Kimble PSA

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.

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.

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.

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.

This software is the ideal bridge between resource planning and management accounting on a day-to-day basis for project-based professional services organizations of every size and description. Its most practical application from a business management perspective within a small and specialized organization like Felber Consulting is its ability to raise invoices directly from authorized timesheets, track payments and thereby keep finances forever linked to the realities of HR capability and allocation.

The immense power of this product means that some organizations will need specialist support in particular areas of thier businesses to unleash its full potential.

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.

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.