One of the leading trends in work management software is professional service automation (PSA) software. What is PSA software, what are the best PSA software, and how can it help your business grow and become sustainable in today’s competitive corporate world?
Professional Services Automation (PSA) software can best be defined as software that helps professional services organisations identify effective opportunities to gain new customers, serve the customers they already have and retain those customers by automating a wide range of their business processes. From pipeline management and resource planning, to expense and cost tracking, project financial management, and much more, PSA software can make a difference in every facet of your service business.
Who uses PSA software and is it right for your business? PSA software is used by a wide range of project-based professional services businesses and organisations that typically derive their revenues and profits from the projects they manage for their clients. By supporting project delivery via project management, project accounting, resource management, time and expense, invoicing, collaboration, and reporting, PSA software can make today’s project-based professional services businesses more efficient, thus making them more effective as well. You will find PSA software being used in a wide range of industries including architecture and engineering, business management consulting, accounting, marketing, IT Services & resellers, and legal firms, to name a few.
Architecture and Engineering (A&E)- the typical project lifecycle at many of today’s architecture and engineering firms will include business development, customer relationship management, financial management (invoicing & billing), project management, time and resource scheduling. Heeros PSA software can help with every aspect of the project management cycle.
Consulting firms- Heeros PSA solutions can help consulting firms by managing client relationships, lead management, proposal automation, project management, resource scheduling, time and expense and financial management. This can make them more efficient and increase their utilization rates.
Marketing and creative agencies- Heeros PSA software can benefit marketing agencies by making it easier for them to manage their projects, clients, sales pipelines, team and resources, and finances such as invoices, expenses, and bills. This can give them more time to focus on their core business processes rather than dealing with tedious error-prone manual processes, spreadsheets, and docs.
Accounting Firms- analysing data and delivering trusted insight to their clients adds value to any services business, especially accounting firms. Heeros PSA software can help accounting firms increase their value proposition and improve their resource utilisation to increase profits. Other benefits include, save of time on data entry, less human errors by automated invoicing, and complete visibility on billable and non-billable hours, to name a few.
IT Services & resellers- IT businesses can utilize a powerful suit of tools to manage sales, collaboration, projects, teams, and inventory. By combining IT services and product sales with efficient project management, the IT service providers can take full control of their projects from leads to deals.
While PSA software and ERP software sound somewhat similar, there are many noticeable differences. So, with that in mind, what is the difference between PSA software and ERP software? A full project ERP system is designed to manage all aspects of your business and for example manufacturing. A PSA software solution, however, is designed to handle front-office functions of a business and its projects and doesn’t typically include accounting tools although it can be used alongside accounting tools. For example, Heeros PSA software has integrations with variety of accounting software like Quickbooks, Maventa, Netvisor, and more.
There are many benefits of PSA software that can help support each step of your project lifecycle. These include:
Accelerate Cash Flow- a good PSA software solution can accelerate your cash flow by creating more accurate invoices in less time. That includes factoring in labour and materials that are important to the completion of the project. By automating these processes, PSA software can make creating invoices more accurate and predictable so your customers are more likely to pay on time.
Develop and Use Resources more Effectively- the most important asset of any organization, especially services oriented companies, is the staff. PSA software can help you use your staff more effectively by helping you to identify your company’s specific resource needs, find and develop the right talent, and use your resources more effectively.
Develop Your Business Through Better Opportunity Management- typically, a customer relationship management (CRM) tool is designed for businesses that sell products. Project-based businesses often find that they cannot use CRM tools because the project is based on labour. PSA software features project-based CRM tools which can make understanding your market easier so you can better identify, forecast, manage, track, and take advantage of new opportunities.
Gain Increased Visibility and Control- sometimes, project managers are kept in the dark as projects sit idle or misdirection takes place. With increased visibility via advanced reports or Business Intelligent reports and control over projects, project managers can help avoid missed deadlines, cost overruns and backlogs.
Increase Profits Through more Accurate Information- in today’s competitive business environment, more and more businesses are competing for fewer and fewer jobs, which means that competitive pricing can create increasingly tighter profit margins. PSA software enables your company to create more accurate forecasts which will allow you to maintain tighter profit margins and support much more profitable bids.
Increase Win Rates- PSA software provides more accurate, up to date information which lets you focus on the projects and the clients that best match your skill set. This, in turn, will increase your win rates.
Manage Projects and Materials- PSA solutions can help your team stay on task by giving them the tools they need for accurate project planning and budgeting. With more visibility into their projects, project managers will become more productive.
Now that you have a good understanding of what Professional Services Automation (PSA) software is and who uses it, let’s take a look at what makes PSA software such an invaluable tool for your professional services company. By enhancing your management CRM, improving service delivery and time tracking, and providing a single source of truth, Professional Services Automation (PSA) software can improve your overall operations increasing your sustainability and success rate.
Today’s project-based professional services companies have many unique requirements of their software and processes. As such, they see their business in three very separate, yet integrated factors: accounts, departments, and projects. By improving one or all of these factors, the company will become more successful and their clients will have much higher satisfaction rates. While these factors combined are what make professional services companies what they are, it can also make them challenging to manage. This is where the value proposition of PSA software shines. It can make managing your company’s resources easier, ensuring your staff is productive without being overwhelmed, more effective, monitoring the progress and cost of your projects more efficient, tracking your company’s financials more accurately, and collecting data more intuitive.
In short, PSA solutions can streamline your business operations, integrating your accounts, departments, and projects to create an efficient business process that is easily upgraded when necessary. By connecting all of these core business factors onto one easy to use platform, you will achieve unmatched visibility and control over your business and you will be able to make important business decisions using real time data, rather than last week’s information.
With the above information in mind, it makes sense that your professional services business or organization should implement PSA software, especially if you are looking to bypass your competitors and increase your team’s productivity. But which PSA software do you choose? There are, in fact, many firms offering PSA software, however, there are some differences that could affect your projects and productivity.
With PSA software, you shouldn’t look simply for a tool that your business or organization can utilize, you should also look for a trusted software development firm that will listen and respond to your needs and that understands your industry specific challenges. This is especially important if your organization is currently undergoing a digital transformation.
A Comprehensive, Purpose-Built Solution- look for a PSA solution that will meet your specific needs and that can be custom tailored to your organisation or industry. A very generic PSA software solution can become more costly in the long run because you will need to have it adapted to your projects.
Industry Reputation- you want a software development firm that is respected in the industry and that has built a reputation for quality, value, and results. Ask yourself if the software company has influence in the industry.
Scalability- as with any software solution you choose for your business, you want it to be scalable so it can grow as your business grows and accommodate your company’s long term growth strategy.
Integration- does the PSA software integrate with your existing accounting, marketing automations like Hubspot? This is important as many businesses often wish to retain these tools for ease of use.
Total Cost Of Ownership- from the start, you need to know the total cost of ownership. Some software solutions have recurring costs which could add up. Choose a software development company that offers transparent and flexible price plans.
To learn more about PSA software and our full range of all-in-one solution for professional services, check out our Heeros PSA and start a free trial!