Fastest Growing Cloud PSA: FinancialForce?

FinancialForce, which makes an ERP suite for the Salesforce.com cloud ecosystem, now has more than 1,000 customers and subscription revenue grew roughly 60 percent in 2015. Take a closer look at the ERP suite, and it includes an increasingly popular professional services automation (PSA) platform.

Although not "purpose built" for VARs and MSPs, the FinancialForce PSA system includes core functionality -- resource management, project management, time and expense management, etc. -- that has attracted plenty of IT service providers and technology consultants onto the platform.

True believers include Venture Technologies, an IT solutions provider that specializes in Cisco and EMC offerings. The company abandoned an in-house project management system for FinancialForcePSA to get a 360-degree view of customers -- from opportunity identification to the invoice. A resource planning model is particularly popular for predicting engineer utilization rates within the company.

Similarly, Summa Technologies is a software development and consulting shop that deployed FinancialForce to link PSA and HR information -- allowing the company to track specific people working on specific projects, and the profitability of each engagement.

To keep the momentum going, FinancialForce has hired Joe Fuca as president of Worldwide Field Operations. He will lead the company's global sales organization and Customers for Life, the FinancialForce's services arm.

The PSA Line Card

Autotask, ConnectWise and Tigerpaw Software are perhaps the best-known providers of PSA to IT channel partners. But new options from the likes of Kaseya and SolarWinds N-able are emerging. Plus, players like Accelo, Karisoft, Promys and NetSuite's OpenAir have a following among IT service providers.

While Autotask is private equity owned, ConnectWise and Tigerpaw are self-funded. In stark contrast, FinancialForce is venture funded and backed by Salesforce, Technology Crossover Ventures, Advent International and UNIT4.

Although Salesforce hasn't specifically targeted IT channel partners with its growing portfolio of tools and investments, the company is starting to overlap with channel-centric players.

In addition to the FinancialForce investment, Saleforce recently acquired SteelBrick, a quoting and sales proposal system that can compete against ConnectWise Quosal and QuoteWerks on some fronts.