GoProposal vs Practice Ignition and why?

We use Ignition...

The one downside for us is that you have to engage every time you want to charge more. For example, if we do an ad-hoc service we can’t just auto bill the client, we have to create an engagement letter that they have to execute. We found a work around, if there are ad-hoc services that are highly likely the client will need we add them as “as-needed” services and select to bill manually. That way the client already accepted them and when we do the work, we can go into Ignition and bill the time without having to create a new EL. 

We have our work templates integrated with Ignition on a 1:1 relationship to the services. The work is then assigned to a “ghost” user in Karbon so we can determine what work is new vs old. I like this type of relationship because we never have to wonder if the work was setup correctly, if the client engaged then we have it in Karbon. We have the same problem as Max in that the work’s start date and end date correlate to the start & end date for the proposal, for us this is something we have to adjust as we are assigning the work to our team. 

In comparision to what Max is saying about GoProposal, I like the emails from within PI, you can share links to the proposal and it sends auto reminders to clients that they need to complete the EL. We have videos that we include with the EL, one when they receive it along with a personalized note about the engagement, a PDF about our timeline and processes, a thank you video when they complete the EL along with another note about what to expect next. It’s a very clean process and allows us to customize to our branding very well. 
 

Overall the customer service at Ignition has always been very helpful if I ever need anything. 

My experience with Practice Ignition customer service have been horrible. When I left a bad review of the product and told others of my experience their head of customer service had my account removed and banned me from the platform. If you have a small or minority owned firm I do not recommend working with them. Also, for some reason, the company doesn’t seem to be growing. Their customer base is small and, last time I checked, they’re creeping away from their core brand and trying to broaden the appeal of the product to other professional besides accountants (I don’t like that).

1 star do not recommend 

I have used both platforms @Marshall Martin.  I started with Go Proposal, and moved to Ignition after ~yr.  I’ve been using Ignition for ~3yrs and wouldn’t consider going back.  I’m sure GoProposal has worked to bridge the gap in functionality, but this is what I experienced….

Go Proposal Pro/Con (again, based 3yr ago):

• Pro:  was cheaper than Ignition
• Pro:  I liked the “for future consideration” option (I think they called it the Client Roadmap)
• Neutral:  when I was using it, they didn’t have functionality to auto-collect payment, so a huge downside at the time.  I *think* they collect payments now, so calling it “neutral”
• Con:  I couldn’t auto-bill clients, so I was always chasing client for payment, even when they had 100X my fee sitting as free cash flow in their checking or savings account.
• Con:  So very clunky to create a proposal that wasn’t strictly flat fee.  If there was anything wonky in the billing (i.e. deposit of X,  balance due on completion), it was a total pain
• Con: No option to “recommend” a particular value pricing option
• Con:  at the time, there was no integration with Karbon
• Con: There was no integration with Gusto for billing variable payroll fees (i.e. per EE fee)

Ignition Pro/Con

• Pro:  I require a method of payment and bill in advance.  I have $0 in AR, always.  
• Pro:  Super predictable cash flow
• Pro:  SO.Many.Options for billing scenarios, and proposals
• Pro:  Integration with Gusto so my variable fees (i.e. per EE on a payroll subscription) AUTOMATE by simply linking Ignition to Gusto
• Pro:  Ability to create multiple “projects” in a proposal, with various services as subsets of each project
• Pro:  integration with Karbon.  I LOVE this.  I link each service in Ignition to a Work Template in Karbon.  When they accept the proposal in Ignition, it auto-creates the first work item in Karbon. 
  • I do have to go into Karbon and tweak the start/due dates and recurring templates, but at least I know what they signed up for
  • I add a Karbon work template for new client onboarding and also include that as a “service” on every ignition proposal, so that when they accept, it auto-kicks a Karbon Work item for Onboarding
• Pro:  When I signed up I had a guy that met with me for like 4 hrs (an hr at a time) to set up my engagement letter, SOW format, library etc etc.
• Pro: Value Pricing options, with the ability to mark one as “recommended”
• Pro:  Ability to add on a service pretty easily and auto-bill.  You create a new proposal and then mark it as “accepted on behalf of client” if you’ve already outlined the exact price, and they’ve approved.  There’s no requirement that you email the proposal and then wait for them to accept.
• Pro:  New function where you can create a “Renew” of an existing engagment.  I’m planning to use this as a way to update pricing in Dec for the new year 
• Pro:  Being able to record and kick off an automatic “thank you” or “next steps” video, etc.  Super slick.
• Pro:  I have an actual account manager that I can schedule a call with if I can’t figure something out, and she reaches out qtrly to book a check-in mtg
• Pro:  A pretty decent Dashboard to tell you various metrics for your biz.  I wish they had a specific metric on it though for MRR
• Con:  the price of “premium” credit card payments is spendy!!!  3.6% for me right now.  I’ve started changing new proposals to accept ACH only

Like I said, I’m sure GoProposal has changed dramatically in the last 3 yrs, but I’d (probably) never go back.  The change from them to Ignition was like jet fuel for my proposals.

Good luck @Marshall Martin !

We are also on ignition and have been for almost 4 years. It's a great product. 

As others have mentioned credit card fees recently increased to a very high 3.6%, disappointing but not quite high enough to move to another solution. I feel like they did a great job pricing as high as possible without going over, which is their promised area of expertise!

Integration with Karbon is not worth it for us so we have it disabled. A couple of small changes would make the integration between ignition and Karbon so much better.

1. Check box to disable integration for an entire engagement letter and service by service. Why - almost all of our work in Karbon is recurring but we re-engage each year. At re-engagement many services are the same -- and already setup on a recurring schedule in karbon -- these work items are duplicated by the automation. Other new work items are created. Its an all or nothing approach and for us nothing is working better than deleting bad data.
2. Start and end (due dates), recurring work schedules etc are not automated. So even if ignition creates the work item we still need to go into karbon and configure dates for each new work item, set the recurring schedule, etc. The work creation and contact creation is helpful but not enough to keep the integration live.

As others have mentioned, lots of pros for ignition. Overall we are very happy with the product.

Good luck!

I encouraged my firm to disable the integration in the early days for these same reasons. Ignition is great for the proposal/engagement/pricing side (not that I have experience with GoProposal), the integration could be so much more though. Karbon have some great ideas on the roadmap that would make the recurring work setup, pricing and proposal side so much better (and in Karbon) - not sure how far the engagement side will go 🙂