Guide to Resource Tracking: Tools & How To Do It

Sarah M. Hoban

Last updated on Apr 10, 2025

QUICK SUMMARY

In order to have a clear picture of budget usage, resource utilization, and team member workloads, you need to track resources throughout your project's life cycle. Here's how to do it effectively, which tools to use, and expert best practices.

TABLE OF CONTENTS What Is Resource Tracking? Why Is Resource Tracking Important? How To Track Resources Tools Best Practices

Key Takeaways

Increase Productivity: Resource tracking lets you identify overallocation and underutilization, make timely adjustments to staffing, boost overall productivity, and reduce employee burnout.

Your Crystal Ball: By collecting resource utilization data, you can accurately forecast future project needs and make informed hiring decisions, which also helps reduce potential bottlenecks.

Boost Your Bottom Line: Efficient resource scheduling means successful project execution, which builds trust with stakeholders, contributes to business growth, and positively impacts your bottom line.

Have you ever struggled to understand what your team members are working on or explain schedule slippages to a concerned client?

I’ll explain how resource tracking helps you make informed decisions about staffing your current projects and improve your ability to forecast future project needs.

What Is Resource Tracking?

Resource tracking involves monitoring how many people, equipment, and materials are working on your projects and the team’s workload, and making adjustments to those resources in real-time based on project progress. This is typically done using resource management software.

Why Is Resource Tracking Important?

Resource tracking is important for high-quality project execution. Understanding resource allocation and resource utilization:

Increases productivity: Resource tracking highlights areas of resource overallocation, so you can make adjustments to staffing levels in advance of burnout. You can also pinpoint pockets of resource availability. If team members are underutilized, assign them additional tasks to minimize idle time.
Optimizes resource forecasting: Collecting and monitoring resource utilization data helps you forecast upcoming needs and streamline hiring decisions based on required skill sets. Improved decision-making reduces bottlenecks, controls costs, and increases profitability.
Benefits your bottom line: As you get more efficient at resource scheduling and minimizing resource conflicts, it becomes easier to execute against project objectives. Delivering successful projects builds trust with stakeholders and grows your business.

How To Track Resources

Now that you understand the importance of resource tracking, let’s walk through some resource management tools to help you monitor resources and execute project workflows more effectively.

Timesheets

Timesheets are a tried and true way to collect real-time resource tracking data. Ask your team members to track time across the various projects they support:

Timesheet table showing team members' weekly project hours for two different projects — *An example timesheet in a spreadsheet format.*

Then, roll this info up into a project-level summary to get time tracking views across your project portfolio.

Time tracking is a key feature of many project management software programs if you’re looking to build automation into this process.

Gantt Charts

A Gantt chart visually represents project activities, timelines, and dependencies.

The x-axis represents the time horizon of the project, while the y-axis lists project activities. The length of the bars represents the duration of the tasks involved.

Gantt chart for resource tracking showing tasks and timelines for a research project — *Here's a sample Gantt chart from a research project.*

Gantt charts give insights into the status of ongoing task management so you can make resourcing decisions based on project needs.

Utilization Reports

Utilization reports break down the number of hours that team members are spending on each of the projects they support versus their available hours.

Here's the equation to calculate utilization rate:

Billable utilization rate = Working hours / available hours

the equation for calculating utilization rate: working hours divided by available hours — *Here's how to calculate the billable utilization rate for your team members.*

For example, if a team member has work assigned for 32 hours out of a 40-hour work week, their billable utilization rate would be 80%.

Utilization reports aggregate team-wide utilization metrics to determine available resources and identify opportunities for optimizing existing resource usage.

Resource Allocation Spreadsheets

Resource allocation spreadsheets show you how much work team members are assigned across the projects they support.

Resource allocation spreadsheet example showing team member hours allocated to projects — *Here's an example resource allocation spreadsheet for tracking project hours for each team member.*

You can use this information to determine whether team members are underutilized or overutilized and then make changes to your resource allocation model to rightsize the level of effort.

Budget Usage Reports

Budget usage reports compare expended funds with available budget so project managers can see whether they are on track to meet budgetary goals.

Budget usage report example detailing roles, hours worked, and remaining project budget — *An example budget usage report tracking cost, hours, hourly rate, and remaining project funds by role.*

If a project is tracking to be over budget, project managers can adjust the resource management plan (e.g., substitute a lower-cost resource) to reduce expenditures and make up the difference.

Tools For Tracking Resources

Project managers can use resource tracking tools to summarize and analyze resource data for project planning. For smaller teams or those just getting started, free collaboration tools with basic task management and shared calendars can provide a solid foundation for resource visibility. Here are the best resource tracking software tools currently available:

Best Practices For Resource Tracking

Here are some resource tracking best practices that contribute to project success:

Spend the time upfront on resource planning. You can use resource management software to make it easier to document project activities, key milestones, and how your team’s availability aligns with project requirements. Coming in with a strong foundation sets you up for success when you inevitably hit project snags.
Build contingency into your project schedule to account for any delays. It’s always good to prepare a backup plan (or two!) that you can deploy in case a key team member is no longer available.
Balance project resources to keep them engaged. Team members perform better when they are utilized to their full potential and work on tasks aligned with their career interests and aspirations. Capacity planning is a useful exercise to assess when and which human resources you’ll need across project timelines.

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