is not performing correctly. We have been on the platform less than a year, and there have been at least 2 instances, where the platform was down. The 2nd time was the day before out fiscal year end. And they need a development website. When they are making changes to your LIVE instance, and things go wrong, the client is the first to know about it! I've come to understand that Certify has tiers of support. Those in tier 1, barely know more about the software than the users. I sent a request for a report that shows expense reports currently pending approval and after 5 days of back and forth I was told to build it myself.
We migrated from SAP Concur to Emburse Abacus after carefully considering a number of factors. Total cost of ownership, new user training and adoption, direct integration with our ERP, and the ability to process individual expenses in real-time as opposed to processing monthly expense reports all weighed in Abacus' favor during the decision and selection process.
We used Concur prior to Certify. It cost 5x as much and was not worth the money. We also looked at Expensify, which had minor issues compared to what we are dealing with in Certify. Certify does not compare to Concur. The platforms are in two different leagues. Expensify is a good comparison and it is compatible with major ERPs like Sage Intacct. Nexonia, is actually also an Emburse product and likely would have been a better fit given it's integration capabilities with Sage Intacct.
It does seem like they are still working out some kinks in the web and mobile apps – a few times the app has crashed. But they're also very fast to push updates.
The benefits are simple. No one likes taking time out of their day to do expense reporting. Abacus speeds that process up considerably. The interface is clean, and I'm able to see what expenses are pending vs. expenses that are already cleared.
The benefit from a user standpoint is that it adds an element of organization to a process that is typically disorganized. It has saved us numerous hours.
