Overview – Xero

Accounting has been a fundamental aspect of business since ancient times when transactions were recorded on clay tablets. Today, businesses of all sizes can use modern solutions like Striven to simplify financial management.

Beyond its robust cloud-based accounting capabilities, Striven serves as a comprehensive business management platform, offering tools for project management, CRM, and HR. It also includes free self-service portals for vendors, customers, and job candidates (up to 100 users), along with advanced accounting functionalities to enhance efficiency.

How it works

Setting up a Striven account is quick and straightforward—just enter your email address, and you’ll be directed straight to the platform’s interface. While this direct approach might feel sudden, a guided tour helps familiarize you with key features like projects, tasks, and reports. In addition to interactive tutorials, Striven offers video guides accessible through its support documentation and within the app.

Plans and Pricing

Striven’s pricing structure isn’t entirely transparent, as detailed information about each plan’s offerings isn’t readily available on its website. To get a full breakdown of services, you’ll need to reach out to their sales team. However, what is clear is that Striven offers a 7-day free trial and has two main plans: Standard and Enterprise.

One of Striven’s standout advantages is that all its features are available across every plan. The key difference between pricing tiers lies in volume—higher-tier plans support more users, clients, project templates, custom fields, and report columns. Additionally, Striven offers flexibility in organizing workflows to match individual business needs.

Additionally, Striven offers free access to its customer, vendor, and career portals for up to 100 users per portal. If you need more, you can add 400 extra users for $99 or opt for unlimited users at $499. All purchases must be made through the sales team, but you can explore the platform risk-free with a 7-day free trial—no credit card required.

Standard

Price: $35 per user per month

The most affordable option is the Standard plan, priced at $35 per user per month, which covers all the essential features for small and medium-sized businesses. However, companies with fewer than five users must pay an additional $25 per user, making it less cost-effective for very small teams.

Enterprise

Price: $70 per user per month

The Enterprise plan expands the platform’s capabilities by significantly increasing the limits on various features, such as billing, invoicing, sales receipts, custom fields, and asset types. For instance, it raises the purchase order limit from 20 to 500 and increases the number of API calls per minute from 100 to 500, making it a more scalable option for larger businesses with higher transaction volumes.

Tools and Features

Striven may not offer the most advanced project management tools, but it provides all the essential features needed to manage tasks, track projects, and collaborate with team members effectively.

While the interface maintains a clean design, the sheer volume of data can make it feel overwhelming. However, Striven allows for some customization, enabling users to modify their main dashboard by adding, removing, or rearranging widgets to suit their preferences. Additionally, the software includes dedicated dashboards for various categories and offers the flexibility to create personalized dashboards for a more tailored experience.

Task Management

Striven provides a comprehensive set of tools for task creation and tracking. Each task includes essential details like assigned team members, status, allocated hours, and any associated projects or milestones. Users can add a checklist of required steps before marking a task as complete, attach files, and leave comments for better collaboration.

Tasks can be viewed in a list format or through the task dashboard, which can be customized with widgets displaying key information. For example, you can monitor open or completed tasks and assess team productivity on a weekly basis. Additionally, filters allow for quick searches based on task type or assignee.

Project Templates

Striven provides up to 500 project templates, depending on the selected plan, to streamline project setup. These templates are categorized by department, including accounting, marketing, and HR. Users can manage projects through multiple viewing options, such as milestone (Kanban), list, and Gantt chart formats.

Similar to task management, projects can be assigned due dates, status updates, labels, and priority levels for better organization. The project dashboard offers a comprehensive overview, displaying all tasks, milestones, and reports in one place for efficient tracking and management.

Event Calendar and Time Tracking

Striven’s integrated time-tracking feature enables users to log time spent on individual tasks, mark entries as billable, add notes, and define pay types. Timesheets can be easily managed, providing a clear overview of total hours logged. Additionally, Striven’s Calendar helps users stay organized by allowing them to schedule appointments, track orders, manage invoices, and record time off. It also supports the creation of separate calendars for employees and offers integration with Google and Microsoft 365 calendars for seamless data synchronization.

Workflows

Striven’s Workflows feature is still in development, but it offers a glimpse into the platform’s future direction. With multiple triggers and actions, workflows help automate processes such as task creation, email notifications, Discussions, and text alerts. Additionally, user permissions can be customized to control workflow management. For example, some users may have full access to view and manage all workflows, while others may only be able to manage their own.

Self-service Portals

Striven enhances user experience with its self-service portals designed for customers, vendors, and candidates. These portals offer round-the-clock access to the platform, enabling seamless communication and collaboration.

The customer portal provides clients with the ability to approve contracts, process invoice payments, submit tasks, monitor their work history, and generate 1099 forms. Meanwhile, the vendor portal simplifies supplier management by allowing businesses to locate vendors based on specific requirements, authorize contract-based purchase orders, and issue PO requests. Additionally, vendors can submit bills directly through the portal, facilitating a seamless and efficient transaction workflow.

Striven enhances the hiring process with its candidate portal, designed to streamline talent acquisition. This feature centralizes recruitment by offering a single platform for creating job postings, managing online applications, organizing recruitment stages, and automating communication with candidates.

Security

Striven employs cutting-edge encryption technologies and data redundancy protocols to safeguard information both in transit and at rest, ensuring that only authorized users can access sensitive data. The system also features continuous activity monitoring and audit logs, allowing businesses to track data access and detect potential security threats. Additionally, Striven supports compliance with industry regulations such as GDPR and HIPAA through robust encryption, access controls, and detailed audit trails.

Conclusion

Top-tier online accounting software should offer all the essential tools for businesses to efficiently manage their finances and drive growth. Striven goes beyond this by delivering a comprehensive, web-based business management solution.

From invoicing and detailed self-service portals to advanced reporting, built-in CRM, and HR features, Striven covers a wide range of business needs. While the platform could be improved with a more modern interface and a dedicated mobile app, its extensive functionality makes it a valuable asset for businesses.