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Can I become a reseller or implementation partner

Can I become a reseller or implementation partner

Yes please contact us to explore reseller or implementation partner options. We do not have a formal program in place however we have several informal partners on revenue-share agreements which we would be glad to share with you and find a win/win situation

Can I cancel at any time

Can I cancel at any time

You can cancel your contract with iBE.net at any time by notifying us. We will immediately stop charging you and return/extract your data if you are on a paid enterprise account. Even if you sign up for a one year contract under certain circumstances (e.g. we are the cause for you cancelling the contract with iBE.net) we will refund outstanding months subscriptions on a pro-rata basis

Can I pay in my home currency

Can I pay in my home currency

We prefer to bill in USD however by exception larger clients can pay in their home currency

Do I have to provide credit card details to sign-up for iBE.net

Do I have to provide credit card details to sign-up for iBE.net

No you do not have to provide credit card details to sign-up. We normally bill using a credit card once you sign up for a paid account however larger clients can pay by alternative means

Do you work with third party implementation partners

Do you work with third party implementation partners

We currently support our implementations using internal consultants who are full-time employees of iBE.net. We recognize that this is temporary and as we grow we plan to add third party implementation partners

How can I start using iBE.net

How can I start using iBE.net

A great first step is to request a demo and / or sign up for a free trial. We would be glad to find out whether iBE.net fits your needs on a short phone call

How long will it take me to implement iBE.net

How long will it take me to implement iBE.net

The implementation process and duration depends on the size and complexity of your organization, the quality and volume of data you wish to upload and the degree of end user training required. We have had smaller more savvy clients implement in less than one week and larger clients with more complex requirements can take up to four months to deploy. We will support you throughout the implementation process, it is one of the things that differentiates us from our competitors

How many clients does iBE.net have

How many clients does iBE.net have

We have approximately 60 clients and 2,500 users however we are growing all the time so this information may be already out of date

How much does iBE.net cost

How much does iBE.net cost

iBE.net is free for solo users and companies up to 2 users, and only $149/month for up to 9 users all-in with an annual commitment. Contact us for pricing for 10 or more employees, we are extremely reasonable averaging at around $10 per user per month for consulting firms

How much does it cost to implement iBE.net

How much does it cost to implement iBE.net

Our implementation fees start at zero for smaller companies signing a one year agreement. Our low cost user subscription covers our typical implementation services including design requirements workshops, system configuration, data migration and custom approval workflows, invoice forms and reports. We will charge a modest implementation fee for larger companies with special or unique requirements such as expediting enhancements, on-site support and training or extensive roll-out sequences

If I stop using iBE.net can I get my data out

If I stop using iBE.net can I get my data out

We make a contractual commitment to give you access to your data for 30 days or more should you cancel your contract with iBE.net. We will help you extract your data in a usable format such as csv for upload to a replacement system

Is end user support included in the monthly or annual subscription

Is end user support included in the monthly or annual subscription

Yes we support end users within the same monthly fee you are paying to use our software. You can choose to manage basic “level 1″ issues such as password resets yourself or send them onto our support team to address remotely

Is iBE.net only for US based customers

Is iBE.net only for US based customers

Not at all, iBE.net is a fully internationalized tool and we have many customers in Canada, UK, Europe, South Africa and Australia. We have not yet translated iBE.net into other languages but the architecture is multi-lingual so we can translate our software on request

Is there a free trial

Is there a free trial

Yes we have a one month trial option for 4-9 users and since iBE.net is free for ever up to 2 users this is equivalent to a perpetual free trial. We also can offer trials for companies of 10 or more employees, contact us for more information

Is training included in the implementation

Is training included in the implementation

Our implementation services includes training for both admin and end users. Clients typically tailor our help guides for make them more specific and use them as

What hours is support given

What hours is support given

We have support teams in the US and India and try to provide 24×7 coverage, guaranteed at a minimum for US and European business hours

What is unique about iBE.net

What is unique about iBE.net

iBE.net is one of the most comprehensive newer breed of professional services automation tools available. Rather than addressing one small facet of a business such as HR, marketing or billing we support almost the entire business from clients to projects to people to financials so that you can run one business and use fewer apps. iBE.net is far less expensive and far easier to deploy and use as compared to yesterday’s end to end PSA tools like NetSuite, AutoTask or Deltek

What is your support turn-around time

What is your support turn-around time

We try to respond to issues within a few hours and resolve them the same day or the next morning. If it is a program issue or enhancement request we quickly get back to clients with a plan and timeframe, as well as a suggested work-around until the optimal solution is moved up to production

When did iBE.net first become available

When did iBE.net first become available

We launched iBE.net initially for a restricted number of customers in 2012 and have been growing and adding features ever since

Where is iBE.net hosted

Where is iBE.net hosted

iBE.net uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) to host our software, in their North Virginia and Oregon data centers. We host in two separate locations on the US East and West coast to ensure a reliable fail-over and disaster/recovery redundancy

Features

What can different user types access

What can different user types access

You can configure job-role based menus giving or restricting access by user or groups of users to any apps in iBE.net, access can be controlled at the app, tab, table column or field level. There are some restrictions by user type as shown in this link.

Can I allow clients access to my projects

Can I allow clients access to my projects

External clients can access your projects in one of three ways:

  • You can provide them with limited access user accounts and they can access only their own projects using a web-browser like your internal users
  • If they need access to tickets you can provide them with an external or portal user account to access their tickets in our portal
  • They can interact with iBE.net via their email through receiving and responding to workflow or approval emails for deliverables, comments on tasks, sending in new task requests and signing off milestones, timesheets or quotations

Can I bill my clients based on number of transactions, users, headcount, square feet and so on from iBE.net

Can I bill my clients based on number of transactions, users, headcount, square feet and so on from iBE.net

iBE.net’s pricing and billing engine can bill based on any unit of measure including all the ones listed in the question

Can I choose my own invoice layout

Can I choose my own invoice layout

Our invoice form is an HTML document and can be customized to meet any specific client format. We do not have a user-friendly “form-builder” tool currently so we build the invoice layouts for our clients as part of the implementation, normally at no charge. This gives you maximum flexibility without the restrictions of a typical form-buider

Can I connect to Quickbooks

Can I connect to Quickbooks

iBE.net connects to Quickbooks Enterprise, Quickbooks Desktop (Pro/Premier) and the later cloud version of Quickbooks in the Cloud. We have existing clients exporting invoices and expense claims from iBE.net to Quickbooks for payment and General Ledger update as well as importing booking codes such as customers or projects. iBE.net also connects to other popular accounting packages

Can I customize my approval paths

Can I customize my approval paths

iBE.net is built on a BPMN2 compliant workflow engine allowing you to customize approval workflows for any object or document be it a timesheet, expense claim, invoice, quotation, ticket, project or task. You can customize any number of approval levels or steps including parallel, sequential or “first to respond” workflows with customized workflow owners by name, job title or based on document roles

Can I manage helpdesk tickets using iBE.net

Can I manage helpdesk tickets using iBE.net

Managed service providers and anyone supporting clients can use iBE.net to manage their helpdesk and tickets. We support the complete ticket life-cycle and workflow including creation via phone, email or portal, full workflow with service response time tracking and email integration to keep customers informed of status. We do not automatically monitor network equipment we would connect to a network monitoring tool if this is a requirement

Can I map iBE.net to my own Accounting System GL accounts

Can I map iBE.net to my own Accounting System GL accounts

You can map any fields in iBE.net to your own GL accounts using our business rules mapping engine. For example billable vs. non-billable expenses might be booked to separate accounts, or you might have a different account for specific clients or customers or for a different company or legal entity. You can even map different GL accounts based on expense categories, service-lines, projects or employee departments

Can I upload expenses from my bank

Can I upload expenses from my bank

You can connect your bank or credit card to iBE.net and automatically import your expenses or transactions. We support both company owned (paid) and personal bank cards and your data is fully protected. We do not even store your credentials, these are managed by a third-party PCI-compliant bank integration vendor (Yodlee)

Can I use a start/stop timer to record time

Can I use a start/stop timer to record time

iBE.net has a start/stop timer to record time against a task accessible in both our web-client and our smart phone app. Start/stop timers are automatically imported into the timesheet for subsequent review

Can I use iBE.net on my mobile phone

Can I use iBE.net on my mobile phone

Yes you can use iBE.net for time, expenses, time-off requests, approvals and more on your iPhone or Android mobile phone, by downloading either of our mobile phone apps from each respective store. Go to Apple Store or Android Store or search for ibe.net in your app store to download our free mobile phone app

Can I use the mobile apps offline

Can I use the mobile apps offline

Our iPhone and Android smart phone apps are both native allowing offline access to the available features such as time, time-off requests and expenses

Can iBE.net automatically calculate overtime

Can iBE.net automatically calculate overtime

iBE.net can evaluate the total time recorded by employees and based on their work-schedule hours, HR policies and the time booked on holidays or weekends, automatically redetermine overtime. iBE.net can also calculate automatic time based allowances such as premium rated time, meal allowances or shift premiums. You can optionally permit users to enter overtime codes directly into their timesheets

Can iBE.net automatically calculate pay

Can iBE.net automatically calculate pay

iBE.net can automatically calculate gross pay for hourly or salaried employees. We are not a payroll system so we do not support gross to net calculations

Can iBE.net mark-up project expenses

Can iBE.net mark-up project expenses

Yes iBE.net can apply a project-specific expenses mark-up as well as project-specific expense policies such as maximum limits, disallowed expense categories or non-billable expense categories

Can iBE.net mix T&M and milestone based billing on a single project

Can iBE.net mix T&M and milestone based billing on a single project

Yes you can bill a single project with a mixture of many different contract-terms such as T&M, fixed fee, milestone, retainer, expenses and so on

Can iBE.net track time in overview (weekly) and details (daily) modes

Can iBE.net track time in overview (weekly) and details (daily) modes

iBE.net has two timesheet modes, an overview mode with one row per project/task for the entire week or however your customized timesheet period is set-up, and a detailed mode for list input with one row per time entry. The detailed mode allows direct input of remarks, location or quantities

Do you have an audit trail of who changed what

Do you have an audit trail of who changed what

iBE.net has a full audit trail. Nothing can be changed without it being recorded (who, what, when)

Do you provide a sandbox environment for clients

Do you provide a sandbox environment for clients

Larger clients having an enterprise account can access a sandbox environment. All clients can log into iBE.net in test mode which lets them view but not update live or production data. The benefit of this approach is that you can train new employees in “test mode” on an on-going basis without compromizing your live data

Do you support multiple companies or legal entities

Do you support multiple companies or legal entities

Yes iBE.net supports multiple company codes (legal entities) as well as departments. Companies can be in different countries or you can have multiple legal entities within the same country, sharing master data like customers or employees and having projects, invoices and transactions like timesheets or expense claims assigned or one or other company

Do you support resource planning including what-if analysis

Do you support resource planning including what-if analysis

If you enable resource planning each resource on a task has a planned/remaining effort separate to the duration of that task, and we calculate and report on resource utilization for a single task, for all tasks in a project and across projects. Based on our work-schedules assigned to both resources and teams or groups we can report on available vs. required load to get a sense or over or under-utilized resources into the future. We have developed an interactive resource planning workbench to allow project managers to combine resource load balance charts and assignment/updates into a single screen

Do you track planned and actual costs and revenues on projects

Do you track planned and actual costs and revenues on projects

iBE.net tracks planned and actual costs and revenues at both task and project level, for T&M, fixed price or internal tasks. We even track “equivalent T&M revenue” for fixed price tasks to understand what your opportunity-cost is. We also track invoiced amounts, recognized revenue (using a range of accepted revenue recognition methods) and payments, as well as internal cost budgets and customer funds, POs or grants. We are not an accounting system, these figures are tracked at project and task level and not currently on a financial periodic basis

Does iBE.net have a purchasing module

Does iBE.net have a purchasing module

We do not currently have a purchasing module however many clients successfully use our expenses module to manage company purchases and business expenses. We support automatic bank card transaction imports, classification of costs by category, client and project as well as billable vs. non-billable expenses. We will develop a purchasing module in the future

Does iBE.net keep track of employee records such as time-off balances, pay, attendance, skills, benefits, dependents, work history and so on

Does iBE.net keep track of employee records such as time-off balances, pay, attendance, skills, benefits, dependents, work history and so on

iBE.net is a full HR system allowing you to define the scope and complexity of HR-related data you wish to track. iBE.net can manage all this information as well as files or documents which can be stored securely within our database. iBE.net can also manage time-off requests, approvals, accruals and balances

Does iBE.net support campaign management or mass emailing

Does iBE.net support campaign management or mass emailing

iBE’s CRM module supports leads, opportunities and customers and is not yet built for campaign management. We can recommend a low-cost and compatible email tool and will be adding this feature in the future

Does iBE.net support customers with multiple sites or locations

Does iBE.net support customers with multiple sites or locations

iBE.net’s customer app can support complex organizations with many sites or locations, as well as numerous contacts at each site. It is possible for example for tickets to be created for one site within a project and bill-to representing a customer head-quarter or alternative site

Does iBE.net support many languages

Does iBE.net support many languages

iBE.net is fully internationalized supporting almost all country date/time formats, number formats, currencies/exchange rates and with the ability for screen, help and other text to be multi-lingual. We have not yet translated iBE.net into other languages due to a lack of demand but we are ready to do so when requested

Does iBE.net support recurring and background billing

Does iBE.net support recurring and background billing

iBE.net supports recurring billing (bill the same amount month after month) as well as background billing (automatic billing). We also support customizable billing periods

Does iBE.net track Govt. funds

Does iBE.net track Govt. funds

iBE.net’s project accounting module can track and manage multiple grants, purchase orders (PO’s) or government funds including a full audit-trail of when the fund was set-up and how much it was for. iBE.net tracks the burn down of remaining fund balances as each invoice for that fund is released

Is iBE.net a CRM system

Is iBE.net a CRM system

iBE.net has a CRM module supporting leads, contacts, opportunities, sales, customers and sales activities. We can manage your contacts database and pipeline reporting, as well as contractual terms with your customers. We are not a campaign mgt. or eMarketing system

Is iBE.net DCAA compliant

Is iBE.net DCAA compliant

iBE.net meets all the published DCAA requirements for time, expenses and billing software for professional services firms. There is not a software certification program in place for solutions like iBE.net however we are compliant with the DCAA requirements and customers can get their implementations certified

Is iBE.net’s time-off FLSA and ACA compliant

Is iBE.net’s time-off FLSA and ACA compliant

iBE.net supports time-off rules that are compliant with both FLSA and ACA regulations, including benefit eligibility based on average working hours per week, part-time sick-leave options and vacation accruals based on HR policies for exempt/non-exempt employees or based on years of service

What accounting systems does iBE.net connect to

What accounting systems does iBE.net connect to

iBE.net connects currently to Quickbooks Professional, Quickbooks Enterprise, Quickbooks On-line, Quickbooks Enterprise, Xero, NetSuite OpenAir, FinancialForce and SAGE. We are working on connectors to xero and would be glad to hear from clients or prospects who wish to link to another accounting system

What are iBE.net’s key features

What are iBE.net’s key features

We are positioned as “time and billing for consultants” however we offer much more including project mgt., tasks, CRM, HR, time & expenses, pricing, billing, project accounting, workflow and reporting. iBE.net is currently geared towards the needs of professional services firms

What CRM systems does iBE.net connect to

What CRM systems does iBE.net connect to

iBE.net currently connects to SalesForce allowing the import of closed opportunities as projects or the transfer of accounts or clients, cases or tickets and invoices

What integration do you have with email

What integration do you have with email

We have server-based email integration both for receiving emails for example to tickets@ibe.net to create a ticket or leads@ibe.net to upload a new lead, as well as sending emails automatically such as comments, task status updates, approval requests and so on. We do not have a plug-in for Outlook or Apple mail – we rely on server-side add-ins to avoid you having to download plug-ins

What integration do you have with Google apps

What integration do you have with Google apps

We have many integration points with Google including signing in using your Google account, trip, address and distance look-ups, calendar integration and of course email integration both for sending and receiving emails

What kind of reporting is available in iBE.net

What kind of reporting is available in iBE.net

We support a wide variety of query and dashboard reporting using our built-in business intelligence module and hi-speed in-memory database. It is very easily to configure new reports, just choose the properties or attributes and iBE.net’s dynamic query generator makes up all the joins. You can report using tables, pivot tables, lists, bar charts, pie charts or more

What modules are available in iBE.net

What modules are available in iBE.net

iBE.net has modules for project mgt., tasks mgt., helpdesk ticketing, CRM, sales, contracts, HR, time, expenses, time-off, attendance, overtime and pay calculation, pricing, billing, payment processing, resource planning, job/position planning, leads and pipeline. We pretty much cover everything a professional services firm needs except for accounting where we connect to popular accounting packages such as Quickbooks

What payroll systems does iBE.net connect to

What payroll systems does iBE.net connect to

iBE.net currently connects to ADP only, however we are open to working with clients on connecting to other popular payroll systems such as PayChex

What types of contracts does iBE.net’s billing module support

What types of contracts does iBE.net’s billing module support

iBE.net’s pricing engine supports a wide range of input or output based contracts. We of course support time and materials based contracts allowing a range of invoice summarization criteria such as summarized by employee, project/task, incurred on date or service-line. For output based contracts we support milestone, retainer, fixed fee, hold-back and combinations of these. Our excel-like pricing table interface allows you to model complex pricing formula such as %, min/max or advanced payments. We are currently developing support for roll-over and liquidations

Management

Can I migrate my existing data

Can I migrate my existing data

Of course you can migrate existing data out of legacy systems into iBE.net. As long as your current system provides a way to extract the data e.g. to a csv or xls file we can upload it into iBE.net. Our implementation consultant will help you through this including providing blank Excel templates for you to fill out, reviewing and cleaning up your data, organizing your data or our upload to match your own specific needs and custom fields, and even running the data imports for you

Does iBE.net meet European data protection rules

Does iBE.net meet European data protection rules

iBE.net’s servers are based at Amazon data centers in the US so while we meet the general EU data protection requirements we cannot say that our data is physically housed in servers based in the EU. We meet the US equivalent “safe harbor” data protection requirements and have internal guidelines and controls to protect clients’ data. We are not formally registered for safe harbor but can do so on request

How do you decide what enhancements to do

How do you decide what enhancements to do

The vast majority of enhancements that we make come directly from clients. As long as we feel that a requested enhancement has general industry applicability and compliments our core offerings for professional services automation, we rarely turn down an enhancement request from a client. This is something which is unique about iBE.net and makes us stand-out from our competitors

How do you manage new releases

How do you manage new releases

We take care of patches, upgrades and new releases so that you don’t have to. We run one week sprint cycles and push enhancements up to production on Sunday or Monday morning India time-zone. Program or bug fixes are pushed as and when required. We protect existing clients from changes in system behaviour by linking new features to system configuration settings that are turned off by default for existing clients. Contact us to learn about new features of iBE.net or check out our release notes

How is iBE.net secure

How is iBE.net secure

iBE.net uses encrypted and tokenized communications from browser to our servers, all of which are protected so that only requests from a valid user/company can access our servers and then only for data that user is authorized to access in that company. Each company gets its own transactional database for added security

Click here to view our Security Blog

Is IBE.net unavailable at any time

Is IBE.net unavailable at any time

We have triple redundancy for our production servers based out of two Amazon data-centers so the system almost never experiences unplanned downtimes. We can commit to 99.999% availability. Planned downtimes are rarely more than 15 minutes per week around 4 am US time on Sunday nights, to restart our servers following the release of any new enhancements

What database do you use

What database do you use

We store our transactional and system data in MongoDB (a no-SQL object orientated store) and our business intelligence or analytics in MonetDB (an in-memory hi-speed column-based SQL database)

What is cloud or SaaS software

What is cloud or SaaS software

Cloud or SaaS software is software delivered over the Internet and run on a desktop, laptop, tablet or phone typically using a web-browser. True cloud software like iBE.net is designed from the outset to be delivered over the cloud and often runs on a large number of high performance servers at a reputable hosting provider such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), with an architecture designed to make it quick and easy for new companies to get started

What kind of help documentation do you provide

What kind of help documentation do you provide

We provide end user documentation in the form of help topics for all our modules, apps and screens. This documentation is currently in development for the latest (Osprey) release however we also have PDF user guides for the previous (Griffon) release

What’s with the release names

What’s with the release names

We wanted our releases to be named after something fast, powerful and beautiful so we choose to name each iBE.net release after a bird of prey

When and where was iBE.net founded

When and where was iBE.net founded

We were founded in April 2011 in the US (Boston/New York)

Where can I learn more about iBE.net

Where can I learn more about iBE.net

Please visit help.ibe.net for more information including detailed user guides and manuals for all of our modules. Also contact us for a demo or free trial

Where is iBE.net based

Where is iBE.net based

We are based in Boston, New York and India (Noida & Hyderabad)

Who are the founders and principals of iBE.net

Who are the founders and principals of iBE.net

iBE.net was founded by Richard Minney, Amit Gupta and Simon Hopkins. The management team currently comprises Richard, Amit, Sanjeev Kumar, Harsh Chauhan and John Langan as well as two external board members

Click here for our team