Moobiz: CRM that's on the Money

Moobiz: CRM That's On The Money

(And That Doesn't Milk You Dry)

We don't often cover SaaS (software as a service) solutions here at ACC Yotta, but recently a certain online 'CRM' system came to our attention, and we felt that it was suitably 'ground breaking' enough to deserve an entry in our lab notes.

As ever, we have tested the solution in pretty much the best way know how - we ran our own business on it for the last few months. We have to say, the entire experience can only be described as truly online-tening!

For those who haven't figured it out yet, running a business isn't all closing deals and running up huge tabs on the boss's credit card, down the local bar after work. Most of it, is totally, incredibly dull. Does your ledger balance out? Have you sent out that invoice payment reminder? Hows your P&L looking? What about cashflow? Yes it's boring horrible accounts admin. It's also boring horribly essential.

What struck us, was that the vast majority of online 'CRM' solutions out there seem to add, not remove, layers of complexity, by developing software in a way we could only describe as 'complex-disjoined-modulisim'. 'Modular' features with complexity, but without integration. For instance, our previous system enabled us to create invoices, but had no idea about how purchase orders effected the monthly P&L. Oh sure, you could add a purchase order, but somehow, money in and money out were about as hooked up as John Terry and Wayne Bridge. Not even a quick handshake. Yes, the vast majority of these online CRM solutions enable you to load on your business contacts, store your phone numbers, plan meetings and chase 'leads' or 'opportunities'.

However, when it comes to dealing with the 'business end' of business - it's almost like you fall off the edge of a fiscal cliff. 

It's like the CRM just Moo'vd on

And so to Moobiz. On the face of it, it's just another online CRM solution, perhaps one that's not so well known, so perhaps that's something else to worry about. But look at bit closer, and you will find that there is something quite fresh, clever & unique about the Moobiz offering that makes it stand out from every other system that we have come across before, and we've used quite a few.

The first thing that makes Moobiz stand out is the extremely clean design interface. In fact - it's so clean that if you happened to stick your thumb over the Moobiz logo - you'd be forgiven for thinking this was something Steve Jobs might be introducing as the 'one more thing' item at the next Apple keynote. Yes this does sound a little superficial - but believe us when we say that - interface design is so important with online collaborative software - because it takes just one person to not 'buy in' to the system - for there to be no 'system'. So often have we seen online business solutions painstakingly implemented, only to see them fall apart, just because Joyce in accounts found it 'quicker to do it by hand'. Trust me. Never underestimate the 'Joyce Factor'.

Below: Compare the clean and lean Moobiz 'add invoice screen'....

Above: .....with the clutter of Vtiger CRMs 'add invoice' screen - or what small part of it fits on half a screen!

So you can really appreciate here how the clean design helps features become more intuitive, and as such - you kind of know how to use it - without actually having used it. It's form and function. The form exposes you to the function - and it's actually the function which seals it: Moobiz does money.

Moobiz Makes The World Go Round....

Above: Moobiz Ledger & Cashflow analysis. Get the green line higher than the red line or else you're in trouble! (NB: Screen shots taken from their demo system - not our version!)

The way in which business tasks 'flow' through Moobiz are crucial to it's ease of use. Generating and managing inbound revenue for your business becomes an effortless 'cyclical process'.

You add your customer using the CRM module. Using the Projects module, you create a proposal for this customer, email it out, create revisions. Using the Invoicing Module, you convert this to invoice, send automatic statements as a reminder for payment. Finally you mark it as paid and sync it with your bank account, using the Accounting Module. At the end of it - you have your taxes worked out, you have your P&L, you have a cashflow analysis. To round it all off - the very first screen that greets you as you log in to Moobiz shows you:

How much money you have in your bank account(s).

How much money is invoiced, outstanding

How much money you owe to other people

Get the common theme? Money. Yes, MONEY! (cue evil laugh, raise little finger to side of mouth)

Above: Whass'up with your business? The Moobiz login 'Dashboard'

There is nothing 'evil' about it. It is just immensely satisfying sitting in front of Moobiz and hitting refresh - watching the little black numbers get bigger, and the little red numbers get smaller. Of course you actually need to have a successful business for this to happen - Moobiz may be good, but it's not so good that it will expand your bank accounts and deplete your debts whilst you sit by doing nothing! Seeing those numbers staring at you every day certainly makes you more aware, more motivated and more careful about what you make and what you spend.

With the web and e-commerce add-ons,  you can actually run a full web shop, that plugs in saleable products directly to the CRM. So it's a full 'front of store', to 'back of office' solution. How this component stacks up against other online commerce systems, we don't plan on finding out just now. For us, as a consultancy and service provider, we don't have need of this feature, so we selfishly restricted our usage to match our own business needs. We did find the 'Google Analytics'  type tracker script handy to 'strap on' to our existing non-Moobiz web site. Doing this sent live web site traffic directly into our Moobiz CRM, each visit getting neatly presented on our dashboard.

So not only can we see the money, but also who's spending it!

Newbiz, Moobiz

Yes, Moobiz does have a distinctly 'new' feel to it, and it's true, when we first started using it, there were a few problems. Just little niggles. Credit to the Moobiz team, every single one of  these were sorted out in a very short space of time, plus, we were pleasantly surprised that many of our 'wouldn't it be nice if....' requests we sent in, actually got rolled into the product.

And also - as it's a bit on the new side, there is quite a lot being done to improve the system. It's interesting to check the Moobiz update blog, which seems to be updated almost on a daily basis now, listing new features and bug fixes. The pace of change - now that we have got comfortable with the system - might worry some folks a little. It's very much a 'shared' online application - what if Moobiz were to fundamentally change in a new direction that we didn't approve of? Removed functionality we liked? Change a process we had already trained people on how to do? There is not much that can be done about this, apart from hope that Moobiz don't get tempted to 'over cook' the app, or at least make changes optional. We'll just have to see - but we like how the product has evolved so far.

And that perhaps brings us nicely on to a few of our Moobiz gripes.

If you embrace this software wholly, you could literally end up putting your entire business on the end of a network cable, which then heads off into the InterWeb - to 'Moobiz-land'. In doing so, there are the obvious important considerations....

Firstly, knowing a thing or two about SaaS hosting environments, and data centre security, we would like to see a little more detail about the infrastructure that is keeping our critical business data secure. But then we would because this is pretty much what we do as a business, and it's obvious why they don't want to give would be hackers too much public information about it.

A further concern - perhaps more general to all current (and future) Moobiz customers, would be to worry about the implications of Moobiz going south, or being bought out by another company. Would you be forced to bail out of the system over night?

Having the ability to schedule a secure remote download the raw data ourselves would be a plus - but really, what we are after is an agreement which basically states that, in the event of Moobiz becoming horribly dismembered, we could restore and host the entire CRM ourselves, here on our own systems. Our hosting facility powers some of Europes largest community websites, and is most likely as, or perhaps more, security capable as the one that Moobiz operate. So in the event of a Moobiz meltdown, we would like the option to actually host our own Moobiz site, and perhaps even as a sort of SaaS hosting 'life raft' for other  Moobiz customers that happened to find themselves in the same unfortunate predicament. It would be reassuring for us, and we assume other customers, to know that there was a sort of Moobiz hosting 'after-life' if it all went pear shaped. We only took out a very small license (three users) in order to test the solution, and at £30 a month, that's a paltry future investment for us. If we were to buy licenses for the entire business, or were quite a bit larger, your monthly investment in the software goes up, so you have more to lose in terms of your long term investment if one day you go to log in and you get the dreaded 'page not found'.

All of this is of course totally hypothetical, and we are not in the habit of scare mongering. It is still possible - we thought about it, so perhaps other people have also?

Existing Moobiz die-hards reading this may be disappointed at the lack of 'total' cover in this item about all the systems impressive functionalities. We've not mentioned the email broadcast system, the client support extranet, shared calendars, or the handy timesheet function. It's not written as a full review, because we are not a traditional 'review site'. And for any skeptics out there - no, there is no connection between ACC Yotta and Moobiz, apart from that we are using Moobiz as your usual customer would. We have particular (but not particularly out of the ordinary) needs, and the Moobiz system has proved extremely capable in meeting them.

We have simply enjoyed using a system which seems to make all the boring business stuff sort of fun again.

A final tick in the Moobiz box over the competition (far too numerous in numbers to mention) is that under the silky white application interface, behind their bold website graphics - is the fact that all of this is designed, developed and hosted here in the UK. Not to be nationalistic or anything - but to know there is someone on the end of the phone that I can clearly understand, and that lives in my own timezone, is extremely reassuring. In this age out outsourcing, that's a very precious thing indeed.

But to really get a good idea of whether Moobiz is right for you & your business, we suggest you take advantage of the free trial and try Moobiz for yourselves!