Cloud application combo links Salesforce.com, Intacct financial reporting to its own work execution management tools.

Clarizen, Salesforce.com, and Intacct are introducing a cloud application combo particularly geared to professional services firms that spans the process of selling the job, getting it done, and billing for it.

Clarizen offers social project coordination tools, which it labels work execution management to distinguish it from traditional project management. In Clarizen's system, the focus is less on high-level planning and more on coordinating and tracking the execution of tasks through social media-style updates and giving managers visibility into the progress of work.

Clarizen's integration with Salesforce.com allows Salesforce users to create projects and assign tasks within the Clarizen system and monitor the progress of projects. Salesforce users can also be assigned customer service and follow-up tasks tracked in Clarizen and report progress through the Salesforce user interface.

"Our state of the art integration with Salesforce allows you to close the loop of execution with cross-sell, up-sell, and extension of accounts," Clarizen CEO Avinoam Nowogrodski said in an interview. Clarizen also supports project budgeting and tracking of actual expenses associated with a project, then provides a dashboard, accessible from within Salesforce, that shows whether a contract is meeting its profitability goals. The dashboard was created in partnership with Clarizen's customer Marketo, a marketing automation firm that uses the combination of Clarizen with Salesforce to manage service delivery, Nowogrodski said.

[ Salesforce is making a bigger play for the social sector. See Salesforce.com Steps Past CRM, Into Social Marketing. ]

The partnership with financial software-as-a-service specialist Intacct, announced Tuesday, takes the next step. Where Clarizen's profitability dashboard is based on projected costs, Intacct integration brings in reporting from and integration with a true financial management system. Financial details from services projects, including project related billable and non-billable time and reimbursable and non-reimbursable expenses, will be synchronized between Intacct, Clarizen, and Salesforce.

Intacct is using these partnerships as part of a new Intacct Services Resource Planning ERP system for project and service-based businesses. Intacct said it will provide three-way synchronization plus extensive workflow and automation for key tasks to boost productivity for project and service-based organizations. For example, the achievement of project milestones, as recorded in Clarizen, can be configured to trigger the creation of invoices in Intacct.

A master reseller agreement allows Intacct and its channel partners to offer Clarizen products worldwide.

Follow David F. Carr on Twitter @davidfcarr. The BrainYard is @thebyard

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