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Professional services automation software is the best way to manage project delivery, track team utilization and billable rates, and improve your operations and business processes to deliver a better experience for your clients.

There are a glut of software tools available, which makes figuring out which is best for you difficult. Here are my picks for the best professional services automation software, which I've chosen based on my experiences using this type of tool to manage projects and businesses.

What Is Professional Services Automation Software?

Professional services automation (PSA) software is a tool used by service-based organizations to manage and automate various operational aspects. It integrates project management, resource allocation, time tracking, billing, and reporting functionalities into one system.

The benefits of PSA software include:

  • Improved efficiency in managing projects and resources
  • Accurate and timely billing
  • Better team collaboration
  • Real-time insights into project performance and financial metrics
  • Reduced administrative overhead via the ability to automate routine tasks

Overviews of the 10 Best Professional Services Automation Software Solutions

Here’s a brief description of each professional services automation solution, its best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give you a snapshot of the user interface.

Best for all-in-one work management automation

  • 14-day free trial + free demo available
  • From $26/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.5/5

Scoro is a professional services automation software designed to assist businesses in managing their operations more effectively. It provides a suite of tools tailored for various roles within an organization and addresses every aspect of service delivery—from project planning and execution to customer relationship management and billing. This level of integration is essential for services firms that need to maintain alignment across various departments and projects. 

As a PSA software, Scoro excels in automating the critical yet time-consuming aspects of professional services, such as time tracking, invoicing, and reporting. Its automated billing features allow for the quick creation of detailed invoices based on the tracked time and expenses, reducing errors and saving valuable administrative time. The software's ability to generate in-depth, customizable reports also gives managers and stakeholders insights into business performance, client profitability, and operational efficiency. 

Another key aspect that sets Scoro apart is its CRM functionality integrated directly within the platform. This allows for a seamless flow of information from initial client contact to project delivery and follow-up. The tool helps manage client interactions, store critical data, and track communication history. Furthermore, the ability to link CRM data with project management and billing processes ensures that every client interaction is informed, contributing to better client satisfaction and retention. 

Integrations include Google Calendar, Microsoft Exchange, Xero, QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, Expensify, Stripe, Jira, Slack, Asana, Dropbox, PayPal, and more.

Best PSA with resource allocation, time tracking, billing, and reporting

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

Polaris PSA is a cutting-edge Professional Services Automation (PSA) software that empowers service-based businesses with advanced project management capabilities. The platform offers AI-driven resource allocation, real-time project monitoring, predictive analytics, and customizable reporting, enabling efficient resource utilization, proactive decision-making, and streamlined project portfolio management.

Polaris PSA takes a comprehensive and strategic approach to project portfolio management. It offers a centralized dashboard that provides real-time insights into an organization's projects, resources, and financials. The platform's AI-driven resource allocation and scheduling capabilities optimize resource utilization across multiple projects, preventing overallocation and ensuring efficient workload distribution. Furthermore, its predictive analytics identifies potential risks, forecasts project outcomes, and proposes mitigation strategies, enabling data-driven decision-making.

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.

Features are dependent on what plan you choose and may include time tracking, project tracking, expenses, PTO; and/or workforce management, labor compliance, attendance, time off; and/or professional service automation and project portfolio management. 

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.

Best for powerful resource management and team collaboration

  • Pricing upon request
Visit Website
Rating: 4.1/5

Mavenlink aims to be the industry cloud for professional services organizations. This is achieved through a resource-centric approach focused on better decision-making. Using Dynamic Resource Optimization, teams can be deployed quickly to respond to changing business conditions.

The software features powerful resource allocation management, plus project management and team collaboration features. Business intelligence and actionable insights inform management decisions. Timelines, budgets, and clients can be managed to produce the best outcomes for the company and for clients.

Through the Mavenlink M-Bridge, the software integrates with business applications such as Oracle, Netsuite, SAP Concur, and Salesforce.

Mavenlink offers customized pricing on request.

Best for integrated profitability tracking

  • 14-day free trial
  • From $9/month (billed annually)
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Rating: 4.7/5

Productive is a professional services automation software that's designed to help businesses streamline their operations. It's an all-in-one tool that covers everything from project management and time tracking to sales pipeline and profitability analysis. It's like having a personal assistant that keeps everything organized and running smoothly.

There are several standout features that make Productive a top choice for professional services automation software. The project management feature is particularly impressive. It allows you to plan your projects, assign tasks, track progress, and even forecast future work. The time tracking feature is also very useful. It's easy to log hours, and you can see exactly where your time is going. The sales pipeline feature gives you a clear overview of your sales process, and the profitability analysis feature helps you understand your financial performance.

Productive.io goes beyond standard project management tools by offering unique resource management and utilization insights. This feature allows businesses to gain a deep understanding of their team's workload and availability, enabling better resource allocation and preventing burnout. The platform provides detailed reports and visualizations, showcasing individual team members' workloads, capacity, and efficiency levels. This data-driven approach empowers project managers to make informed decisions on task assignments and redistribute workloads as needed, optimizing team performance and overall project efficiency.

Unlike many other project management tools, Productive.io stands out with its integrated profitability tracking feature. This niche capability allows businesses to monitor project profitability in real-time, providing a holistic view of revenue generation, costs, and profit margins for each project. By linking financial data directly to project tasks and time entries, businesses can quickly assess the financial health of projects and identify areas where costs can be optimized. This level of insight not only enhances decision-making but also helps businesses stay on top of their financial goals and identify high-value projects, fostering greater overall profitability and sustainable growth.

Integrations include Quickbooks, Jira, Xero, Exact, Slack, Fortnox, and Personio. More integrations are available by connecting a paid Zapier account.

Productive costs from $9/user/month (billed annually) and offers a 14-day free trial.

Best for MSP operational growth

  • Free trial available
  • From $59/user/month (billed annually)
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Rating: 4.6/5

SuperOps is an AI-powered PSA-RMM platform designed to support the operational growth of Managed Service Providers (MSPs) by providing a unified solution for client engagement, asset management, and project execution. The platform's emphasis on leveraging artificial intelligence makes it a strategic tool for MSPs aiming to enhance their operational capabilities and scale their services.

The software's employment of automation and AI helps take over repetitive tasks and using algorithms to predict and preemptively address issues. This not only boosts operational efficiency but also enhances the quality of service MSPs can provide, allowing them to allocate their resources to more strategic, value-adding activities.

Client management, quote management, and contract management are also key features of this platform, integrating tools for service desk operations, ticketing, invoicing, billing, and direct communication with clients. The customizable reporting feature further assists MSPs by providing deep insights into their operations, client health, and service metrics, which are critical for strategic planning and decision-making​. Overall, SuperOps' consolidation and automation of operational aspects into a single platform helps streamline administrative tasks, giving MSPs more time to focus on scaling their business.

Integrations include TeamViewer, QuickBooks, Stripe, SentinelOne, Webroot, Xero, HaloPSA, and more.

Best for service organizations with global resources and projects

  • 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. Its main design, its features and capabilities are geared towards technology companies, consulting firms, and creative agencies. Any business that offers some type of professional service to a diverse clientele will greatly benefit from this fully integrated solution.

Among VOGSY’s features and capabilities are project management, resource management, task management, automated invoicing, performance monitoring, and customer relationship management (CRM). All of which benefit from a global project and resource allocation feature set Apart from its seamless Google integrations, the software can also integrate with third-party business process solutions such as QuickBooks, Salesforce, and HubSpot.

As a professional services automation platform, VOGSY’s main feature is quote-to-cash. One of its primary objectives is to eliminate data silos and serve as a single source of truth for professional services providers, sales departments, and project teams. The software enables users to track their clients easily and every active deal/service yet delivered.

They can develop and solidify their by having the ability to instantly create quotes and generate statements of work (SOWs) on soft-booked deals and projects. The software also allows users to match revenue over their resource plans to ensure delivery. VOGSY’s robust work breakdown structure, through its project management feature, is useful for developing and sticking to a project roadmap based on key objectives and desired outcomes.

The task management feature enables project managers to allocate tasks with ease and efficiency, ensuring that every aspect of the project gets done by the appropriate team members on time and within budget. Resource management, automated invoicing, and performance monitoring make up the rest of VOGSY’s professional services automation software features and capabilities.

Features include resource and project management, unified resource view, intuitive new country set up for resource allocation and global projects, flexible revenue recognition, 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 is free for individual users, while its Lite package starts from $13/user/month. A free trial is also available for all premium plans.

Best PSA with time tracking and expense reporting features

  • 14-day free trial
  • From $20/user/month
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Rating: 4.5/5

BigTime’s professional services automation (PSA) software is designed to help companies and their teams design and develop better processes for different projects at scale, from start to finish. The PSA software scales with an organization's needs, from the individual time tracking process to the final invoicing on completed projects.

The PSA system allows users to track time and expenses smarter. Project managers and staff members can efficiently log their time and expenses with customized data entry options that apply to their team or department’s timesheets. The billing and invoicing process is also much faster and more user-friendly. Users can easily pull together detailed and professional-looking invoices that can be customized to meet the unique requirements of each project. They can send these invoices directly to their clients as quickly as possible.

BigTime facilitates the staff and resource allocation process to ensure project managers don’t over- or under-schedule the available resources. In addition, the platform provides comprehensive dashboards to deliver all the necessary information in one place, so users will always have an idea of their resource status and availability; i.e., they can determine in real-time who is working on what. This will not only help streamline workflows but optimize the resource management process as well.

BigTime’s integration capabilities will also help organizations seamlessly sync up all their current software solutions and other available tools in their technology stack.

Plans start at $10 per user/month. All plans are billed annually and require a minimum of five users.

Best for managing practice profitability

  • Free trial is available
  • From $29/user/month
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Rating: 4.3/5

Polaris Professional Services Automation software analyzes real-time data to provide recommendations for keeping projects, resources, and finances on track. You also get real-time visibility into key metrics, plus the ability to leverage historical and current information.

You can also improve practice profitability through a better understanding of business dynamics. Group projects in a way that makes sense, then set any attributes and metrics required. Service delivery, costs, and billing can be managed transparently, maximizing profits and performance.

Polaris integrates with major business suites such as SAP Concur, Quickbooks, Atlassian, Sage, and Salesforce.

Polaris costs from $29/user/month, and a free trial is available.

Best for full lifecycle services forecasting

  • From $10/user/month for general sales staff (only some data accessible).
Visit Website
Rating: 4.2/5

FinancialForce PSA software helps you allocate the right people to projects and optimizes professional development. Sales and services teams get a shared view of the opportunity pipeline. Managers get deep visibility into projects, including project status, customer interactions, timesheets, and resource demand.

The software provides for flexible revenue and billing forecasts for both projects and opportunities. It keeps projects on point and ensures that budgets are respected. Project accounting covers revenue, bookings, backlog, expense management, and revenue recognition.

FinancialForce integrates with platforms such as Docusign, Expensify, AccessPay, and SAP Concur.

This tool offers customizable pricing on request.

A PSA solution for fast-moving businesses

  • Free demo available
  • Pricing upon request
Visit Website
Rating: 4/5

Workday PSA helps you support every part of client-facing projects. Everything from staffing to billing and project financials can be handled within a single system. The software also matches the best talent to projects and suggests learning for continued improvement.

The software is designed to be agile and flexible, so you can create new project delivery models or meet changing customer demands as required. You can analyze profitability accurately, automate project forecasting and accurately track time from anywhere.

Workday includes over 600 pre-built integrations with popular business tools.

Workday PSA offers customized pricing available on request.

Professional Services Automation Software Solutions Comparison Chart

Here is a chart where you can easily compare the tools I covered above.

Tool Best For Trial Info Price
1
Scoro

Scoro automates various tasks across different business functions, including reporting.

Best for all-in-one work management automation

14-day free trial + free demo available

From $26/user/month (billed annually) Website
2
Polaris PSA By Replicon

Polaris PSA analytics provides comprehensive and real-time insights into project performance, resource utilization, and financial metrics.

Best PSA with resource allocation, time tracking, billing, and reporting

14-day free trial

From $6-29/month Website
3
Kantata

Mavenlink helps you track billable hours accurately for any project.

Best for powerful resource management and team collaboration

Not available

Pricing upon request Website
4
Productive

Productive provides detailed reports and visualizations, showcasing individual team members' workloads, capacity, and efficiency levels.

Best for integrated profitability tracking

14-day free trial

From $9/month (billed annually) Website
5
SuperOps

SuperOps allows you to view operational aspects within a single dashboard.

Best for MSP operational growth

Free trial available

From $59/user/month (billed annually) Website
6
VOGSY

VOGSY’s professional services automation platform serves as the single source of truth for users, providing valuable insights into their business.

Best for service organizations with global resources and projects

Freemium plan

$13/user/month Website
7
BigTime

BigTime’s professional services automation software scales with the organization and its clients, allowing teams to build project processes from scratch.

Best PSA with time tracking and expense reporting features

14-day free trial

From $20/user/month Website
8
Polaris PPM by Replicon

Polaris helps practices achieve maximum profitability.

Best for managing practice profitability

Free trial is available

From $29/user/month Website
9
FinancialForce

FinancialForce shows managers what progress is being made on projects.

Best for full lifecycle services forecasting

Not available

From $10/user/month for general sales staff (only some data accessible). Website
10
Workday

Workday allows you to interpret critical data visually.

A PSA solution for fast-moving businesses

Free demo available

Pricing upon request Website

Other Professional Services Automation Software Options

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

  1. Birdview

    For automating and optimizing the entire service delivery cycle

  2. ConnectWise

    Intelligent automation for small businesses ready to scale

  3. PSOhub

    Replaces stand-alone tools with an all-in-one solution

  4. Ravetree

    For retainer contracts

  5. Dynamics 365 Project Operations

    A unified solution for project-centric businesses

  6. Smartsheet

    Faster customer onboarding and improved project visibility

  7. Celoxis

    For managing your project portfolio, resources, and budgets

  8. Accelo

    For project delivery from quote to cash

  9. Bonsai Agency Software

    For integrated project, client, and financial management

  10. ProjectManager

    For no-code workflow automation

How to Choose Professional Services Automation Software

It’s easy to get bogged down in long feature lists and complex pricing structures. To help you stay focused as you work through your unique software selection process, here’s a checklist of factors to keep in mind:

FactorWhat to Consider
ScalabilityMake sure the software can grow with your business. Look for features like flexible user limits and the ability to handle increasing project complexity.
IntegrationsCheck that it connects with tools you already use, like CRM, accounting, or project management platforms.
CustomizabilityCheck whether you can tailor dashboards, workflows, and reports to match your team’s specific needs and processes.
Ease of UseChoose software that’s intuitive and easy for your team to use without extensive training. This helps speed up onboarding and improves productivity.
BudgetAssess upfront costs, subscription fees, and any hidden charges. Compare pricing models to make sure the solution fits your financial goals.
Security SafeguardsMake sure the software has robust data protection features like encryption, role-based access, and compliance with industry standards like GDPR.
ReportingLook for advanced reporting tools to give your team actionable insights into performance, resource allocation, and profitability.
Support OptionsConfirm that there’s reliable customer support, whether through live chat, email, or a dedicated account manager, to address issues quickly.

Features of Professional Services Automation Software

These are the core features I look for when I'm evaluating PSA tools:

  1. Project management tools: The tool should help you to plan, track, and manage projects with features like timelines, milestones, and task assignments.
  2. Time tracking: You should be able to accurately log billable and non-billable hours, and then use this information in client invoices.
  3. Resource allocation: The software should help optimize your team’s workload by assigning the right resources to the right tasks based on availability and skills.
  4. Billing and invoicing: The tool should allow you to automate the creation of accurate invoices based on time tracked, project progress, or fixed fees.
  5. Financial forecasting: You should be able to get insights into future revenue, expenses, and profitability to help with strategic planning.
  6. Collaboration tools: Features like shared workspaces, real-time updates, and communication tools foster teamwork and keep everyone aligned.
  7. Client portals: The tool should offer clients secure access to project updates, invoices, and key deliverables in one centralized location.
  8. Analytics and reporting: The software should deliver actionable insights with customizable reports on performance, financials, and resource usage.
  9. Workflow automation: The tool should help you improve repetitive processes like approvals, reminders, and task handoffs to save time and reduce errors.
  10. Mobile accessibility: The feature makes sure your team can access tools and information on the go via a mobile app or responsive web interface.

Here are some of the emerging trends I’m keeping an eye on:

  • AI-driven insights: Vendors are adding AI features that can analyze project data and predict risks, delays, or resource bottlenecks, which gives teams a chance to course-correct before problems arise. For example, some tools now suggest resource reassignments based on historical performance.
  • Dynamic pricing models: Some vendors are offering tools that you can use to calculate real-time pricing for services based on market trends, resource availability, and project scope. This means better flexibility for both clients and providers.
  • Employee experience focus: Platforms are introducing features like skills tracking, career development dashboards, and team wellness insights to support employee growth and engagement.
  • Decentralized project tracking: With hybrid work here to stay, tools are evolving to support decentralized teams with multi-timezone support, asynchronous communication options, and real-time global dashboards.

FAQs About Professional Services Automation Software

professional services automation software logos list

What's Next?

You might also like to check out our review of the 10 best professional service software.

Ben Aston
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!