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There are seemingly countless professional services software solutions available, so figuring out which is right for you is tough. You want to manage your projects, client relationships, billing, and resource planning better to improve efficiency and client service but need to figure out which tool is the best fit. I've got you! In this post I make things simple, leveraging my experience managing a variety of service businesses and using dozens of different professional service tools to bring you this shortlist of the best professional services software.

What is Professional Services Software?

Professional services software is a tool used by service-based businesses like consulting firms, legal practices, and marketing agencies. It helps manage various aspects of their operations, including project management, billing, client relations, and resource allocation. This software centralizes and organizes critical business functions, making it easier to oversee and manage a service-oriented business.

Professional services tools streamline processes such as time tracking, invoicing, and client management, leading to more accurate billing and enhanced client satisfaction. Additionally, they aid in resource planning and allocation, ensuring that projects are staffed appropriately and deadlines are met. By providing valuable insights through analytics, it also supports informed decision-making and strategic planning.

Overviews Of The 10 Best Professional Services Software

Here’s a brief description of each software on my list, showing what it does best and a few screenshots to showcase some of the features.

Best for project management and resource planning

  • Free demo
  • Pricing upon request
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Rating: 4.1/5

Kantata is an all-in-one PSA tool, but its core features include project management and resource management. For effective project management, you can use the built-in Gantt tool in the software. The Gantt charts allow you to drag and drop tasks and see their progress in specific periods. Additionally, the charts let you create 'dependencies,' which help you manage the relationships between tasks. These allow you to manage your project timeline efficiently because the dates of “dependent” tasks change as the dates of “predecessor” tasks change.

Kantata's resource allocation management feature has four other sub-features or sub-stages. These are Estimating, Planning, Executing, Analyzing & Optimizing. For Estimating, you can access project templates to outline estimates of your resource needs (including hours and budgets). For Planning, you can view your active projects and your resource pool to easily plan the assignment of tasks. In Executing, the project's timeline automatically changes by looking at your resource schedule, allowing you to easily make appropriate adjustments. Lastly, in Analyzing & Optimizing, you can see trends on your resources, making forecasting your resource needs easier than usual.

Kantata offers a 10-day free trial and a free demo. Their pricing is customized for specific company needs and is provided upon request.

Best PSA for managing large or growing project portfolios

  • 14-day free trial
  • From $6-29/month
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Rating: 4.3/5

Polaris PSA is an advanced Professional Services Automation (PSA) software designed to elevate project management for service-based businesses. Its key features include AI-driven resource allocation and scheduling, real-time project health monitoring, predictive analytics, and comprehensive project portfolio management. With Polaris PSA, organizations can optimize resource utilization, gain valuable insights into project performance, mitigate risks, and make data-driven decisions, leading to improved project success rates, enhanced profitability, and streamlined operations.

Polaris PSA handles project portfolio management with a comprehensive and strategic approach. The platform offers a centralized dashboard that provides a holistic view of an organization's projects, resources, and financials in real-time. Through its AI-driven resource allocation and scheduling capabilities, Polaris optimizes resource utilization across multiple projects, preventing overallocation and ensuring efficient workload distribution. Additionally, the system's predictive analytics helps identify potential risks, forecast project outcomes, and propose mitigation strategies.

A pro tip for working with Polaris PSA is to leverage its customizable reporting and data visualization features to gain deeper insights into your projects and resources. Beyond the standard reports, explore the platform's capabilities to create tailored reports that align with your specific business needs and KPIs. Utilizing custom reports and visualizations can help you uncover valuable trends, identify areas for improvement, and make more informed decisions, ultimately maximizing the benefits of Polaris PSA for your organization's success.

Integrations include SAP, ADP, Salesforce, Quickbooks, Atlassian, Microsoft Dynamics, Sage, Servicenow, Zero, Zoom, Outlook Calendar, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Azure DevOps, Google Meet, Google Calendar, and other popular business software. 

For project time tracking, you're subscription fee will start at $12/month. To access the PSA components of the software, you'll need to subscribe to their PSA/PM plan at $29/month. They have a 14-day free trial for new users.

Best for global services organizations

  • Freemium plan
  • $13/user/month
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Rating: 4.6/5

VOGSY is a unified project and resource platform that helps organizations set up new countries, track international projects, and connect local finance packages. The professional services automation (PSA) software offers end-to-end solutions built for services businesses so they can focus on what they do best—providing services—without worrying about the complexities of international expansion.

The cloud-based PSA platform also provides tools for project management, task management, resource management, performance monitoring, as well as automated billing and invoicing. It allows professional services firms to keep track of every client and deal, engage in a more efficient and sustainable quote-to-cash approach, and generate a more concise and reliable statement of work (SOW) on soft-booked services and projects.

With VOGSY’s professional service software, startups and SMEs can effectively plan their projects with great detail. They can leverage the platform’s robust work breakdown structure to design and implement a cohesive project roadmap based on key objectives and desired outcomes. The software allows them to budget the required work, resources, potential revenue, and margins accordingly, oftentimes even before the deal is finalized.

With the task management feature, users can allocate tasks and assign them to the appropriate personnel with the right skill set to finish them on time and on budget. Users can set tasks for themselves or their entire team, addressing everything from their quote-to-cash cycle, which includes the clients, the nature of the deal, the proposed projects, and the billing and invoicing.

This means that services businesses can focus on what they do best—providing services—without worrying about the complexities of international expansion.

Features include resource and project management, international project views and resource allocation, collaboration, reporting dashboards, budgeting, professional services automation, Gantt charts, notifications & alerts. 

Integrations include Google Workspace, Jira, Microsoft Excel, Xero, Intuit Quickbooks Online, Copper, Hubspot, Salesforce, and Zoho.

VOGSY has a free version that is accessible through a personal Gmail account. It comes with all the features and is limited to a single user. Paid plans cost from $13/user/month. All paid plans require a minimum of 10 users and include a free trial.

Best PSA software for MSPs

  • 30 days free trial
  • From £30/user/month
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Rating: 4.8/5

HaloPSA is a solution, designed for MSPs and service providers. HaloPSA gives users powerful out-of-the-box functionality. With an integrated PSA platform, you get features such as time-tracking and billing, advanced reporting, asset management, remote access, seamless integrations, automation tools and more.

HaloPSA is a fully configurable system for managed IT services and is the PSA solution of choice for enterprises such as ATOS, NEC and Gijima.

HaloPSA integrates with many popular tools such as Microsoft CSP, Splunk, N-Able N-Central/RMM, Xero, Teams, Slack, Zapier, and TeamViewer to name a few. View their entire list of integrations on their website.

HaloPSA costs from $29/user/month.

Best for managing timesheets

  • 14-day free trial
  • From $10/user/month for a minimum of 5 users
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Rating: 4.5/5

BigTime is a fully integrated operating platform designed for professional service companies, providing them with the necessary tools to deliver services to their clients on time and within budget. The platform is built to support different professional service firms across multiple industries, including accounting, consulting, IT services, architecture, and engineering.

Among the core features are time tracking, billing and invoicing, resource management, project management, workflows, reporting and analytics, and seamless integrations. The time tracking software facilitates the tracking of time spent on work and the associated expenses to ensure that teams stay within their budget limits.

The resource management software enables project managers to assign the right people to the right project and task, at the right time. It allows them to find the right people with the right skill sets and match them to a project that will benefit most from their skills.

BigTime’s professional service software also offers advanced reporting and analytics dashboards that allow managers and stakeholders to get a real-time bird’s-eye view of their business. They can drill down on individual ongoing projects to see the status and evaluate their progress through available data, KPIs, and other relevant metrics. The platform features a professional services automation (PSA) software solution that is capable of supporting teams of anywhere from five to 500 members or more.

Pricing starts at $10 per user/month, billed annually. All plans have a minimum requirement of five users and a 14-day free trial.


Best PSS time management reports & analysis

  • 14-day free trial
  • From $7/user/month
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Rating: 4.3/5

Hubstaff is a full-featured, free time tracking + professional service software (with freemium upgrades) tool that’s best for remote or distributed teams. It’s a lightweight, native time tracking tool that includes screenshots, time tracking, and project management. Its simple interface and design make it really easy for your team to enter their time and for you to track their progress.

Budget management is straightforward—using Hubstaff you can easily set time limits and budgets for your team to bill against with a maximum number of hours you want a member to be able to work in a week and the app will automatically prevent them from exceeding the limit.

When you’re working with a distributed team it can be hard to verify exactly what people are doing and how they’re spending their time so Hubstaff has some pretty handy tools to give you insight into what your team is doing in the time they’re logging to your project with screenshots and activity levels. Now you can also see which applications your team members are using and what URLs they are browsing while they’re tracking time.

Integrations are well supported across stacks of different tools including project management tools Asana, Jira, and Basecamp, payments, accounting, and invoicing integrations including QuickBooks, Paypal as well as Salesforce and Zendesk among others.

Hubstaff is free to use for 1 employee. Paid plans cost from $7/user/month and come with a 14-day free trial.

Best PSA software for accessibility

  • 30 days free trial
  • From $15 per user per month
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Rating: 4.5/5

Projector is a cloud-based PSA that acts as an Employee and Management Portal and is accessible to users via a browser that allows users easy access to the application as long as they have an internet connection. One advantage of being browser-based is that users can use Projector on the go; they can use other computer terminals and mobile devices without installing an application.

Projector PSA makes collaboration between team members easier by providing them with a workspace accessible merely to designated project members. This feature is beneficial to project managers working on a sensitive project since it can prevent non-team members from accessing sensitive information. Projector also has a Task-Scheduling feature that makes designating specific responsibilities easier while allowing the project manager to track progress.

Projector PSA is available at a starting subscription of $15 per user per month. Users can request a free 30-day trial of Projector.

Best for salesforce users and management consulting

  • Pricing upon request
Visit Website
Rating: 4.3/5

Kimble is PSA software available in AppExchange, which is the app store of Salesforce. Since Kimble runs within Salesforce, it can be an ideal software for those who are already using Salesforce. Digital project managers who use Salesforce can access Kimble via a Salesforce tab for a smoother workflow. Salesforce integration can also help minimize clutter since you don't need a different app to manage your projects.

Suppose you are a digital project manager who manages your own team. In that case, you may love Kimble's wide variety of resource scheduling tools because it allows you to determine which resources you will use to fulfill business requirements. Kimble also comes equipped with Smart Insights that alerts users to issues that require immediate attention so you can prioritize more pressing matters.

Kimble pricing is by request, so there is no available data on how much the starting price is, and they also don't provide free trials.

Best cross-platform PSA software

  • Free demo available
  • Pricing upon request
Visit Website
Rating: 4.1/5

Workfront is an all-around PSA software that you can use to manage workflow, projects, and portfolio. Workfront can help you manage both resources and tasks in just one software so you can declutter your workstation by removing redundant programs. Workfront has its integration platform to work freely across other systems like Slack, Jira or Adobe, which means that you can increase your team's productivity and efficiency.

If you manage multiple projects at any given time, Workfront can help you manage those tasks using merely one app. With the help of Workfront, you can view the progress of projects using customizable dashboards, so you are always on top of everything. You can also use Workfront to create workspaces specific to each team member to understand their tasks and deliver optimum results easily.

Workfront pricing is customized depending on a business' needs and available only by request. Workfront does not provide a free trial.

Best for creative teams

  • Free demo available
  • From $37-$50/user/month
Visit Website
Rating: 3.8/5

Workamajig positions itself as a PSA software ideal for creative agencies. It allows digital project managers in creative teams to kick off projects and keep track of them until completion using a single software. The tool boasts of features like management, project scheduling, time-tracking, finance, billing, and reporting, which any advertising or marketing company may need. The software's one-of-a-kind manager portal allows DPMs to submit work requests and monitor their statuses to ensure a project's timely completion.

Workamajig is easy to integrate with Google and Outlook to facilitate more accessible communication between team members. The software also simplifies document sharing, which can help teams work faster, even if they are in different locations or time zones. The software also has a report generation feature that can simplify submitting progress reports or financial reports to clients.

The monthly subscription fee for Workamajig costs between $37-$50 per user per month, depending on the size of your team. Workamajig does not offer a free trial, but a free demo is available.

Best Professional Service Software Comparison Chart

Here is a table where you can compare the tools we just covered in the overviews.

Tools Price
Kantata Pricing upon request
Polaris PSA By Replicon From $6-29/month
VOGSY $13/user/month
HaloPSA From £30/user/month
BigTime From $10/user/month for a minimum of 5 users
Hubstaff From $7/user/month
Projector From $15 per user per month
Kimble Pricing upon request
Adobe Workfront Pricing upon request
Workamajig Platinum From $37-$50/user/month
Preview Image - 
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	Compare Software Specs Side by Side</h2>

Compare Software Specs Side by Side

Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.

Compare Software

Other Professional Services Software Options

Here are some other tools that did not make the top tools but are still worth your consideration.

  1. Netsuite OpenAir

    Best for small businesses

  2. Height

    Best for cross-functional project and resource planning

  3. Upland

    Best for managing large teams

  4. Changepoint

    Best CRM-integrated PSA

  5. Unit4PSA

    Best for end-to-end administration

  6. Deltek Workbook

    Best for client transparency and communication

  7. Rocketlane

    Best client portals for project insight sharing

  8. Wrike

    Best for generating accurate reports plus actionable insights

  9. ClickTime

    Best for medium-sized businesses seeking to centralize their resource management processes

  10. Celoxis

    Best PSS for enterprises

  11. Birdview

    Best for BI reporting

  12. Ravetree

    Best for retainer contracts

  13. Parallax

    Best for efficient project management and streamlined business operations

  14. ConnectWise

    Best for data-driven reporting

  15. Easy Projects

    Best for real-time team collaboration

  16. Accelo

    Best for customization options

  17. Clarizen One

    Best for centralized document management

  18. Oracle NetSuite

    Best for complex accounting and billing

How I Picked The Best Professional Services Software

A DPM’s responsibilities include nudging a project along and keeping things on track. Hence, any powerful PSA software should allow you to easily input data and effortlessly see the progress of each task.

So what do I look for when I pick the best professional services automation software? Here are the selection criteria that I’ve used in picking out the best PSA tools today:

Functionality

What is the use case that the software is best for? Does the software live up to its purpose and primary functionality?

User-Friendliness

Is the software easy to use and navigate? Can you efficiently manage your calendar, expenses, work time, and invoicing?

Integrations

I look at all the ways in which this tool can connect to others and become a hub of useful company information. Therefore, I mention if there are pre-built integrations, if you can access them through third-party connectors like Zapier, and if there are ways for you to build custom integrations using an API.

Pricing

Does the software meet your budget and provide a good ROI? As with any investment, the price plays a big role in the decision-making process. That is why I look at monthly pricing on a monthly plan and look for any free trial and demo information that can help you decide.

What are the key features of professional services software?

Here are some of the key PSA software features that you should look for:

  1. Scheduling: PSAs have scheduling capabilities that DPMs can use to manage their team’s time effectively. With the help of an excellent scheduling feature, digital project managers can prevent scheduling conflicts and ensure that all assigned tasks are completed on time.
  2. Project Management: This is probably the most critical feature for a DPM because it allows you to launch projects and easily manage them until completion. A project management feature can help a DPM optimize resource utilization and ensure that a project gets completed on time while staying within budget.
  3. Document Management: This feature allows a digital project manager and other team members to quickly share project-related documents within one storage location to avoid missing documents and allow for quick access to them when needed.
  4. Reports Generation: DPMs often need to generate reports to present a project’s impact on a company’s finances. A reports generation feature can simplify reporting so DPMs can save time while generating accurate reports.

Aside from helping professionals with project delivery management, documentation, and reporting, PSA systems also have the following features:

  • Full project accounting & project financials management
  • Calendar management
  • Team collaboration
  • Proposal generation
  • Customer relationship management
  • Resource management
  • Expense tracking, expense management, budgeting
  • Invoicing and billing
  • Business intelligence
  • Forecasting
  • Revenue recognition

What’s the Ideal First Step in Picking the Right Professional Services Automation Solution?

A typical buyer’s guide would tell you to list down the features that you want from a tool to select the best PSA software. But I suggest that you first list down the major business outcomes that you want to see for the next months or so.

If you want to have a comprehensive resource planning strategy or have a centralized location for all your documents, let those factors drive your selection process. You can then match these outcomes with the features of the project management tools. This way, you can make sure that you will be able to achieve your business goals using the PSA solution.

 professional services software logos list

What's Next?

A professional services business needs of a mix of tools, just like any other company. Here is a list of other lists you might be interested in.

Related tool lists:

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By Ben Aston

I’m Ben Aston, a digital project manager and founder of thedpm.com. I've been in the industry for more than 20 years working in the UK at London’s top digital agencies including Dare, Wunderman, Lowe and DDB. I’ve delivered everything from film to CMS', games to advertising and eCRM to eCommerce sites. I’ve been fortunate enough to work across a wide range of great clients; automotive brands including Land Rover, Volkswagen and Honda; Utility brands including BT, British Gas and Exxon, FMCG brands such as Unilever, and consumer electronics brands including Sony. I'm a Certified Scrum Master, PRINCE2 Practitioner and productivity nut!