Microsoft Power Automate vs Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition comparison

Microsoft Power Automate vs. Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Automate

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automate is 1.3%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power Automate is 20.9%, down from 21.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition is 0.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Featured Reviews

Anabel Marco

Account Director at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Automates processes efficiently with cost-effective scaling and robust customer support

Web scraping is quite good since it offers a lot of possibilities. Another important feature for me is its compatibility with MBI, the Power that is ISEQUADO Centers. I appreciate the ability to scale and increase the number of bots or studios without additional expense. Automate's non-reliance on additional orchestrators makes it quite cost-effective.

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Nilesh Pundkar

IVR Developer at Orange

Good for email routing and management features but additional costs for plug-ins

Power Automate has fewer features and more limitations in general. It's not as mature a product as some of the others, like UiPath or Automate Anywhere. One of the main issues I've found is that Power Automate struggles with accessing Excel or other Office documents on servers. Even though it's a Microsoft product, we often have to log in through remote systems, and syncing can be problematic due to the way we use servers. At the very least, they should provide access to Office 365 directly, without requiring additional logins on servers. Most people utilizing Power Automate are already working within the Office 365 environment. Any proof of concepts (POCs) using Power Automate would naturally be built on top of Office 365.

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Amarjeet Kamble

Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

User-friendly and enables automation in finance, HR, and SDM

There is room for improvement, considering no tools having everything inside it is right. So the room for balancing improvement lies in automation enhancement with respect to the feature areas, considering dealing directly with Excel and reviewing it to do some additional stuff for it in the end system so that reading the right thing, picking up the values, and everything. Right now, you can do it with a little bit of custom scripting in addition to eight. But rather than custom scripting, if we can have a direct feature integrated inside this tool, it will be a major achievement. So, it already has that capability, as you can do custom scripting, and you can go ahead with creating your own. But the direct functions are not available. That's where we are lagging behind. However, importing the values or importing the service can be achieved. So, that is where I can see the room for improvement. In this particular area, the entire system can be improved.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Compared to other vendors, it's the scheduling tool because a lot of vendors want to charge you extra for their enterprise-level license to have a scheduling tool built in to give you the ability to set up regular schedules to run and do certain data checks."

"The pricing is excellent. I would give them perfect marks in that regard."

"Fortra's Automate performs the job effectively and has the capability to alert us of any issues."

"Fortra's Automate has effectively replaced the workload of an entire employee, saving us significant time and money."

"It gives us a central place to schedule tasks and run them distributed."

"The solution is continuously adding more integrations to help with workflows and bot and task creation."

"Web scraping is quite good since it offers a lot of possibilities."

"Overall, the whole product is really nice and provides significant benefits."

More Automate pros

"Its integration with SharePoint and Outlook is the most valuable. I found it very easy to use. I could do everything that I wanted very quickly, and I didn't have any complications at all. I never had a problem in using Microsoft Power Automate."

"It is basically free for me because it comes with my Office 365 subscription. The main feature is that there is abundant learning material on platforms like YouTube. You can find information about whatever you want to be done in Spanish or English without a problem. It is very easy to learn. Users can start using it on their own without any former training, which is something I like about this solution."

"Third-party integrations with third-party applications are quite easy."

"The solution integrates more easily and with more tools than Automation Anywhere."

"Instead of manually triggering payments through the website, everything was done through robotic process automation (RPA), saving us a lot of time."

"The solution is easy to understand and to develop connectors."

"It makes work easier."

"Currently, we are mostly using the desktop part of it for data. We are basically extracting the data and then putting it in."

More Microsoft Power Automate pros

"The out-of-the-box finance modules within the Redwood Finance framework help to speed up the process, versus designing and writing generic BOT code."

"So the best thing is ease of use."

"Redwood has a great feature where it logs every transaction. So, at any point, we can see every step taken for each transaction. It creates an audit trail of the entire process execution. It is a really good feature. This eliminates the need for extra coding or report generation. The audit report is readily available within the tool itself."

Cons

"The vendor is currently working on a solution that allows us to automatically create a process that is based on a document that we receive via email."

"The OCR for Hebrew text needs to be improved."

"It would be an improvement if Automate had better stability tools, whether by recommending a certain amount of memory because it can be a memory hog at times."

"Fortra's Automate is not as reliable as I would like it to be."

"The intelligent automation feature could be improved. It's interesting because it's simple, but the automation quality isn't always good. It's easy to use, but sometimes you need to make a slight improvement to the automation, and that's not so easy."

"The product also has a limited use case in some respects."

"There is room for improvement regarding cloud functionality; there are a few missing features, and the logging could be better, especially air logging. We can go into logging events and create our own task, but it would be nice if this were more detailed."

"We really need a free development environment for customers. Building and testing automation on production isn't ideal."

More Automate cons

"How long it takes to deploy will depend on how confident you are with your development. The development itself is not easy."

"I would like more integration with other tools. It integrates well with Microsoft products, but there should be more integration with other platforms and tools, such as chatbots."

"Sometimes, Microsoft changes the game rules, and the free tools are no longer free, which makes it too hard to explain to customers. It is a SaaS service, so the cost is calculated based on the execution hours. However, we don't know the background of this cost because we cannot touch the infrastructure. They can be more open to developers or customers about this. The infrastructure part must be open for the customers."

"Automatic selectors that allow me to select parts of a website could be more adaptable."

"There is a limitation in setting up loops, where it does not support multiple conditions."

"I was working on it for around three days and then took a break of about two days. When I went back to it, all of the Excel, and all the Excel functions, just disappeared. Completely vanished. When I looked up the help, it said that sometimes that happens when you're not connected to the internet."

"If someone was just about to start using it, it would be better if it was a bit more user-friendly in terms of understanding function references. I come from a bit of development background. To me, it all makes quite a lot of sense, but someone using it for the first time would probably battle understanding how the functions work. This might be something they could improve on. It would be really useful if it could publish data to Power BI. We like to use Power BI for our reporting, but we can't directly integrate the data across. If there was a way to automate the collection of the data and push it straight into the Power BI platform, it would be quite useful."

"It would be great if you could integrate outside of Microsoft environments."

More Microsoft Power Automate cons

"Mapping the process steps to an existing R2R process quickly would be a definite step forward."

"would like to see AI integration for automation in future releases. Post-automation, I envision a generative AI model. If I could ask the bot questions like the number of invoices or their current status, it should be able to provide answers directly."

"The room for balancing improvement lies in automation enhancement with respect to the feature areas, considering dealing directly with Excel and reviewing it to do some additional stuff for it in the end system so that reading the right thing, picking up the values, and everything."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is quite reasonable. We can run the process with one bot. The limitation is at the server level because they have some resources, and sometimes that is enough. It isn't too expensive, so you can get a good return off of one, and you can also have a pack of five bots that is quite competitive."

"I like the way this solution is priced because you can buy a license, or you can buy the software outright."

"I believe the price falls within a reasonable range, which significantly influenced our decision regarding the product. This aspect is crucial for any technological solution, especially in our country where enterprises might be hesitant to invest heavily in something untested or uncertain about its practicality and potential returns."

"It comes with a package that costs approximately $20,000 USD per year."

"From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point."

"It has gone up in price. The price of Fortra's Automate has increased since we first started using it. It does a lot but also costs a lot. It was a lot more affordable before Fortra owned the software."

"The cost is a bit high for a small business like ours, but we manage with Fortra's Automate."

"Once you buy the software, you just pay for the support for backend help."

More Automate pricing and cost advice

"They have the community edition that people can use for free, and they also have the enterprise edition. My company uses the enterprise edition, and I don't know how much they pay."

"I believe one of the advantages of this device is its low cost."

"It depends and varies a lot according to the licensing terms. There is no cost to maintain if we have less than 10 forms. Microsoft only charges if there are more than 10 forms. So, most of the companies can survive without paying anything extra. It is included in the Office 365 licensing."

"This solution is bundled with our Office 365, so there is no additional licensing fee."

"The license cost could be better."

"I give the cost a three out of ten."

"Microsoft is providing an automatic license with a cost of $20 million per month, which is reasonable."

"The price is right. If you have Office 365 It's included."

More Microsoft Power Automate pricing and cost advice

"The licensing was purely based on the number of transactions being processed in production."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions are best for your needs.

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842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

14%

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Energy/Utilities Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about HelpSystems AutoMate?

We use it for specific cases, mainly secure file transfers, which are vital for us. And it works for us.

What is your primary use case for HelpSystems AutoMate?

I am a consultant and I am making a lot of processes in human resources, payroll, certifications, trainings, web scra...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?

The pricing is quite good compared to its competitors. Competitors are often more expensive than Automate. I would ra...

RPA that Bots can run without centralized control?

Yes, Attended Bots which can run without centralized control Module. RPA Tools like Automation Anywhere, uiPath ,Pow...

How do I choose between UiPath and Microsoft Power Automate?

Microsoft‌ ‌Power‌ ‌Automate‌ ‌is‌ ‌intuitive‌ ‌and‌ ‌easy‌ ‌to‌ ‌integrate‌ ‌and‌ ‌use.‌ ‌I‌ ‌like‌ ‌that‌ ‌there‌ ‌...

How is Automation Anywhere compared to Microsoft Power Automate?

‌Neither‌ ‌solution‌ ‌requires‌ ‌any‌ ‌coding‌ ‌experience,‌ ‌and‌ ‌both‌ ‌are‌ ‌easy‌ ‌to‌ ‌use‌ ‌and‌ ‌have‌ ‌great...

What do you like most about Redwood Business Process Automation - Finance Edition?

Redwood has a great feature where it logs every transaction. So, at any point, we can see every step taken for each t...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Redwood Business Process Automation - Finance Edition?

The pricing is very client-specific. It's not a one-size-fits-all price. They don't have a single price for everyone....

What needs improvement with Redwood Business Process Automation - Finance Edition?

Everything seems to be working well. However, I see value in integrating AI for automation. So, I would like to see A...

Automation Anywhere vs Automate

Comparisons

UiPath vs Automate

Compared 36% of the time

Compared 8% of the time

Blue Prism vs Automate

Compared 5% of the time

VisualCron vs Automate

Compared 5% of the time

More Automate Competitors

UiPath vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 29% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 17% of the time

Blue Prism vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 17% of the time

IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 7% of the time

ABBYY Vantage vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Power Automate Competitors

BlackLine vs Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition

Compared 74% of the time

UiPath vs Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition

Compared 26% of the time

More Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition Competitors

Product Reports

Automate

Download Automate product report

Microsoft Power Automate

Download Microsoft Power Automate product report

Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition

Download Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition product report

Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition report

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate

Power Automate, Microsoft Flow, MS Power Automate, WinAutomation by Softomotive, ProcessRobot by Softomotive, Minit

Redwood Business Process Automation - Finance Edition, Redwood Robotics, Redwood Finance Automation

Overview

Automate offers a user-friendly solution with a drag-and-drop interface for efficient task automation and integration with major platforms like SAP and Azure, making it ideal for quick deployment with minimal coding and training.

Automate provides powerful features for businesses seeking efficient automation, offering compatibility with databases, email integration, and cloud platforms. Its simple interface supports both beginners and experienced users, simplifying tasks like invoice processing, HR automation, and data transformation. Cost-effective pricing and flexible licensing enhance its appeal while integration capabilities and scheduling tools ensure smooth workflow automation.

What are Automate's Key Features?

Drag-and-Drop Interface: Simplifies automation with intuitive design.
Integration Capabilities: Connects with platforms like SAP and Azure for seamless data flow.
Database and FTP Triggers: Enhances automation potential through direct data interaction.
Efficient Scheduling: Automates tasks with precise timing and control.
Web Scraping: Automates data extraction for quick analysis and reporting.

What Benefits and ROI Should Users Expect?

Rapid Deployment: Minimizes coding efforts for quick implementation.
Cost-Effectiveness: Offers flexible pricing models to suit budget constraints.
Operational Efficiency: Reduces manual workloads and enhances productivity.
Comprehensive Integration: Facilitates improved data management across systems.
Scalability: Adapts to growing business needs with ease.

In industries such as healthcare, banking, and logistics, Automate is used for tasks like invoice payment automation, data transformation, and task automation. This leads to streamlined processes and reduced manual workload, illustrating its value in enhancing operational efficiency through diversified workflows.

Fortra

Microsoft Power Automate is a powerful tool that streamlines and automates tasks within an organization.

It is used for workflow automation, data integration, and creating automated notifications and approvals.

Power Automate connects different applications and services, such as SharePoint, Excel, and Outlook, to automate data transfer and synchronization.

Microsoft

The volume of repetitive, manual tasks across finance is overwhelming – every day or at the end of every month, quarter or year. Redwood’s finance automation reduces that unnecessary and time-consuming manual effort. We know because our customers tell us that our finance automation solution helps them achieve a much higher degree of back-office process automation compared with alternatives.

Redwood Software

Sample Customers

Aldergrove Financial Group, Preferred Health Professionals, Mindbeam Technologies, First Credit Union in British Columbia, Vestcom International, Prime Liberty Benefits, University of Tampa, CNLBancshares, World Precision Instruments, BJ's Restaurants, Globe Pequot Press, Accudata Technologies, Norton Healthcare, Pacific Toxicology Laboratories

1. Coca-Cola 2. General Electric 3. Siemens 4. Accenture 5. Deloitte 6. Johnson & Johnson 7. Ford 8. Nestle 9. Procter & Gamble 10. IBM 11. Amazon 12. Google 13. Microsoft 14. Adobe 15. Cisco 16. Oracle 17. SAP 18. Intel 19. HP 20. Dell 21. Verizon 22. AT&T 23. T-Mobile 24. Walmart 25. Target 26. Home Depot 27. McDonald's 28. Starbucks 29. Nike 30. Apple 31. Facebook 32. Twitter

ArcelorMittal, Alliant Energy, Allianz, Arla, Bacardi, CPS Energy, DSM, Faurecia, Genetech, Jabil, Jumbo,

Microsoft Power Automate vs. Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition