Key takeaways
- Project-based businesses need accounting that understands projects, milestones and billing models, not just invoices.
- Certinia Financial Management covers the general ledger, receivables, payables, cash, multi-company, multi-currency, consolidation and revenue recognition.
- Running finance on the same platform as CRM and PSA removes re-keying between sales, delivery and accounting.
- Agree revenue recognition policies and the chart of accounts before configuration.
Why project-based businesses need different accounting
A product company invoices goods when they ship. A services firm may bill monthly for time, at milestones, upfront for a retainer, or as a fixed fee spread over months. Revenue often needs to be recognised on a different schedule from billing. And leadership wants profitability by project, client, practice and entity, not only by account code.
Generic accounting systems can do this with spreadsheets and manual journals. That works at small scale but becomes slow and error-prone as the business grows.
What Certinia Financial Management covers
| Area | Typical capabilities |
|---|---|
| General ledger | Chart of accounts, journals, allocations, intercompany, period close |
| Accounts receivable | Invoicing, credit notes, collections, cash receipts |
| Accounts payable | Supplier invoices, approvals, payments, matching |
| Cash management | Bank accounts, statement import, reconciliation and cash matching |
| Multi-company and multi-currency | Separate legal entities, exchange rates, intercompany relationships |
| Consolidation | Consolidation hierarchies with eliminations |
| Revenue recognition | Recognition templates, schedules, revenue contracts and forecasts |
| Reporting | Financial statements and services performance analysis using Salesforce reports and dashboards |
Certinia continues to update these modules. Its Winter 2026 release, for example, added a new revenue recognition interface for large data volumes, contract cancellation automation that creates credit notes and matches them to open invoices, and an updated cash matching experience.
Project accounting in practice
When Certinia PSA and Financial Management run together, a typical flow looks like this:
- A project is created from a won opportunity, with its budget and billing model.
- Consultants submit time and expenses against the project.
- Approved time, milestones or fixed-fee schedules generate billing events.
- Billing events become customer invoices in receivables.
- Revenue is recognised according to the agreed policy, which may differ from the billing schedule.
- Postings flow to the general ledger with project and practice dimensions for reporting.
Because every step sits on Salesforce, account managers can see invoices and overdue balances for their clients without asking finance.
Revenue recognition
Services firms commonly recognise revenue on a time-and-materials basis, on percentage of completion, on milestones, or evenly over a contract term. Certinia uses recognition templates and schedules to apply these rules consistently. Your accounting policies, which should follow the applicable standard such as IFRS 15 for most UAE companies, must be defined by your finance team and auditors first. The system then applies them.
Multi-entity groups
Many UAE groups run a mainland company, free-zone entities and sometimes companies in other GCC countries or overseas. Certinia’s multi-company and multi-currency features support separate books per entity, intercompany transactions and consolidated reporting. Plan the entity structure, currencies and intercompany rules during design rather than adding them later.
Implementation tips
- Design the chart of accounts and reporting dimensions (entity, practice, project, region) together.
- Document billing and revenue rules for each contract type before configuration.
- Migrate open items and project balances carefully, and reconcile them.
- Plan local tax and e-invoicing requirements, covered in our UAE Certinia implementation guide.
Real-world example
In our Certinia financial implementation case study, an event services group used Certinia and Salesforce on one platform to manage receivables, payables, general ledger and cash entry, with invoices generated automatically from sales orders.
Get started
Explore our Certinia services and Certinia implementation services, or contact us to discuss your finance processes.
Frequently asked questions
Is Certinia Financial Management a full ERP?
It is a cloud financial management (ERP) product covering general ledger, receivables, payables, cash, multi-company, consolidation and revenue recognition. It is aimed mainly at services businesses rather than inventory-heavy companies.
Can Certinia recognise revenue differently from billing?
Yes. Recognition templates and schedules allow revenue to follow your accounting policy, which may differ from when invoices are issued.
Does Certinia support multiple currencies and companies?
Yes. It supports multiple legal entities, currencies, intercompany transactions and consolidation.
Do we have to use Certinia PSA with Financial Management?
No, but using both on one platform connects project delivery, billing and accounting without integration.
Want project accounting on Salesforce?
We can help you design and implement Certinia Financial Management around your billing and revenue rules.
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