15 Best Resource Management Software and Tools for Teams

Chelsea Williams
Subject Matter Expert
March 30, 2024
15
min read
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To successfully deliver what you’ve promised to your clients and stakeholders, you need a great strategy that can allocate both human capital and  non-human resources. It can be challenging to do this without clear, real-time data to back up your decisions.

Resource management software — or work management software that supports capacity and workload planning — can act as your proverbial right hand.

Benefits of Resource Planning Software for Service Firm Users

It’s easy to get distracted by workflow management when you’re handling so many different projects at once. Your leadership team may not have the time to zoom out from the day-to-day and think about how the company’s available resources are applied to each project. As a result, you may not have the best understanding of how profitable your client work is, or where your talent may be put to better use. 

While you can keep your business afloat without them, specific resource management tools expand what’s possible for your business because they:

  • Record billable and non-billable time and compare logs to project timelines
  • Track skills to make it easier to assign tasks and align team members with roles
  • Compile the knowledge you need to make your current team more efficient and avoid burnout
  • Gather specific capacity and utilization data to support smart hiring decisions 
  • Pinpoint any bottleneck or misallocation of resources and present it in visual reports
  • Provide essential information to help you develop quarterly goals and annual plans
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Let’s look at key features of some of the top platforms with resource management solutions and capabilities:

Time-tracking software options

Project management tools that feature workload planning

Reporting solutions that can be used for resource planning

Time-Tracking Platforms for Team Capacity Planning

Time-tracking software is more than just a centralized record of actual time spent on tasks. If you choose the platform that’s best suited for your business, it can be an essential resource utilization and decision-making tool, including for capacity planning. Below are five time-tracking platforms frequently used by service providers.

Accelo

Built for professional services firms looking to connect every stage of client work in one place, Accelo is an end-to-end client work management platform. While it’s much more than a time management solution, the platform is known for its intuitive approach to time tracking. Accelo’s automated timers help your team easily track every billable minute, and its full suite of sales, project management, ticketing, retainer management and billing tools support all of your business’s other essential functions.

Accelo Features

  • Billable vs. non-billable and actual vs. estimated time reports
  • Time logs attached to tasks, projects and invoices for seamless tracking
  • Custom trigger automations to streamline workflows for every stage of the client journey
  • Automated scheduling and task assignments to help manage workload in a few clicks

Pros

Cons

  • The platform may be too robust for business leaders seeking time-tracking alone
  • Advanced capabilities may cause teams of fewer than seven people to miss out on the full experience of the platform.

Pricing

Starting at $50 per product per user per month, you choose the number of licenses you need within the plan best suited for your business. You only pay for the licenses you buy for each product: Sales, Projects, Tickets, Retainers, Billing and Reports. Learn more about Accelo’s pricing here.*

See how integrated time tracking can support your business: sign up for a demo of Accelo today.

Harvest

Harvest is a time-tracking software that offers flexible timesheets and the ability to invoice clients and accept payments directly through the platform. Its range of reports goes beyond simple time logs to display a bird’s-eye view of team capacity, project resources, project costs and more in a variety of visual formats.

Features

  • Budget tracking
  • Invoice creation from billable time records
  • In-app payment collection with PayPal or Stripe
  • Custom time-tracking reminders for teams

Pros

  • Integrates with popular accounting software
  • Visually engaging reports that track project budgets and visualize team capacity 

Cons

  • Requires third-party integrations to effectively manage workflows
  • Some users find the platform to be too simplistic to handle detailed time tracking 

Harvest Pricing

Harvest offers a 30-day free trial for both of its tiers:*

  • Free (1 seat and up to 2 projects)
  • Pro: $10.80 per user per month (unlimited seats and projects)

Hubstaff

Hubstaff is a time-tracking and employee-monitoring software with productivity features built to help businesses gain insight into employee workload. The app tracks employee activity using manual and automated tools, including URL and GPS location tracking. Hubstaff sets employee time limits and collects data in detailed timesheets and reports.  

Features

  • Automated timesheets generated by built-in time trackers
  • Geofence option to automate clocking in and out
  • Invoice widget to track payment status and record full or partial payments 
  • Invoices with set billing rates and auto-add line items

Pros

  • Reports to help teams visualize on-time and past-due invoices
  • Invoice templates reflect billable and non-billable time and project expenses 

Cons

Hubstaff Pricing

Hubstaff offers a 14-day free trial and four pricing tiers:*

  • Desk Free (1 user)
  • Desk Starter: $5.83 per user per month (up to 2 users)
  • Desk Pro: $8.33 per user per month (up to 2 users)
  • Enterprise: Custom quotes available

Timely

Timely is an automated time-tracking app with built-in project and resource management, payroll and capacity planning capabilities. The platform allows businesses of all sizes to easily track employee time, monitor project tasks and budgets and access full visibility over team performance. 

Features

  • Automated time capture — without a need for timers or manual tracking
  • Team dashboards to visualize efforts across your client portfolio
  • Project health reports to highlight tasks, activity, performance and budget changes
  • Scheduling tools to optimize task assignments based on availability, resource needs and team priorities

Pros

  • Automatic time tracking and pattern logging using Memory AI
  • Live reports on team capacity, billable percentage, budget and time per client

Cons

  • Users point out that there’s no way to automatically track time spent on phone calls
  • Additional features like project management are only available on the Premium plan

Pricing

Timely offers a 10-day free trial and four pricing tiers:*

  • Starter: $9 per user per month (up to 3 teams and up to 50 projects)
  • Premium: $16 per user per month (unlimited teams and projects)
  • Unlimited: $22 per user per month (Premium tier plus individual capacity planning)
  • Unlimited+: Custom quotes available

Toggl Track

Toggl Track is a time-tracking tool with timesheets, billable time reports and budgeting features. Users can solely use timers or customize them with details like tags to categorize segments of time. Toggl Track can also be used to calculate payroll for both employees and contractors.

Features

  • Timesheets broken down by project
  • Billable rates and reports for workspaces, projects and users
  • Idle time reminders keep employees accountable
  • 100+ integrations

Pros

  • Custom sorting by user, tag or project
  • Project budget tracking for paid plans

Cons

Pricing

All new users get a 30-day free trial of Toggl Track Premium, and there are four tiers to choose from:*

  • Free (up to 5 users)
  • Starter: $9 per user per month
  • Premium: $18 per user per month
  • Enterprise: Requires custom quote

Project Management Tools With Workload Planning Features

A robust project management software is essential to client work, but to maximize efficiency and optimize resource allocation, your team needs to have access to more than project schedules and task management tools. Here, we cover five project resource management platforms that have features to support team collaboration and workload planning.

Accelo

Accelo is known for taking project management to the next level — it helps professional services firms connect project work with every other stage of client work. Expand visibility and increase profits with a full suite of sales, project management, ticketing, retainer management and billing tools in one single platform.

Features

  • Robust CRM that connects client projects and tasks to a client record
  • Quote-to-project conversion for an easy transition from sales to project management
  • Automated time tracking at the task level
  • Customizable project templates and trigger automations to streamline workflows

Pros

Cons

  • The platform may be too robust for business leaders seeking project management only
  • Advanced capabilities may cause teams of fewer than seven people to miss out on the full experience of the platform.

Pricing

Starting at $50 per product per user per month, you choose the number of licenses you need within the plan best suited for your business. You only pay for the licenses you buy for each product: Sales, Projects, Tickets, Retainers, Billing and Reports. Learn more about Accelo’s pricing here.*

Sign up for a demo of Accelo to preview how project and resource management tools work together.

ClickUp

ClickUp is an all-in-one productivity platform with project management and time-tracking features to help teams collaborate on project planning, organization and execution, among other client work functions. The platform offers goal tracking, a variety of views and convenient dashboards to track project progress. All pricing tiers include Slack integration for better team communications and productivity.

Features

  • Goal Folders help teams automatically track project progress 
  • Time estimates and reporting supported by manual and automatic time tracking 
  • Multiple project views, including lists, Kanban boards, calendars, Gantt charts and more
  • Drag-and-drop team scheduling tools

Pros

  • Workload templates to help with resource leveling and forecasting
  • A large catalog of educational tools including demos, help docs and ClickUp University 

Cons

Pricing

ClickUp offers five pricing tiers, including a free plan:*

  • Free Forever
  • Unlimited: $5 per user per month
  • Business: $12 per user per month
  • Business Plus: $19 per user per month
  • Enterprise: Custom quotes available

READ NEXT: Accelo vs. ClickUp

LiquidPlanner

LiquidPlanner is a project management solution that helps teams plan projects, collaborate on tasks and manage resources with planning intelligence tools like predictive scheduling, change tracking and built-in time tracking.

Features

  • Automatic resource allocation to evenly distribute workload
  • Predictive project planning tools for accurate milestone and project completion estimates
  • Portfolio management to visualize how new projects will impact current project timelines
  • Schedule risk alerts when the platform predicts a project won’t finish on time   

Pros

  • Integrated time tracking
  • Predictive technology and smart schedule bars help teams adapt, as well as prepare for future projects

Cons

Pricing

LiquidPlanner offers a 14-day free trial and three pricing tiers:*

  • Essentials: $15 per user per month
  • Professional: $25 per user per month
  • Ultimate: $35 per user per month

Scoro

Scoro is a systems-oriented project management platform that helps consulting firms and other professional services providers manage complex projects. With customizable project templates and ample integrations, Scoro is flexible for various use cases and industries.

Features

  • KPI dashboard for simple goal tracking
  • Flexible planner, calendar and utilization reports
  • Multiple languages for invoices, quotes, contracts and more
  • Domino mode: postpones ongoing work and shifts efforts to high-priority tasks

Pros

  • Useful for businesses that need the ability to automatically plan recurring projects
  • Best for businesses that value clear KPI visibility

Cons

  • More costly than some other project management tools
  • Not as customizable as some comparable software platforms

Pricing

Scoro offers a 14-day free trial and has four pricing tiers, each with a five-seat minimum:*

  • Essential: $26 per user per month 
  • Standard: $37 per user per month
  • Pro: $63 per user per month
  • Ultimate: Custom quotes available

READ NEXT: Accelo vs. Scoro

Wrike

Wrike is a work management tool that consolidates internal and external communication for teams of all sizes. The user interface provides at-a-glance project progress and tracks goal progress for multiple teams within an organization.

Features

  • Resource demand planning tools
  • Robust reports displaying billable and non-billable hours and team workload
  • Product roadmaps, Kanban templates and more for customized project management
  • Shareable dashboards for better collaboration

Pros

  • Good for simultaneously managing both long- and short-term projects
  • Plentiful tools for planning projects and predicting resourcing needs

Cons

Pricing

Wrike offers a 14-day free trial and five pricing plans:*

  • Free
  • Team: $9.80 per user per month
  • Business: $24.80 per user per month
  • Enterprise: Custom quotes available for large teams
  • Pinnacle: Custom quotes available for teams with complex work needs

READ NEXT: 10 Wrike Alternatives to Consider

Reporting Platforms To Help With Resource Scheduling

Having the tools to track and manage your resources is key, but quality reporting is what allows you to make the most of your data and metrics. Clear reporting on resource availability helps managers provide accurate estimates and stick to project timelines. Meanwhile, financial reports give resource capacity management planners the deeper business intelligence to efficiently apply the right resources.

Here, we cover five resource scheduling software platforms that provide sharp insights into time management while preventing your team from feeling overbooked.

Accelo

Accelo not only provides ultimate visibility over client work with its full suite of sales, project management, ticketing, retainer management and billing tools, but it generates meaningful reports. Instead of having to connect and pay for a third-party platform, you can use Accelo to access all of your team’s essential data via easy-to-read and real-time reports on profitability, utilization, outstanding invoices and more.

Features

  • Overdue task tracking and team member performance dashboard
  • Intuitive and auto-generated reports that reflect billable time, project progress and more
  • Planned vs. actual reports to improve accuracy of estimates
  • In-depth sales reports for analyzing close rates and predicting upcoming workload

Pros

Cons

  • The platform may be too robust for business leaders seeking reporting features only
  • Advanced capabilities may cause teams of fewer than seven people to miss out on the full experience of the platform

Pricing

Starting at $50 per product per user per month, you choose the number of licenses you need within the plan best suited for your business. You only pay for the licenses you buy for each product: Sales, Projects, Tickets, Retainers, Billing and Reports. Learn more about Accelo’s pricing here.*

Start generating better reports today: Give Accelo a try, or sign up for a demo here.

Kantata

Kantata, formerly Mavenlink and Kimble, offers project management, business intelligence, operations management, resource management and task management features. The newly merged platform touts its suite of integrations as a customizable solution for professional services firms. 

Features

  • Kantata OX (formerly Mavenlink): resource management tools
  • Kantata SX (formerly Kimble): project management and project accounting
  • Team capacity reports and scheduling tools
  • Visibility into project budget to ensure profitability

Pros

Cons

  • Lacks some essential capabilities to support the full client journey
  • Kantata SX requires a Salesforce subscription for CRM

Pricing

Kantata's pricing starts at $59 per user per month with the option of unlimited users. Actual pricing will vary depending on individual business needs, and additional pricing details must be requested on their website.* 

READ MORE: Accelo vs. Kantata 

Mosaic

Mosaic is a resource and workforce management software featuring AI-powered tools for scheduling, team building and more. The platform makes project planning and resource capacity planning simpler and more efficient. Mosaic also features budget, time tracking and project management tools and reporting dashboards, including customizable heatmaps.

Features

  • Demand vs. capacity analysis
  • Drag-and-drop org chart to keep track of employee roles
  • Team Builder tool to quickly assemble project teams
  • Employee skill tracking

Pros

  • Robust project scheduling tools
  • AI-powered automations

Cons

  • Relatively new platform with limited integrations available
Author Bio
Chelsea Williams
Accelo's blog posts are brought to you by a team of experienced subject matter experts. With a deep understanding of client and sales management, resource planning, and project efficiency, we aim to share our knowledge and practical insights to help you navigate the complexities of operating a service based business. Our goal is to provide you with expert-driven content, up-to-date information, and actionable advice on Professional Services Automation, designed to help your business succeed.
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