Striven isn’t exclusively a human resources platform. It’s a comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite that strives to solve most aspects of a small business’s day-to-day operations.
The platform boasts wallet-comforting lower-than-average per-user pricing. But, since the platform doesn’t branch out its functions individually, you’d need to rely on Striven exclusively for many elements to justify its cost. Otherwise, it’s not worth paying the $20 per user starting cost only to use its HR features and nothing else.
However, if the price is right for your commercial dreams, we reckon Striven delivers a supreme value that’s hard to beat. Just don’t expect advanced analytics or complex perks for the exceptionally affordable cost.
Striven product overview
Striven Cloud ERP is a modern solution with product editions for manufacturing, logistics and distribution, professional and field services, and e-commerce. The product is a mid-market software that’s ideal for small businesses with complex needs and growing enterprises. All Striven editions have complete features for Accounting, CRM, Projects, Inventory, and Human Resources. Each industry edition exceeds its organizational requirements, providing all the functionality necessary for businesses to succeed and grow. Beyond features like sales and purchase order management, scheduling, costing, and multi-enterprise abilities, Striven has streamlined portals for customers, vendors, and job candidates. Customizations that suit businesses with unique processes and needs support Striven’s abilities for real-time data, reporting, and business intelligence. The product prioritizes speed, data management, and ease of use. With these advantages in mind, Striven ensures success even before deployment. Striven’s team of analysts, industry experts, and support staff guide clients through adoption, acting as a technology partner every step of the way.
Striven pricing and plans
Striven offers three subscription tiers tied to the number of users (rather than employees). Each tier includes every business solution and feature, with no option to purchase functions individually. This is superb for businesses needing a straightforward, one-and-done approach, but people needing a perfectly tailored package will be sorely disappointed.
Data as of 12/14/21. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
Even with the flat hosting fee included, Striven still boasts lower-than-average per-user costs in the ERP software category. For example, if you add 55 users, this averages about $19 a month per person ($550 in total user costs plus $499 hosting, divided by 55). Six employees average out to $36.50 a user monthly, as another example.
For comparison, similarly modest ERP package Zoho One bills $37 a month per employee (regardless of actual user count). Meanwhile, the more powerful Microsoft Dynamics 365 suite starts at $70 monthly per user for its small business offerings.
Pros
Top-notch recruiting tools
While many traditional HR platforms segregate recruiting as a premium upsell, Striven natively excels at getting people hired and onboarded.
For no additional cost, the software suite automates many repetitive elements of the hiring process. This liberates HR professionals from the tedious process of manually sorting through job applications—a task that’s an unmanageable avalanche for a small-business owner working single-handedly.
Striven also sorts applicants by customizable fields, like education level and engineering experience. This makes it much easier to hone in on the highest-quality candidates perfectly tailored to your unique needs. Plus, the platform includes in-house personality assessments, snubbing the commonplace dependence on third-party testing services.
Client portals
For an additional monthly cost, Striven provides limited guest access to the platform to streamline client transactions. Ranging from $49 to $499 flat per month, the Portals feature allows contracts to be signed, invoices to be paid, and job applicants to submit new-hire documentation, to name a few use cases.
While Portals isn’t unique to Striven, it eliminates the excessive dependence on third-party integrations seen in many other low-priced business software applications. This makes the feature an attractive, convenient time-saver that stays faithful to an ERP’s mission of eliminating the need for extra software purchases.
Cons
Employee benefits administration
While Striven’s recruiting features dish out a goldmine of value, its ongoing benefits offerings leave much to be desired. The platform lacks support for retirement planning and insurance policies, among other essential non-salary perks.
As a result, you’ll have to rely on third-party tools to administer 401(k) plans and medical and life insurance policies. While this isn’t too uncommon, it’s certainly inconvenient and contradictory to the all-inclusive mission of an ERP suite.
Limited educational resources
The software suite relies exclusively on inadequate, text-centric user guides that lack the elaborate multimedia-rich materials seen in many competitors.
For example, the Applications and Onboarding tutorial explains only one reporting tool, with just a measly screenshot and one-paragraph overview. All other recruiting reports appear undocumented, requiring a need for inefficient trial and error to grasp.
This lackluster approach to learning stands in stark contrast to the richly detailed articles, videos, games, quizzes, and even instructor-led training seen in competitor platforms.
Bottom line, with the platform’s primitive educational materials resembling a hot mess straight out of The Flintstones, you’ll need luck and patience to truly become a Striven maestro.
Sign up today for a Demo of Striven’s Business Management Software!
Breakdown of core features
Accounting
Striven gives businesses full financial management tools and a 360° view of their financial data. Its accounting software delivers accurate and timely financial information, from simplified billing and invoices to purchasing and collections. Users can generate robust financial reports and reconcile business and bank financial information. The software manages the purchasing process and allows users to make decisions based on graphical dashboard reports. Striven is also payroll-ready, letting users track hours, salaries, expenses, and time offs.
Customer relationship management
The software equips teams with automation and customer relationship-building tools. It delivers a comprehensive system that supports sales teams and ensures they never miss an opportunity. Additionally, Striven creates automated email workflows or drip campaigns that mold the buyer’s journey with the right message sent at the right time. It triggers automatic emails, monthly statements, and reminders customized for each opportunity.
Project management
Striven offers planning, tracking, and collaboration tools so teams can stay on top of tasks. The system keeps all of the data in one accessible location. Aside from that, team managers can create a detailed task description and attach documents or links. Striven organizes tasks by category using smart labels. The solution simplifies collaboration between coworkers and contacts, tracks and manages appointments, and sends alerts and reminders for meetings. Striven shows projects in either Kanban boards, Gantt charts, or lists. It allows each user to choose their preferred method of viewing entire projects or specific sections defined by date.
Human resources
When it comes to human resource management support, Striven undeniably dishes out a strong value proposition.
Beyond the attractive recruiting features mentioned above, the platform’s HR element also serves up:
- Org charts
- Time tracking and hourly wage cost analysis
- Encrypted legal document signing (similar to DocuSign)
- Employee self-service portal
- Live feed of company events
- Contractor payment processing
- Searchable employee database, organized by skill set and other custom fields
These are just some noteworthy features, in addition to the bedrock HR must-haves like detailed employee profiles and payroll.
One drawback to all this administrative goodness is the platform’s lackluster analytics. While the software suite does an impressive job of documenting a person’s background and salary data, there is little ability to create meaningful reports with this highly detailed information.
Instead, the platform serves up 90s era bar charts using generic information, like total employees on payroll or the top job applicant sources. This poses a frustrating opportunity cost since it can be an uphill battle to make money-saving, high-level decisions based on Striven’s shallow, mediocre analytics.
Sign up today for a Demo of Striven’s Business Management Software!