Karbon vs. Asana: Which Is Better for Your Firm?

Accounting firms looking for a tool that can help them better manage their workflows might consider two popular solutions: Asana or Karbon. 

Both tools can help your firm improve its ability to track tasks and workflows, but there are quite a few significant differences in the features each offers.

In this article, we compare Asana and Karbon to help you decide which platform may be best suited for your firm based on what we’ve observed accounting firms need most in a project management solution. 

We’ll also discuss a popular alternative that thousands of firms use instead. 

Karbon Overview

Karbon is known as a practice management solution specifically for accounting firms. It offers a unified solution for managing client interactions, team collaboration, and workflows. 

Karbon offers a single solution to replace your need for multiple apps. It has an extensive feature list with tools to help users enhance the client experience and improve your team’s ability to keep deadlines and turn client work around faster.

Pricing

Plans start at $59/user/month when billed annually. 

Key Features

• Workflow management
• Client portal
• Document management
• Client requests
• Contact management
• Automated notifications
• Email sync capabilities
• Billing
• Team collaboration
• Mobile app

Asana Overview

Asana is a project management solution for users in almost any industry. While not specific to the accounting field, some firms use it because of the platform’s many workflow management features. 

The platform is highly customizable, and you can create custom boards using fields and views to suit your accounting workflow needs. However, setting it up may require some creativity since it’s not designed with accounting processes in mind. 

Pricing

Asana offers a free plan for up to 10 users. Paid plans start at $10.99/user/month when billed annually. 

Key Features

• Task and project management
• Team messaging
• File storage
• Mobile app
• Automation options
• Custom workflow builder
• Multiple board views

Karbon vs. Asana: Head-to-Head Comparison

Now that we’ve covered the background on each tool, let’s compare them based on key features accounting firms need, including workflow automation, available integrations, and client management capabilities. 

Workflow Management

Growing accounting firms need a software solution that can help them keep tabs on every client’s projects and milestones, regardless of which team member is working on them.  

You can use both Asana and Karbon as workflow management tools. Both have features that make monitoring your team’s work assignments easier. 

These capabilities offer greater transparency into your team’s workload and help ensure your firm hits approaching deadlines. 

Teams have multiple ways to view and organize current and upcoming work on both platforms. Users can change the urgency of tasks, update their work progress, and assign ownership to specific team members. 

Winner: Karbon. While both platforms excel in workflow and task management, Karbon is built to handle accounting-specific tasks and projects. Asana takes a bit more work to set up how you need it. 

Integrations

Any work or practice management solution should have pre-built integrations with commonly used applications like email providers, document management solutions, and productivity suites. 

Integrations enable seamless data sharing across platforms, so you don’t have to manually enter data in multiple locations or toggle between multiple applications. 

Asana and Karbon each offer pre-built integrations so users can connect to their most-used apps in a matter of clicks. Plus, each platform integrates with Zapier, enabling you to connect with thousands of additional applications. 

Winner: Asana. Karbon users can integrate with several applications like Gmail, Office 365, QuickBooks Online, Ignition, SuiteFiles, and Slack, among others, but Asana offers substantially more pre-built integrations. 

Ease of Use

Firms typically want a practice or work management solution that’s easy to use — both by employees and clients. These tools should help your team work more efficiently, not make their work harder to manage. 

Both Asana and Karbon have a modern and streamlined user-friendly design, which helps make navigating the platforms and accessing their main features simple. Karbon is largely ready for use once out of the box, though Asana is much more customizable. 

You can try Karbon and Asana for free, allowing you to assess each platform’s user experience before committing to one solution. 

Winner: Karbon. While Asana has a user-friendly interface and sleek design, Karbon is likely more straightforward for accounting firms and their clients to use since it’s specifically designed for the industry. 

Client Management

A practice management solution can also be useful for keeping track of client information, documents, requests, and interactions. 

Asana users can create a custom board for managing client information like contact details, documents, and notes from team members. You can utilize custom fields to manage any other client-related information. Asana also offers several pre-built CRM templates for a quicker setup. You can collaborate with clients by inviting them to your workspace with custom permissions. 

With Karbon, you can organize all client-related data in one location. That includes a record of all emails sent between the client and your firm, contact details, activity timelines, and a client portal for requesting documents and files. 

One standout feature is the automated client requests, which you can integrate with your workflows and trigger based on certain conditions. 

Winner: Karbon. Its client management features are much more robust than Asana, especially with its pre-built client portal and automated client request feature. 

Invoicing and Time Tracking

Another key feature of project or practice management software is time-tracking and billing capabilities. For firms that charge by hour, a solution that includes these features can make it easier to calculate billable hours accurately and send corresponding invoices. 

In Asana, you can use the embedded time-tracking feature to monitor how many hours your team spends on specific tasks. You can pause and resume the timer as needed to switch between different client projects. 

This feature includes a log showing how much time a team member spent on what tasks, which helps simplify creating invoices for billable hours worked. 

Karbon users can access the built-in time-tracking feature within their workflows. Time entries are automatically assigned to the client or job. 

You can enter the budgeted time for each task, helping gauge variances between estimated and actual hours worked for more accurate forecasting in the future. Then, you can create and send invoices for time-based billing or set up recurring invoices for fixed-fee projects. 

Winner: Karbon. While you can use Asana to track the hours spent on certain tasks, there isn’t a native invoicing function like in Karbon. 

Pricing

The cost of implementing a new software solution can be a deciding factor for firms. Karbon and Asana each charge on a per-user-per-month basis, so the total cost of ownership increases as your firm grows. 

Asana has a free plan that can accommodate up to 10 users. If you have additional employees or want to access more advanced features like automated workflows, you need to use the Starter plan, which costs $10.99/user/month when billed annually. 

Karbon plans start at $59/user/month with annual billing. 

Winner: Asana. If you’re looking for a work management solution that offers free or affordable plans, Asana is the better choice. However, firms may justify paying more for Karbon due to its accounting-specific features. 

Another Tool to Consider: Jetpack Workflow

Asana and Karbon can help you organize and manage your firm’s workflows. While Karbon is a true practice management solution with robust capabilities specifically designed for accounting firms, Asana is a more customizable and affordable option if you just need a task management tool.  

What if neither of these platforms is the right fit for your firm? Sometimes, “all-in-one” solutions like Karbon offer more features than you want or will use, while the more flexible platforms lack the industry-specific features you need.

And Asana isn’t purpose-built for accounting, so it also leaves a lot to be desired.

That’s why thousands of firm owners count on Jetpack Workflow. 

Jetpack Workflow is a workflow management solution built for accountants by accountants. It allows you to standardize repetitive workflows with convenient templates and checklists, automate recurring deadlines, and monitor progress on client work to help ensure you hit every deadline. 

Jetpack Workflow users appreciate knowing that nothing slips through the cracks, and they always have a birds-eye view of their firm’s workload. 

Here are just a few of the tasks Jetpack Workflow can help you manage: 

• See upcoming work months before tasks are due.
• Check on specific clients to see tasks and progress.
• Quickly automate and create organized workflows.
• Share who’s working on what with your team.
• Organize recurring work for multiple clients more easily.
• Improve the work/life balance and minimize tedious administrative tasks.

Accountants, bookkeepers, and growing firms rely on Jetpack Workflow to help them solve the workflow and project management challenges that impact client work and firm expansion. 

“Thanks to Jetpack Workflow, we grew from 3 employees to over 17 and manage over 2,000 clients, without missing a single deadline! It literally runs our firm.” 

— Gianna Nguyen, Manager of Nguyen & Company

To learn more about how Jetpack Workflow can help your firm, schedule a demo or start a 14-day free trial.