9 Best Project Management Software for Consultants

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With the myriads of options available on the market, choosing the right project management software is key to accomplishing any project goals, regardless of what industry your company is serving.

No one deserves to suffer the pressure of getting stuck with a project management software that does not deliver.

So, the question goes- is there any particular project management software built for consultants?

Yes, there are specific tools designed for consulting organizations.

In this article, you will find several options that you can choose from and which would serve your numerous consulting endeavors. 

Why use Project Management Software for Consultants?

Project Management Software is useful for consultants because it streamlines their job and increases productivity.

Project management software for consultants can help consultants boost efficiency, expedite communication, manage resources, measure progress, and provide reports.

The software enables consultants to operate more efficiently and successfully by managing various projects, tracking time, and assigning resources.

It also helps them to engage with clients and stakeholders more readily, giving thorough reports that illustrate their work and progress.

Overall, project management software for consultants can assist consultants in completing projects on time and on budget while also increasing their trust with clients.

What makes good Project Management Software for Consultants?

A good project management software for consultants should include features that promote:

• Collaboration
• Time tracking
• Allocation of resources
• Task management
• Customization
• Reporting
• User-friendliness
• Mobile compatibility, and
• Integration

The software should allow consultants to control resources and allocate tasks while tracking progress and ensuring projects are completed on time.

Also, it should be flexible, easy to use, and capable of producing thorough reports that illustrate the status of a project and financial information.

Lastly, it should be mobile-friendly and integrate with other softwares and systems, such as email and calendar tools, to improve productivity.

How to choose the right Project Management Software for Consultants

Consider your individual needs, the program’s features, user interface, cost, integrations, privacy, and support when choosing project management software for consultants.

Determine your priorities as a consultant, including the scope and complexity of your projects, your preferred project management approach, and the level of teamwork and client participation needed.

Find software that offers the functions you want, an easy-to-use interface, meets your budget, can be integrated with other products, and has the necessary security precautions in place.

The level of support offered by the software provider, including customer service, documentation, and training materials, should also be taken into account.

Best Project Management Software for Consultants

1. Bonsai

As a consultant, you need to complete all your projects on time, and this is where Bonsai comes to shine. It is a professional tool that will provide you with the automation you need to manage your projects and time without any issues. You will not require a lot of time to setup Bonsai, which means you can begin using it in no time.

The platform offers automation for time tracking, invoicing, business reporting, and more. The client portal will allow you to share your work, hours, and tasks with your clients. Because of this, you don’t need to have various places where you keep your client data.

Another great feature of this platform is that it automates income and expense tracking for consultants. It will make the accounting process easier for you as you will understand better what is coming in and going out of your business. In the long run, it will help you keep your finances on track.

You also have the option of inviting more people to a project. If you are working on a consulting project with other people, then you can add them to these projects so everyone is one the same page. Such communication and transparency is crucial for any business.

So, make sure that you go through what Bonsai has to offer and decide if it is the correct choice for you. Once you do, you will get a lot of use out of it for a long time to come.

2. Accelo

Accelo is an incredible project management software for consultants.

It provides four (4) major functions including:

– Making sure that you have secure data: The digital world we have today is treacherous.

Cybercrime is at its peak, and the implication is that whether your project concerns confidential client data or your personal intellectual property, you need a way to ensure safe and secure data, at least for the project duration.

You are probably aware that cloud-based business tools make life easier.

Did you also know that they can ensure secure data and deliverables?

Accelo provides users with this great opportunity to keep every connection between their computer or other device and the Accelo servers, encrypted. 

– Tracking time spent on tasks automatically

Tracking time is a key aspect of consulting, and consultants must strive to understand how they allocate billable hours.

The insights obtainable from automatic time tracking are necessary for overcoming the mess of timesheets and punch clocks.

With Accelo, consultants, small business owners, and professionals can take advantage of this time tracking feature which is built into the product line of the software. 

– Keeping track of client communication, getting feedback, and issues: It could take missing a key conversation, email, or memo to lose a huge contract.

These days, too, no one has time to sit through an embarrassing meeting to discuss or resolve issues.

Therefore, to keep all client communication in place and ensure that none of them slips through the cracks, consultants need an automated and smart CRM that can log all client touchpoints, communication history, and emails.

You can get the bulk of this dynamism with Accelo.

– Revising deadlines in real-time: Projects may go against the plan.

Thus, when it comes to real-world projects, consultants must find a way to modify milestones, deadlines, and even tasks.

This is where Accelo becomes handy, as it helps to keep the project manager and his team effective.

This real-time flexibility and automated resource management are achievable and obtainable with Accelo.

3. Mavenlink

Project delivery has never gotten any easier.

With Mavenlink, you can improve your performance and wow your clients as a consultant- that is bringing about higher margins and happier clients.

Mavenlink allows you to understand your client margins at a glance and view reports that can help uncover profitability trends.

It helps you keep track and see which of your team members are on top of their game, while you can equally match other tasks to the right skills. 

It is a project management software created for consulting solutions built by service delivery professionals.

Essentially, you can track your burn rates, deadlines, and resource utilization with Mavenlink.

With Mavenlink, you can also schedule and plan your resources appropriately because it is a powerful tool that can help integrate with the way you work- forming the center of your business ecosystem.

Imagine the degree of significance you can achieve by connecting your project management platform with your CRM, and other mission-critical systems- immense value is what you get.  

4. WorkflowMax

WorkflowMax is a holistic project management tool that can transform any business.

Are you considering an easy way to conduct business as a project manager?

WorkflowMax is your best shot.

It works so well for business consultants as it helps to streamline the core business and project functions, as well as free up time so that you can focus on the big-picture thinking and billable hours.

Among the interesting features of the tool include document management, job costing, time tracking, and Xero integration.

Consultants choose WorkflowMax so that they can seamlessly manage a lead through the CRM, and consequently drive the lead into a job.

Also, to see the profitability and performance of the all through the project lifecycle.

Moreover, you can power up your team’s project management performance by leveraging the popular integrations used by business consultants ranging from accounting to payroll, CRM, and document management.

5. Monday.com

Monday.com is an invaluable project management software.

It offers users a clear and intuitive interface to see vital project data at a glance.

It is a great project management software because it is simple, and can help clarify the work sequence of a consultant.

It is considered the best for workflow automation with features including resource and project management, reporting, collaboration, and time tracking.

Also, Monday.com has a reporting dashboard that can automatically collect data from different boards to allow for better tracking and progress monitoring of the projects.

It is highly customizable and flexible with use in Kanban or other methodology that fits your project.

Some of its integrations include Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, GitHub, Trello, Dropbox, and Slack. 

6. Hive 

Hive is a versatile project management tool and collaboration platform that powers great companies like WeWork, IBM, Uber, and Starbucks.

It has AI-based analytics and a wide range of integrations.

With Hive, consultants and project managers can work in a centralized platform, and it is typically used by teams of different sizes- from 10 to 1000.

Its time-tracking and analytics capabilities ensure a transparent understanding of the team’s work.

And with full email integrations, you can send and receive Outlook and Gmail messages from the app.

For consultants that are in the market for a comprehensive and well-laid-out tool that can be scaled according to the team’s needs, Hive is the best all-in-one solution project management software that can be considered.

7. Clarizen

Clarizen is a project management tool that enables every single team member to see how their contribution aligns with the bigger picture.

It can also be used to view project timelines and milestones, discussions, shared documents, and budgets.

It is considered an enterprise-grade professional service automation tool with solutions that bring users up to speed in the way they conduct business- integrating work and content firmly.

The real focus of the tool is to make projects happen on time and save workflows.

For a consulting organization with loads of repeatable projects that require repeatable processes, Clarizen is the best option to consider as it has flexible and powerful workflow automation. 

It features great planning tools which are a mix of functionality across planning, execution, and controlling of the project.

Also, it provides project optimization that helps users easily and quickly align their respective projects to the fundamental objectives.

When it comes to project execution, project managers can make accurate data-inclined decisions that suit the project selection and investment with the ultimate priorities.

You can change tasks and schedules in a few clicks, and you can consider this tool if you have some existing business-critical systems, thanks to the powerful integration options it boasts of.

8. Teamwork

Teamwork is another project management tool applicable for visualizing project tasks on a board and viewing files, messages, and milestones.

It is more applicable to consulting organizations because it is typically a work and project management software that fosters improvement of visibility, accountability, results, and collaboration.

In-house teams and remote teams can use this flexible fully-featured tool to manage the project lifecycle from start to finish.

It has features that can help consultants structure their projects and milestones by creating task lists, tasks, and subtasks to further break them down into action items for their teams. 

Also, the “workload” feature gives a big picture of the team’s capacity, and some interesting collaboration features to help communicate with clients and/or with the internal team.

An intuitive and customizable tool with great features, Teamwork has integrations with other tools like Dropbox, QuickBooks, Slack, and Gmail, among others.

9. Workzone

Do you own a consulting organization- as the owner or a project manager?

Would you like to keep everything on track seamlessly and easily?

Consider Workzone- a project management software that suits your needs.

Consultants love Workzone because of its numerous flexibilities and powerful features.

It is not rated #1 in project management for no reason.

It beats its competition including Capterra, Software Advice, GetApp, and others by a thousand miles. 

It bridges the gap between achieving robust project management and simplicity for use in the real world.

It has dual functionality of project management and document sharing and a generally flexible, intuitive, and responsive feature that encourages smooth transition and collaboration.

You can determine/identify where your project stands as Workzone helps you save time on the project processes and approvals.

You can also review your status updates quickly with the cross-project dashboards.

Ultimately, you can stay in charge and manage your priorities change effectively by never getting locked into old details and priorities and being able to pivot quickly and update your work- your personal and team use.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, to choose the right project management software, you have to consider factors such as the business size, the team, and how many or which of the features would suit your organizational needs.

This is critical, especially as a consultant.

But overall, having a go-to software in place will generally make your project management and day-to-day work much easier.

We hope you can find the necessary help in choosing which of the aforementioned software might be right for your business.