10 Best Professional Services Software Shortlist
Here's my pick of the 10 best software from the 30 tools reviewed.
Get free help from our project management software advisors to find your match.
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.
Best Professional Service Software Comparison Chart
Here is a table where you can compare the tools we just covered in the overviews.
Tool | Best For | Trial Info | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Scoro Scoro provides reports for various business functions, allowing for real-time visibility and proactive decision-making. | Best for real-time reporting across multiple business operations | 14-day free trial + free demo available | From $26/user/month (billed annually) | Website |
2 | Accelo Accelo offers a comprehensive view of various metrics and tasks for project management, including project timelines, financials, and budgets. | Best for professional services automation | Free demo available | Available upon request | Website |
3 | 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 |
4 | SuperOps View critical alerts, tasks, tickets, and more all in one dashboard. | Best for AI-driven MSP growth | Free trial available | From $59/user/month (billed annually) | Website |
5 | Kantata Kantata allows you to create “dependencies” so you can easily manage the project timeline. | Best for project management and resource planning | Not available | Pricing upon request | Website |
6 | Productive Productive offers a range of features for agencies, including project management, resource planning, and profitability tracking. | Best for comprehensive agency management | 14-day free trial | From $9/month (billed annually) | Website |
7 | VOGSY VOGSY uses automation to help services firms monitor key indicators in the service lifecycle, including the budget, timeline, and margin. | Best for global services organizations | Freemium plan | $13/user/month | Website |
8 | HaloPSA HaloPSA allows you to modernise your customer experience and automate your service. | Best PSA software for MSPs | 30 days free trial | From £30/user/month | Website |
9 | Rocketlane Manage and deliver customer projects with Rocketlane | Best client portals for project insight sharing | 14-day free trial | From $19/user/month | Website |
10 | BigTime BigTime’s invoicing engine is designed to make industry-specific billing and invoicing more efficient, with advanced configurable tax rate calculations. | Best for managing timesheets | 14-day free trial | From $20/user/month | Website |
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Smartsheet
This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.4.4 -
Wrike
This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.4.2 -
monday.com
This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.4.6
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.
Scoro
Best for real-time reporting across multiple business operations
Scoro is a comprehensive work management software designed for professional services, offering a wide range of features to help boost service profitability. It caters to various industries and roles within the business, providing tools for project management, quoting and budgeting, invoicing, sales and CRM, resource planning, time tracking, and reporting.
One of Scoro's standout features is its project management tool, which can handle multiple projects simultaneously, with capabilities to assign tasks, set deadlines, track progress in real time, and manage resources effectively. Additionally, the platform's dynamic scheduling tools allow for adjustments on the fly, accommodating last-minute changes without disrupting the entire project workflow.
Furthermore, Scoro's advanced reporting and analytics features provide invaluable insights into every aspect of business operations. These reports are fully customizable and cover everything from detailed financial reports that analyze profits and losses to performance analytics that gauge project success and team productivity.
Integrations include Google Calendar, Microsoft Exchange, Xero, QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, Expensify, Stripe, Jira, Slack, Asana, Dropbox, PayPal, and more.
Accelo is a comprehensive professional services automation (PSA) platform designed to enhance the operations of service-based businesses. It offers a suite of tools for client relationship management (CRM), project management, time tracking, billing, invoicing, and client communication.
The platform's automation capabilities offer numerous opportunities to reduce repetitive, manual tasks, freeing up more time for billable client work. For instance, the quote-to-project conversion feature allows users to create new projects based on approved quotes in just a few clicks. Additionally, bulk client billing automates the generation of accurate client invoices into pre-made templates.
Furthermore, Accelo's project management features allow teams to collaborate, plan, manage, and deliver client projects efficiently through project templates, automated time tracking, custom workflows, and project triggers. Other features include branded invoice templates, custom payment terms, and accounting software integrations that save time and improve processes.
Integrations include Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Exchange & Microsoft Outlook, Xero, QuickBooks Online, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Salesforce, Zapier, Stripe, PayPal, Jira, Continuum, Zendesk, Microsoft Power BI, Expensify, Gusto, HubSpot Partner Portal, Practice Ignition, Google Analytics, and others.
Best PSA with resource allocation, time tracking, billing, and reporting
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.
SuperOps AI is a PSA-RMM platform designed for MSPs, offering features such as PSA, RMM, and integration with various tools. The platform is AI-powered and aims to help MSPs run their operations on a single pane of glass.
As a professional services software for MSPs, the platform facilitates client engagement, revenue growth, and efficient management of client assets, while also providing IT documentation, project management, and a suite of other features including asset, patch, and alert management. SuperOps also has features like ticketing, time tracking, and overall client management.
Through professional services automation, SuperOps provides tools for service delivery, billing, time tracking, and more. The PSA component helps MSPs manage their client relationships, automate service delivery, and streamline billing processes. The remote monitoring and management feature, on the other hand, allows MSPs to manage their client's assets. It includes capabilities for monitoring and managing endpoints, networks, and computers remotely. RMM helps in proactive maintenance, issue resolution, and ensuring the health and performance of client systems.
Other notable features offered by SuperOps include policy management, security management, service desk functionalities, quote and contract management, and analytics and reporting. There is also a mobile app for managing MSP operations on the go.
Integrations include TeamViewer, QuickBooks, Stripe, SentinelOne, Webroot, Xero, HaloPSA, and more.
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.
Productive is a comprehensive software solution designed to meet the needs of professional services and agencies. It integrates a wide range of tools necessary for managing projects, tracking time, allocating resources, and handling financial aspects, all within a single platform.
The platform offers advanced project management capabilities, such as Gantt charts for visualizing project timelines, task management to keep teams organized, and workload management to ensure resources are used effectively. Additionally, Productive includes tools for time tracking and billing, allowing agencies to accurately log hours, generate invoices, and manage payments.
Furthermore, the platform's CRM and sales tools help manage client relationships and streamline the sales process. Agencies can easily plan schedules, create pipelines, and track the status of projects and deals. Productive’s document management and automation features also reduce administrative overhead by automating repetitive tasks and ensuring that all team members have access to the latest project information and documentation.
Key integrations include Jira, Slack, QuickBooks, Xero, Zapier, Google Drive, Sage, BambooHR, and HubSpot.
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.
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.
Rocketlane is a professional service software purpose-built to run customer-facing projects. It uniquely combines project management, document collaboration, and communication to help teams hit their project goals, accelerate time-to-value, and deliver a 5-star customer experience.
Rocketlane offers private and shared views for project plans and documents as well as a customer portal for stakeholder and client views. You can also codify your best practices with project and document templates to create them once and reuse them forever across projects.
With Rocketlane, you'll be able to keep your customers involved and make them accountable with reminders, notifications, and actionable emails. You can work together and create new or embed existing documents, collaborate on them synchronously and experience Slack-like chat inside Rocketlane.
Rocketlane costs from $19/user/month and offers a free 14-day trial.
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.
Other Professional Services Software Options
Here are some other tools that did not make the top tools but are still worth your consideration.
- Hubstaff
PSS time management reports & analysis
- Kimble
For salesforce users and management consulting
- Projector
PSA software for accessibility
- Adobe Workfront
Cross-platform PSA software
- Birdview
For BI reporting
- Workamajig Platinum
For creative teams
- Netsuite OpenAir
For small businesses
- Ravetree
For retainer contracts
- Unit4PSA
For end-to-end administration
- Deltek Workbook
For client transparency and communication
- Height
For cross-functional project and resource planning
- Changepoint
CRM-integrated PSA
- Upland
For managing large teams
- Celoxis
PSS for enterprises
- Bonsai Agency Software
For integrated project, client, and financial management
- ClickTime
For medium-sized businesses seeking to centralize their resource management processes
- Wrike
For generating accurate reports plus actionable insights
- Parallax
For efficient project management and streamlined business operations
- Easy Projects
For real-time team collaboration
- ConnectWise
For data-driven reporting
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.

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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