Certinia on Salesforce Overview: Is It Right for You?

If you’re on Salesforce and looking for an accounting or ERP solution, chances are you’ve come across Certinia, the product formerly known as FinancialForce. It’s one of the most well-known Salesforce-native platforms, especially in professional services. But while it’s a powerful tool for the right customer, it’s not always the best fit for most organizations.

This guide breaks down what Certinia is, who it serves best, and how it compares to other Salesforce-native options like Accounting Seed, so you can make a more informed decision before you commit.

What is Certinia?

Certinia started in 2009 as FinancialForce, a joint venture between Salesforce and investment firm Unit4. Built natively on the Salesforce Platform, it originally focused on cloud accounting before expanding into a full suite of ERP and Professional Services Automation (PSA) tools. In 2023, the company rebranded to Certinia to reflect its broader scope and focus beyond finance.

Today, Certinia’s core products include:

• Professional Services Cloud (PSA) – for project management, resource scheduling, time tracking, and billing.

• ERP & Financial Management – accounting, accounts receivable/payable, subscription and usage billing, and revenue recognition.

• Customer Success Cloud – tools to manage customer engagement and renewals.

• Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) – budgeting and forecasting inside Salesforce.

The platform’s standout feature is its Salesforce-native architecture. All Certinia modules share the same data model and user interface as Salesforce, which means sales, service, and finance teams work from a single source of truth without integrations.

Who Certinia serves best

Certinia is best suited for:

• Enterprise or upper mid-market companies that can support higher software and implementation costs.

• Service-centric organizations, especially professional services firms, consulting companies, and software vendors with large services teams.

• Businesses with complex project billing needs that want PSA and ERP under one roof.

While Certinia does sell to mid-sized businesses, those deals are often limited to customers that can afford the implementation price tag and can live with a less flexible product. For small to mid-sized businesses with tighter budgets or industry-specific accounting needs, Certinia may be more system than they need.

Where Certinia falls short for some customers

1. Cost of implementation

Certinia’s flexibility comes with a heavy services component. 

Based on customer and partner feedback, full implementations often run 100–150 hours minimum for smaller customers and 200–400 hours or more for typical enterprise projects. At rates around $200/hour, even a smaller PSA-only deployment can be a $20,000+ project—and more complex ERP rollouts can reach $50,000–$75,000.

For large enterprises with complex requirements, this investment makes sense. For smaller organizations, the price can be a deal-breaker.

2. Focus on PSA over accounting

While Certinia offers a complete accounting module, it’s often sold in tandem with PSA and is not the company’s primary driver. The PSA product has strong adoption in its target markets, but the accounting module can require heavy customization for industries outside their core service focus. For example, adapting Certinia’s accounting for industries like construction can mean extensive custom development.

3. Less flexibility for non-PSA industries

Certinia’s workflows and features are built with professional services in mind. Companies in product-heavy industries, or those with specialized accounting needs, may struggle with the fit. Accounting Seed, by contrast, is designed to work for a broad array of industries with flexibility.

4. Large system footprint

From a technical perspective, Certinia’s installation and data handling can consume significant Salesforce storage. It’s not just the initial package size; the way the system handles changes (e.g., discarding vs. deleting records, requiring reversing entries for posted transactions) means data accumulates over time. This can drive up storage needs and potentially add costs.

5. Complex upgrade process

Certinia upgrades aren’t as seamless as many customers expect from cloud software. Historically, customers have had to involve Certinia’s support team simply to upgrade their software—meaning added time and cost  to install upgrades in a sandbox, perform testing, and repeat the process in production.

By contrast, solutions like Accounting Seed push upgrades automatically, minimizing disruption, and enabling users to take control of their upgrade process without any “middle man” involved. 

Why Certinia comes to mind for Salesforce users

For many Salesforce customers, Certinia is the first accounting solution they hear about, a legacy of its original FinancialForce branding and Salesforce’s historical tendency to recommend it. 

That brand recognition means people often assume Certinia is the default (or only) Salesforce-native accounting option, even when their business isn’t in Certinia’s target market.

How Accounting Seed compares

Accounting Seed is a cloud-based accounting platform built entirely on the Salesforce Platform. It combines core accounting functions—like full general ledger, accounts payable/receivable, bank reconciliation, and financial reporting—with the flexibility of Salesforce’s CRM and customization tools. Designed for both product-based and service-based organizations, it allows businesses to manage their entire accounting lifecycle within Salesforce, connect financial data to sales and operations in real time, and adapt workflows to match unique industry needs.

While it shares the benefits of native architecture (shared data model, single login, real-time reporting), its approach differs in key ways from Certinia:

• Industry flexibility – Works for service, product, nonprofit, and other industries without heavy customization.

• More efficient footprint – Lighter install package and the ability to delete unneeded records keeps storage usage in check.

• Faster, more affordable implementation – Projects are typically shorter and less costly than Certinia’s, making it more attainable for small and mid-sized businesses—especially with Accounting Seed’s extensive partner network of Salesforce and Accounting Seed certified consultants..

• Simpler upgrades – Automatic updates with no required vendor intervention—similar to how Salesforce pushes upgrades.

• Scales up to upper-mid market – While not targeted at large global enterprises with highly specialized ERP needs, Accounting Seed supports complex multi-entity setups for growing companies.

Which should you choose?

If your company is:

• Enterprise scale

• Primarily a professional services organization

• Prepared for a large investment in both software and implementation

…then Certinia could be worth the evaluation. Its PSA capabilities are among the strongest in the Salesforce ecosystem for large services businesses.

However, if you are:

• Small to mid-sized

• Looking for accounting that adapts to your business processes

• Needing a faster, more budget-friendly implementation without sacrificing quality

…then Accounting Seed is likely a better fit. It gives you the benefits of a Salesforce-native solution without the cost and complexity of an enterprise PSA-ERP suite you may not need.

What does your organization need?

Certinia is a well-established Salesforce-native platform built for large, service-centric enterprises that need PSA and ERP in one system. But for many Salesforce users—especially small to mid-sized organizations or those outside professional services—its high implementation costs, PSA-first design, and heavier technical footprint can make it a challenging fit.

Accounting Seed offers another path for organizations that need to shore up their accounting: the same Salesforce-native advantages, but with more flexibility, lighter technical requirements, and a shorter time-to-value. Whether you’re in services, products, nonprofit, or a mix, it’s built to adapt to your processes and scale as you grow.

If you’re exploring your options, it’s worth comparing how each platform aligns with your industry, budget, and long-term plans, not just brand name recognition.

Ready to see how Salesforce-native accounting can work for your business? Learn more about Accounting Seed or connect with our team to discuss your needs.