Astra Engage vs IRIS Practice Engine

Astra Engage is a business platform combining CRM, pipeline, proposals, projects, service desk, portals, and an AI workbench. Astra AI can research leads and companies, help scope work, and turn signed proposals into project plans. Proposals support itemized and recurring services, PDF generation, and electronic signatures with audit trails. Project tools include Gantt charts, Kanban boards, milestones, task dependencies, multiple assignees, and time tracking. Every plan includes basic CRM for accounts and contacts; the full CRM adds leads, opportunities, activities, and forecasting. Product pages describe connections among CRM accounts, projects, proposals, portals, and the product catalog. Security details include per-tenant AES-256-GCM encryption, daily automated backups, point-in-time recovery, and 90-day retention. The infrastructure is described as SOC 2 Type II audited, with HIPAA business associate agreements available alongside dedicated database silos. The site advertises a 14-day trial with full access and no credit card; extensions are available in five-day increments. Each plan includes three seats. Listed prices are $37 a year for Starter, $127 a year for Professional, and $208 a year for Enterprise; billed amounts are $449/year, $1,529/year, and $2,499/year respectively.

IRIS Practice Engine is practice management software for accountancy firms and CPAs, bringing jobs, workflows, time, expenses, billing and reporting together. Firms can manage recurring and ad-hoc jobs with due dates, budgets, subtasks, staff assignments, templates and portfolios. Staff can record time against jobs and tasks, including non-chargeable work, and capture expenses and receipts on the go. Billing can be grouped by job, service or client group, scheduled, and issued in multiple currencies with invoices and credit notes. Scheduling includes availability views, auto-scheduling to help avoid conflicts, Outlook calendar syncing and annual leave management. Client onboarding forms and AML questionnaires are configurable, with access restrictions for clients who have not completed due diligence. Managers can review posted and unposted work in progress and transfer, adjust, recover or write it off. Reporting includes standard reports, with optional data warehouse reporting through Power BI and Tableau. Pricing is on request; IRIS describes consultant-led implementation covering setup, migration and training.