Breaking Down Project Management Software vs PSA

Employees spend up to a whopping 30 hours a week checking their personal and private email accounts. If your company relies heavily on email as a way to communicate or manage your employees, then you’re wasting tons of money on time that could be spent doing productive — or billable — work. Implementing technology with built-in project management capabilities will help you rely less on your inbox and communicate more effectively with your team, saving you time and money.

The Types of Project Management Software

Not all project management software is the same. Some solutions have more basic capabilities, potentially for smaller organizations, while others are robust, complex and fit more for the mature, enterprise-level business. There are different types of project management software for your company to consider — the one you choose heavily depends on the organization’s level of maturity, goals for the future, and current business challenges. The three most common types of project management software on the market are: task management software, project management software, and PSA (professional services automation) software.

Task Management Software

Task management software is the most basic of the project management software options. It helps businesses organize tasks and allocate resources, but is not meant to support the larger overarching goals of the business beyond that. Typically, task management software allows you to  break  tasks into subtasks and assign them to the appropriate team or resource. Due dates, attachments, or relevant documents can be included in tasks and subtasks, so everyone knows when their part is due and has all the necessary resources to deliver their best work. 

One major downside of task management software is that it typically doesn’t integrate well with the rest of your solutions or technology stack. So you may find it difficult to use data from your task management software solution to improve resource workflows. Plus, since employees use an average of 10 apps per day, they may be hesitant to implement another one.

Project Management Software

A step up from task management, project management software is more comprehensive. It includes task management alongside other capabilities such as project budgeting and work breakdown structures, so you can plan whole projects, and coordinate the people and associated costs that go with them. Because project management software also gives users the tools they need to balance priorities across projects and analyze processes and productivity, it is going to be better equipped than task management software to help you allocate resources to maximize the value your organization gets.

However, not all project management software is equipped to handle the types of projects that make or break professional services organizations. To manage the revenue-generating projects they run for clients using highly skilled billable resources, services organizations tend to turn towards more specialized software that is oriented to the unique needs of the professional services vertical. 

PSA Software

Professional services automation (PSA) software offers an alternative to the array of separate project management, time tracking, invoicing, resource planning, business intelligence and collaboration tools used by many project teams. Organizations delivering billable work stand to benefit the most from PSA software, which connects project estimating, resource management, project management, and project accounting capabilities in a single services-centric solution. PSA applications help these organizations manage client engagements throughout the project lifecycle – a project starts when a sales opportunity is created and resources are allocated to deliver the work, and the cycle nears completion when invoices are issued and cash is collected. PSA software establishes a consistent process for planning, managing and measuring the performance of each project throughout its lifecycle. By centralizing business processes and data, services can be delivered more predictably and repetitive manual processes streamlined or automated. 

Service Performance Insight, which conducts an annual benchmark of performance in the professional services industry, defines PSA as “An integrated suite of applications used to increase operational visibility and improve process efficiency in project- and services-driven organizations.” In their 2022 PSA End-user Survey, SPI found that PSA solutions improve project margin by 6.1% and employee billable utilization by 8.2%, and stated that “PSA has become mandatory for project- and services-driven organizations to improve operational performance, better forecast, grow revenue, reduce cost, enhance quality and drive client and employee satisfaction – all while increasing profit. Every project and services-oriented organization with over 20 employees should seriously consider Professional Services Automation.”

The Benefits of PSA Over Project Management Software

While basic project management tools certainly increase the efficiency of project delivery and execution, they fail to connect the dots between essential factors such as the resource needs in the sales pipeline, global resource availability, and the implications of contractual commitments on project scope and budget. This is where PSA software excels. If you’re worried about not having enough resources for upcoming projects, you can use robust forecasting tools to see what resources you are likely to need in the future alongside which resources you will have, enabling you to see any gaps with enough time to close them. You can handle problems before they have an impact on the bottom line — improving customer satisfaction, profit margins, and overall business success. 

Plus, PSA strengthens your ability to grow and retain your talent pool. Instead of having to assign people manually to certain tasks, data-backed AI can tell you who is best suited for a role. This takes out human error and ensures that your company’s workflows are as optimized as they can possibly be. And when your employees are working on projects that match their skill sets, this helps them feel more connected to company goals, which gives you a leg up when it comes to retaining them for the long haul. 

The Kantata Professional Services Cloud Takes PSA to the Next Level 

The Kantata Cloud is purpose-built for professional services — optimizing not only project management, but the entire project delivery lifecycle.. It takes all of the capabilities of PSA to the next level, providing clients across the globe with people-centric project management, network-enabled resource management, client-inclusive team collaboration, quote-to-cash financial management, decision-enabling BI and insights, and business-unifying integrations and workflows. .  

With our laser focus on the professional services industry, Kantata is able to translate the rapidly evolving challenges facing services organizations into ground-breaking solutions. To learn more about how Kantata is giving the people-powered businesses the clarity, control, and confidence they need to succeed, request a demo.