Without tracking these metrics, you can’t objectively evaluate performance in key areas like financial health, resource utilization, client acquisition, and project efficiency. 

Boost your project success and profitability by accurately measuring the 11 most important KPIs for consultants.

1. Total revenue

Total revenue is the sum of all income from your consulting firm’s projects and services over a specific period.

Example

Let’s say your company completed three projects last month:

• Project A: $50,000
• Project B: $75,000
• Project C: $25,000

Your total revenue for the month would be $150,000. 

Why it matters

How much money you have coming in is the most basic indicator of your financial health. 

By monitoring total revenue over time, you can:

• Identify trends in your firm’s financial performance
• Set realistic financial goals
• Make informed decisions about resource management and expansion

How to track it

Add up all income from your projects for a given period (such as monthly, quarterly, or annually).

Smaller consultancies can do this using Excel or a Google sheet. List all your projects and their corresponding revenues, and then add up the total.

But as your firm grows and your project load increases, manually tracking everything will eat up way more of your time. You’ll need a system that can automatically handle more financial data, faster.

Scoro offers several ways to quickly track and analyze your total revenue. In fact, as soon as you log in, using the CEO/COO dashboard, you’ll immediately your current revenue to date vs last year:

For a deeper revenue dive, use the “Revenue report.” 

It shows your total revenue per month, so you can quickly see how revenue has evolved (and hopefully, grown) over time. Use different filters to zoom into specific projects, clients, or team members to review the impact on revenue performance. 

2. Gross margin

Gross margin subtracts pass-through costs (like bills and expenses) from revenue. It tells you how efficiently your company converts revenue into profit. And it’s typically expressed as a percentage of your total revenue.

Example

Let’s say your consulting firm brought in $100,000 in revenue on an AI implementation project for a client. 

But there was $60,000 in pass-through costs, including:

• Support from a third-party contractor: $50,000
• Specialized software licenses: $6,000
• Travel expenses for on-site workshops: $4,000

So, the gross margin for this project was 40% (calculated as: ($100,000 – $60,000) / $100,000 = 40%).

Why it matters

Gross margin tells you a lot about the true profitability of your projects and services. 

For instance, you might realize a high-revenue project you were really excited about actually has a low gross margin. Or a seemingly low-value project might have a really high margin.

This insight helps you make better decisions on:

• Pricing strategies
• Expense management 
• The kind of projects you take on

How to track it

To calculate gross margin, use this formula:

Gross Margin % = ((Total Revenue – Direct Costs) / Total Revenue) * 100

For a deeper analysis, create a list of all your projects. Include their revenues and direct costs. Then, calculate the gross margin for each project using the formula above. 

Or, with Scoro, you can skip doing the math yourself—it automatically calculates the gross margin for you.  

Just open the “Projects” module and look at the “Gross income” column for each project. You’ll see the gross margin listed as a percentage. 

3. Delivery margin

Delivery margin (or profit margin) shows how profitable your firm’s project delivery is. It’s the percentage of revenue that remains as profit after all direct costs. Unlike gross margin, it also factors in labor.

Example

Say your consulting firm completed three projects this quarter: a digital transformation initiative, a strategy consulting engagement, and a smaller process optimization project. 

In total, your firm earned $200,000 in revenue across these three projects. The combined pass-through costs were $80,000. And total labor costs were $40,000. 

This leaves a profit of $80,000 and a 40% delivery margin (calculated as: ($200,000 – $80,000 – $40,000) / $200,000 = 40%).

Why it matters

Your delivery margin gives you a holistic view of your firm’s profitability, including labor costs. Unlike your gross margin, it factors in the actual time and effort your team spends on projects. This big-picture view helps you:

• Gauge how you’re managing labor costs, bills, and expenses as a whole
• Determine if there are any project outliers driving your delivery margin up or down
• Identify areas where you can reduce costs and boost profits, such as outsourcing, adjusting pricing, or consolidating your tech stack

How to track it

Work out the total revenue from all projects for a given period. Next, add up all labor costs, bills, and expenses. Then, calculate the profit. And apply this formula: 

Delivery Margin = (Total Profit / Total Revenue) * 100

Or use Scoro, which automatically calculates your delivery margin for you.

Open the “Projects” tab. Then, click the “Summary bar” button and check “Delivery margin.” You’ll see the overall delivery margin at the top under “Delivery margin (actual).” 

4. Net margin

Net margin is the percentage of your consultancy’s revenue that remains as profit after factoring in all business costs: pass-through, labor, and overhead costs like rent, utilities and admin salaries. 

Example

Let’s say your consulting firm generated $500,000 in revenue last quarter. Your pass-through costs and labor costs came to $350,000. Your overhead costs came to $100,000. 

So, after accounting for all these costs, your firm retained 10% of its revenue as profit (calculated as: ($500,000 – $350,000 – $100,000) / $500,000 = 10%).

Why it matters

Net margin provides the most complete view of your firm’s profitability. Unlike gross margin or delivery margin, net margin considers all your costs, including overhead. 

This comprehensive view allows you to:

• Understand your true bottom line after all costs
• Spot areas where overhead costs might be eating into profits
• Align your project decisions with a greater overall business strategy
• Decide if your org needs to adjust pricing or cut expenses

How to track it

The formula to calculate net profit is:

Net Profit = Delivery Profit – Overhead Costs

Your overhead costs include things like:

• Office rent
• Utilities
• Admin salaries
• Software subscriptions

Scoro integrates with accounting software like Xero and QuickBooks. So, you can easily access these numbers without needing to ask around. 

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5. Forecasted revenue

Forecasted revenue is the amount of revenue you expect to earn over the coming months. This is based on your current pipeline, backlog, and market conditions.

Example

Imagine your consulting firm is forecasting revenue for the next quarter. You have:

• A current $60,000 project, with $20,000 to be billed each month for the next three months
• A new $45,000 project starting next month, to be billed equally over three months
• A potential $30,000 project in your pipeline, with a 50% chance of closing in the third month

Your forecasted revenue might look like this:

• Month One: $20,000 (from current project)
• Month Two: $35,000 ($20,000 from current project + $15,000 from new project)
• Month Three: $50,000 ($20,000 from current project + $15,000 from new project + $15,000 from potential project, adjusted for 50% probability)

This forecast gives you an idea of how much revenue you can expect to bring in over the next quarter.

Why it matters

Forecasted revenue helps you predict your company’s financial health. It lets you answer questions like:

• Do we have enough projects lined up? 
• Are we on track to reach our growth targets? 
• Do we have enough staff to handle our project queue?
• Is our cash flow okay?

With this foresight, you can recommend timely adjustments—like outsourcing, reducing headcount, or working with your sales team to bring in more work—to ensure your firm stays in the black.

How to track it

Calculating forecasted revenue involves considering:

• Quoted projects you haven’t started yet (potential future revenue)
• Ongoing projects you’re currently working on (active revenue)

Using the quoted revenue amounts from deals in your Scoro pipeline, the platform can automatically create revenue forecasts for you in seconds.

Once you officially convert those deals to projects, Scoro automatically updates the forecast based on your budget, tasks, and time entries to make the predictions more accurate.

To see your revenue forecast, open Scoro’s “Revenue Report.” Then, select “Next 12 months” from the date picker.

You’ll see a breakdown of your expected revenue for the next 12 months:

6. Billable utilization rate

Billable utilization rate measures the percentage of a consultant’s total available time spent on revenue-generating work.

This is different from resource utilization rate, which considers time spent on revenue-generating work AND tasks that don’t directly bring in money (internal meetings, admin, etc.)

You can calculate billable utilization by:

1. Multiplying the result by 100 to express it as a percentage
2. Dividing the total number of billable hours by the total number of available hours

As a general rule, a consulting firm should focus more on billable utilization. Billable hours directly generate revenue and contribute to the firm’s profitability. 

Aim for a billable utilization rate of 75% to 80%.

This target ensures that your team spends most of its time on revenue-generating work but still gives them time for breaks and necessary activities like meetings, admin work, and professional development.

Example

A consultant has 40 available working hours per week.

They spend:

• 30 hours on billable client work
• 5 hours on internal meetings and administrative tasks
• 3 hours on professional development

So, this consultant’s billable utilization rate is 75% (30 hours out of 40). And 20% of their time is spent on necessary non-billable work, with 5% remaining for breaks and personal time. 

Why it matters

Billable utilization rates show how much of your consultants’ time directly contributes to bringing in revenue. You can use this information to maximize revenue-generating potential while still maintaining a balanced workload for your team. 

Tracking these rates also lets you:

• Spot opportunities to increase billable hours 
• Make informed decisions about capacity planning and resource planning
• Reduce costly burnout and disengagement
• Set realistic targets for consultants and objectively measure their performance

How to track it

First, you’ll need to determine the total available working hours. 

Then, your consultants need to use a time tracking system to track their time spent on billable and non-billable work activities.

Once you have this info, divide the total billable hours by available hours. And multiply by 100.

Billable Utilization Rate (%) = (Total Billable Hours / Total Available Hours) x 100

With Scoro, you can see your team’s billable utilization straight away using the “Utilization report”—no calculations needed.

The report initially shows resource utilization, which includes both billable and non-billable hours. This is a broader look at how busy your team is overall.

If a team member is overutilized, you’ll see a red box. And you can quickly take action to get them back to a balanced (green) workload.

To see the billable utilization rate specifically, you need to adjust the report’s filters. This isolates the time spent on tasks that directly generate revenue.

Look for options to filter the data displayed in the report.

Select filters that focus on:

• Billable activity types: These are the categories you previously set up in Scoro’s settings to designate work that is charged to clients
• Billable tasks: You might also be able to filter by specific tasks that have been marked as billable

The report will now show you the billable utilization rate for your team members.

You’ll still see the color-coded indicators (red for overutilization, green for balanced) but they’ll now be based solely on billable work.

7. Sales conversion rate

Sales conversion rate is the percentage of leads that successfully convert into paying clients.

You can use the following formula to calculate the conversion rate: 

Sales Conversion Rate = (Number of Deals Won) / (Number of Total Deals) x 100

Where:

• Number of Deals Won = The deals that successfully closed/converted to sales over a given period.
• Number of Total Deals = The total count of deals that either won or lost/did not convert over that same period.

Example

If your consulting firm had 100 leads in the last quarter—and 20 of them became paying clients—your sales conversion rate would be 20%. 

Why it matters

Sales conversion rate shows how effective the sales process and team is. If the conversion rate is low, it’s a clear sign to review and refine the sales approach. Like how the sales team handles nurturing and closing strategies. Or who they’re targeting.

This metric also helps you:

• Forecast revenue more accurately 
• Judge the quality of leads 
• Figure out where to allocate sales and marketing resources

How to track it

Divide the number of new clients by the total number of leads in a given period. Then, multiply by 100 to get the percentage. 

Sales Conversion Rate = (Number of Deals Won) / (Number of Total Deals) x 100

In Scoro, you can track your conversion rate by adding the “Ratio metric” to your “Sales dashboard” to easily calculate this value based on issued quotes with successful deals.

To do this, you’ll go to your dashboard and click “Add to dashboard.” Then, click “Ratio metric.”

Then, select “Browse bookmarks library.”

Followed by “Sales” > “Sales conversion rate.”

You’ll then see your sales conversion rate on your dashboard.

8. Profitability by client 

Profitability by client measures how much each client contributes to your consultancy’s bottom line. It’s one of the most important project management KPIs. It measures all the revenue generated by individual accounts and the costs associated with their projects.

Example

Let’s compare the profitability of two clients. 

Client A has brought in $130,000 in total revenue from various projects this year. The costs, including labor, materials, and overhead, amounted to $95,000. This leaves you with a total profit of $35,000. And a profit margin of 26.9%. 

Client B seems impressive at first glance, with a higher total revenue of $140,000. However, with $117,000 in total costs, you only end up with a total profit of $23,000. And a 16.4% profit margin.

Despite generating less revenue, Client A was actually a more valuable client for your firm. 

Why it matters

Client profitability helps you identify your most valuable client relationships, guiding decisions about where to focus your resources and business development efforts. 

This insight can reveal surprising truths—like a smaller client being more profitable than your biggest account. This might prompt you to reassess your client engagement strategies. And adjust your service offerings or pricing.

How to track it

Add up all revenue from each client. Then, calculate the total costs (pass-through, labor, and overhead) associated with working with them. Subtract that number from your total revenue to get your profit. 

To calculate the client’s profit margin percentage, apply this formula:

Client Profit Margin (%)=(Revenue per Client/Profit per Client​ )×100

Scoro’s “Profitability by client” report shows you an overview of your clients and their respective income, costs, profit, and profit margin:

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9. Profitability by project

Project profitability measures how much each individual project contributes to your firm’s financial success. It considers the specific revenue and costs associated with each project.

Example

You can often find patterns when looking at the types of projects your firm has completed and their profitability.

Say you discover that your marketing projects consistently go over budget, eating into your profits. But your IT projects tend to be faster—and more profitable. 

These insights would dramatically shift your focus and strategy for future projects. Like boosting pricing for marketing projects. And concentrating on generating more IT leads and deals.

Why it matters

Understanding project profitability helps you identify which types of engagements are most lucrative for your firm. So you can decide:

• Which type of projects to take on
• How much to charge 
• How to allocate and prioritize resources

How to track it

For each project, calculate the total revenue and all associated costs. Subtract the costs from the revenue to get your profit. 

To determine the profit margin percentage, use this formula:

Project Profit Margin (%) = (Profit / Revenue) × 100

In Scoro, the “Profitability per project” report shows you each project’s income, costs, profit, and profit margin, allowing you to quickly identify your most profitable engagements. 

You can also check profitability (and more) anytime in the “Project” view in Scoro: 

10. Average Billable Rate (ABR) per project

Average Billable Rate (ABR) per project is the average amount of revenue your consulting firm brought in for each hour spent on a project. You calculate it by dividing the total project revenue by the number of hours worked.

Example

ABR reveals the true profitability of your projects—beyond revenue.

Let’s say your highest-revenue project this quarter was a cybersecurity initiative that brought in $100,000. Sounds great, right? 

But when you do some digging, you realize your consultants spent 1,000 hours on it. That means your ABR was only $100 per hour. 

In comparison, a smaller process optimization project generated $50,000 but only took 400 hours of consultant time. So, you had an ABR of $125 per hour. 

Suddenly, that “big” project doesn’t look quite as valuable. 

Why it matters

ABR provides a clear picture of your firm’s profitability at the project level. It factors in both revenue and time invested. This helps you identify which types of engagements are most lucrative—and where you might be losing money due to time-intensive work.

Essentially, measuring your ABR helps you to:

• Focus on more on true high-value projects and clients
• Optimize your service offerings
• Avoid scope creep on time-intensive engagements
• Price future projects more accurately 

How to track it

Take the total billable revenue for the project and divide it by how many hours your team spent on it. 

Average Billable Rate (ABR)= Hours Worked on Project/Total Billable Revenue

Or use Scoro to instantly view and analyze the ABR of your projects. 

Just open the “Project” view. Then, click “View” → “Data Columns →” “Average billable rate.” And you’ll see the ABR for each project:

11. Project cost overrun

Ever had that sinking feeling of realizing a project is costing way more than you planned? That’s what we’re talking about with project cost overruns. It measures how often and by how much your projects go over budget. 

Example

Let’s say your consulting firm did a growth marketing project for a tech startup. You quoted $50,000, but it ended up costing $55,000. That’s a $5,000 overrun. Or 10% over budget. Not terrible, but not great either.

Why it matters

When project costs overrun, it directly impacts your bottom line. It can also lead to uncomfortable conversations with clients about unexpected costs.

Looking at the cost overrun of your projects gives you a clear picture of where you might need to improve your cost estimations.

How to track it

Subtract the budgeted cost from the actual cost. Then, divide the difference by the budgeted cost and multiply by 100 to get the percentage overrun. 

Project Cost Overrun (%)=((Actual Cost – Budgeted Cost) / Budgeted Cost)×100

If you want to skip the math, though, just head to Scoro’s “Quoted vs. Actual” table. 

In each column, you’ll see your project’s current figures (black text) and planned estimates below it (gray text). This makes it easy to compare and spot any discrepancies.

For an overview of all your projects and their costs, navigate to the “Projects” module. Hit “View” → “Data columns.”

Then, check the columns you need. In this case, we added “Project profit,” “External cost,” “Gross income,” “Expenses,” and “Labor Cost.”  

Further reading: How to Create and Manage a Project Budget

Track and improve your consulting KPIs

By monitoring these KPIs for consulting services, you gain key insights into your firm’s health, productivity, and profitability.

And with Scoro’s all-in-one management platform, you can track and visualize these vital KPIs in real-time. And when these metrics are easily trackable, you can take concrete steps to improve them—well before your projects are finished.

Take Cosmonauts & Kings, a communications consultancy. After they switched to Scoro, they were able to increase their billable utilization and reduce overservicing.

Learn more about our consultancy management software and try Scoro for free today. 

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But meeting deadlines and goals without overloading team members isn’t always easy, especially when juggling multiple projects.

Follow these resource management best practices to create a clear, organized approach that supports your team and keeps clients happy.

1. Start planning your resources early

Don’t wait until the last minute to assess your team’s bandwidth for upcoming projects. Begin capacity planning as soon as possible. This means evaluating your team members’ schedules before committing to a new project.

Why it matters

Timely capacity planning sets the stage for project success. It gives you a clear picture of your team’s capacity, helping you avoid overbooking or underutilizing your staff. 

By identifying schedule conflicts and open time on people’s calendars in advance, you can make informed decisions about taking on new projects. 

This foresight helps you avoid overbooking, project delays, and frustrated employees and clients.

How to do it 

Scoro’s Utilization reports will give you a clear view of your team’s workload over the coming weeks, allowing you to forecast demand and capacity. 

You can instantly see who’s available (in green), and who’s overbooked (in red).

To zoom in on which projects they’re currently working on, hover over the utilized hours and you’ll see a breakdown similar to this:

This helps ensure you only take on projects if your team can work on them, setting your projects up for success from the start.

2. Prioritize high-ROI projects

Focus on projects that should deliver the best return on investment (ROI).

To maximize revenue, it can be tempting to take on every project that comes your way. But this often leads to spreading your team too thin, which can actually hurt your bottom line.

Instead, use project profitability to guide your prioritization. So your team can consistently invest most of their time and talent in projects that offer the best financial value to your company.

Why it matters

Prioritizing high-value projects helps you make the most of limited resources.

For instance, a software development firm might fast-track a major client’s app launch while pushing back smaller website updates. Trying to work on both simultaneously could quickly overstretch their team.

In the long run, trying to do too much at once has a negative effect on deliverable quality and morale, which in turn impacts client satisfaction and profitability.  

How to do it 

Scoro gives you clear insights into which projects have generated the highest margins for your business.

In the Project view, click “Filter,” “Status,” and then “Completed” to filter for completed projects. Add income, external cost, labor cost, and profit columns to the view. For more detailed insights, add the delivery margin and average billable rate agency metrics, too. 

Here, you can see that the retainer project for Client A was by far the most lucrative of the three completed projects: it delivered over $70K in profit, a delivery margin of 53%, and an average billable rate of $176. Based on these numbers, it would make sense to renew the retainer and make this client a high priority. 

For lower-performing clients, consider strategies to improve profitability. Such as renegotiating pricing, addressing any scope creep, or potentially phasing out less profitable tasks to focus on more valuable opportunities.

Further Reading: Expert Tips To Improve Project Profitability

3. Match skills to tasks

Matching each task with a team member who has the right skills and experience for the job is an essential part of resource planning. It’s like putting together a winning sports team: you want each player in the position where they’ll shine. 

Why it matters 

When people work on tasks that align with their strengths and skills, they’re more likely to produce high-quality work and do it efficiently. Which is good for employee engagement and productivity. 

It’s also important to provide opportunities for learning and growth. PwC research found that 72% of surveyed employees said they were “excited to learn and grow” in their role.

Almost half of them considered learning opportunities a key factor in their decision to stay with an employer or leave for another job.

So, instead of automatically bringing on a junior strategist to assist with a task, consider if an existing team member with relevant skills could take it on. This not only ensures high-quality work but also helps strengthen your team’s skills as a whole, which can reduce the need for external hiring and improve your bottom line. 

How to do it

Scoro makes skill matching easier with its role-based system. 

You just need to set up roles that reflect different talents within your team. For instance, you might have roles like “Junior Designer” or “Senior Consultant.”

Then, when you create a cost estimate, just pick the roles you need. As soon as it’s approved, Scoro automatically books tentative time slots across those roles to make sure people with the right skill sets are available to work on the project. 

You can find the tentative bookings for your project in the “Bookings” tab of each project.

Further Reading: Resource Planning: Turning Your Capacity Plan into Action

If you need to assign individual tasks manually, the role-based system makes it easy to see who has the right skills for the job. In the “Planner” tool.

Here, you can easily drag-and-drop tasks and assign them to users by dragging tasks from the left-hand side.

You can easily filter for the roles you need. Just exclude specific users, or select only the roles you need.

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4. Balance your team’s workloads

Try to distribute work evenly across your team. Avoid situations where some team members are overwhelmed with tasks while others are underutilized. 

When managing resources, the goal is to maintain a balanced workload that maximizes revenue-generating work without leading to burnout.

Why it matters 

Ensuring everyone has the right amount of work is crucial for project success and team well-being. 

When someone’s constantly overworked, they’re at risk of burnout—which can have serious consequences. 

According to a recent survey, workers who are burned out are three times more likely to be actively searching for another job.

This can lead to decreased productivity, lower-quality work, and employee turnover, with deadlines often being missed. 

On the other hand, team members who are underutilized can feel bored or undervalued, which can also impact their engagement and performance. 

How to do it

Introduce resource utilization benchmarks so you can easily spot who’s overbooked. And who has spare room in their schedules.

Utilization rates measure the time an employee spends on work activities (billable and non-billable) compared with their total available working hours. 

A good resource utilization benchmark to aim for is around 80 to 90% utilization. This means that team members are primarily focused on billable work. But still have a time buffer for unexpected tasks, breaks, learning, and admin work.

By regularly comparing your team’s utilization with standardized benchmarks, you can make quick adjustments and shift tasks where needed. This helps ensure everyone has a manageable workload while still being productive.

For example, below, you can see Amy and Kevin’s utilization rates are significantly above the ideal range. John, on the other hand, has a utilization rate below the 80% mark. Based on this, it would probably make sense to offload some of Amy or Kevin’s tasks to John. 

5. Break down projects into manageable chunks

Large projects can be overwhelming when viewed as a whole. That’s why it’s helpful to break them into smaller, more manageable tasks.

This approach, also known as a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), makes project planning and execution much easier.

Why it matters

Smaller, ordered tasks are much easier for team members to tackle than a high-level directive like “redesign the website.” And a WBS provides clear visibility into the project’s progress, helping you and your team to stay on track and on the same page. 

So, instead of assigning “redesign the website” as a single task, you’d break it down into smaller steps like “create wireframes,” “design homepage,” “design internal pages,” and so on. 

This level of detail makes it easier to plan due dates, assign team members appropriately, and identify potential bottlenecks before they become issues.

How to do it 

Scoro’s “task bundles” feature is perfect for quickly breaking down projects into different components. 

Create groups of related tasks that usually happen together in certain projects. 

For instance, if your team frequently works on website redesigns, you might have a task bundle that includes all the usual tasks involved, from auditing the current website to coding and launching.

From here, you can adjust tasks as needed for each specific project. 

This approach ensures consistency across projects, saves time in project setup, and helps ensure no important steps are overlooked.

6. Set realistic deadlines

Setting achievable deadlines is crucial for project success. Rather than arbitrarily creating project timelines based on what you think will work, consider these key factors:

• Task dependencies
• Resource availability
• Resource experience
• Potential risks

Let’s say your team is working on a website redesign project. 

To set a realistic deadline for the design phase, you’d need to account for client feedback rounds (task dependency), your designer’s current workload (resource availability), the designer’s experience with similar projects (resource experience), and the possibility of sickness or days off (potential risk). 

Based on these factors, you might determine that two weeks is an appropriate timeline for the design phase.

Why it matters

If you just guessed one week for the design phase without considering the previous factors, you’d likely encounter significant issues—like rushed work, stressed team members, and disappointed clients. 

By seriously considering your team’s deadlines before you start, you can ensure they have enough time to deliver high-quality work and still handle any delays that come up, such as complicated tasks or unexpected absences.

In contrast, unrealistic deadlines often increase stress, team burnout, and decreased work quality. This can lead to clients jumping ship—and decreased revenue.

How to do it

Scoro’s “Project timeline” view makes it simple to set and manage realistic deadlines. It gives you a unified timeline of all your projects so you can see their durations and progress at a glance. 

Within this view, you can see instantly which tasks are done (blue), to-do (yellow), or overdue (red).

It looks like this:

Ser realistic project timelines with Scoro

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7. Track progress regularly

Regular task monitoring means you can identify issues or delays early, giving you the opportunity to address them before they derail your project. And affect employee morale and productivity. 

Why it matters 

When you consistently review the status of tasks and deliverables, you can:

• Identify bottlenecks before they derail timelines
• Spot areas where additional support might be needed, including outsourcing
• Keep stakeholders informed with up-to-date progress reports
• Maintain team motivation by celebrating small and big wins (such as completing a project milestone, receiving positive client feedback, or solving a complex problem)

How to do it

Use Scoro’s Gantt chart for an overview of how your project progresses compared to your planned schedule.

Take the fixed-fee project below, which has several tasks and dependencies.

The preparation phase, which includes research and strategy creation, will happen first. Then, design and copywriting will take place during the delivery phase.

As employees log time for each separate task, a progress bar will appear and update in real-time, showing how much work has been completed and how much is left. 

You can also hover over the project and tasks to see the time breakdown. In this instance, 30 hours were estimated for the research task, but it went 5 hours over.

If you spot a task with a red progress line, it’s a heads-up that things aren’t going quite as planned. It could mean the task is in danger of missing its deadline, or maybe it’s just taking longer than expected.

This could be because your team needs a little extra help or they’re stuck waiting for something from the client.

Either way, the red line is your cue to look closer. By figuring out what’s causing the delay, you can make the right call to get the project back on schedule.

8. Manage scheduling conflicts collaboratively

Resource scheduling can be tricky, especially when your team is juggling multiple projects for different clients. Communicate early on to avoid conflicts that cause last-minute reassignments and frustration—from both your team and clients.

Why it matters 

Discussing project priorities and finding scheduling solutions together helps foster a stronger sense of teamwork. When team members are involved in the decision-making process, they’re more likely to feel heard and valued. 

However, making decisions without consulting your team can lead to resentment. As Forbes Advisor notes, over 40% of surveyed workers claim that “poor communication reduces trust both in leadership and in their team.”

Say you might need a team member to complete a last-minute task for a high-priority client. Instead of just assigning it to them, have a conversation first to walk through it and address any concerns they might have. Like if they need some admin work shifted off their plate to concentrate on the new assignment.

It’s a win-win situation—your team member feels their needs were considered and addressed, and the critical work still gets done.

How to do it

Trying to manage team schedules manually is difficult. Just take it from the marketing agency
,Aava & Bang, who once resorted to using a white sheet on a wall to evaluate team bandwidth before switching to Scoro.

Skip the sheet (or multiple calendars) and use Scoro’s “Planner” to assign tasks and clearly see who’s available and when.  

It lets you easily drag and drop tasks from the left-hand side to whoever has the bandwidth.

Let’s say you need to assign a new design task. But you see that John, your go-to designer, is already fully booked on Monday. 

With the Planner’s clear visual layout, you can easily work with John to find alternate solutions. 

You could look for another designer that’s available. Or John could identify lower-priority tasks that could be rescheduled to make room for the new task on his calendar.

9. Minimize context switching

Context switching—the practice of frequently switching between different tasks or projects—can negatively impact your team’s productivity and work quality. While it might seem efficient to multitask, constantly shifting focus can lead to decreased efficiency and increased errors.

Why it matters 

Every time your team members have to stop and pivot to a different task, they need time to shift their focus and get back into the flow of the new task. 

For instance, a developer who switches between coding, attending meetings, and responding to emails throughout the day may find it hard to maintain the deep focus needed for complex programming tasks—which should be their priority.

This is a widespread issue. According to a TechSmith survey, 50% of employees reporting the number of emails, meetings, and messages they receive during a typical workday negatively impacts their productivity. 

How to do it 

Scoro’s Planner helps minimize context switching. 

When assigning tasks, use the left-hand side of the Planner to check the type of work each task involves. This allows you to group similar tasks together, reducing the need for context-switching.

For instance, let’s say you’re managing a translation project. Reviewing the tasks, you notice three similar assignments: translating blog articles, the homepage, and product pages. So, you use the “Planner” to group them together and assign them all to John.

So, John can work on similar tasks over several days. This helps him stay in the translation “zone,” leveraging similar tools and thought processes across his tasks. This is more efficient than scattering the tasks throughout the week or assigning them to different team members.

10. Continuously learn and improve

Resource management isn’t something you can perfect once and then forget about. It’s important to review your projects regularly and look for ways to strengthen future ones. 

By learning from each project and continuously tweaking your approaches, you can help your team work more efficiently and achieve better, more profitable results over time. 

Why it matters

Analyzing your project data helps you identify patterns, address recurring issues, and objectively determine what you need to replicate successes across projects. 

This ongoing refinement leads to more accurate project estimates, more thoughtful team assignments, and stronger productivity.

Let’s say you notice your web development projects consistently run over budget. You discover that the testing phase often takes longer than you planned for.

Knowing this, you can adjust your timeframe or resource plan for future projects. Perhaps you should give more time for testing or bring in additional QA resources to speed things up. 

This kind of data-driven application not only leads to more accurate project estimates but also results in higher quality deliverables and happier teams, as they aren’t constantly scrambling to meet unrealistic deadlines. 

How to do it

Effective resource management relies on accurate, real-time data. With a library of 47 ready-to-go reports, Scoro lets you collect and analyze key metrics with a few clicks.

For example, let’s look at the “Detailed Work Report.” 

Here, you get an overview of how your team’s time is spent across tasks and projects. This allows you to quickly identify areas for improvement, such as tasks that consistently take longer than expected or team members who might need additional support or training in certain areas.

11. Use resource management tools

Resource management software helps you oversee and optimize your team’s time, skills, and budget across projects. These tools bring all your resource information into one place, automate repetitive tasks, and provide valuable insights to guide your staffing decisions.

Why it matters

Resource management tools can significantly improve your team’s efficiency and keep projects on track.

Take Significans Automation, for example. After implementing Scoro, the professional services company saw their team efficiency and collaboration improve by 70%. The real-time overview of projects helped them be more proactive and deliver faster results for clients. 

How to do it

Instead of relying on spreadsheets and whiteboards, try Scoro for 14 days free of charge. No credit card is required.

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A utilization report tells you how your employees are spending their work time. It shows how much time they spend on tasks, projects, and other activities, differentiating between billable (revenue-generating) and non-billable (internal, administrative) work. 

Utilization reports help calculate key metrics like:

• Billable utilization rate: The percentage of total working hours spent on billable activities, indicating how effectively a team generates revenue. 
• Resource utilization rate: The percentage of total working hours spent on all activities (billable and non-billable), revealing a team or individual’s overall capacity and workload.

Let’s say you have a designer on your team who works eight hours daily. If they spend six hours on billable client projects and 1 hour in internal meetings, their daily billable utilization rate would be 75% (6 / 8 x 100). 

However, their resource utilization rate (which accounts for both billable and non-billable work) would be 87.5% ((6 + 1) / 8 x 100)

Here’s an example of what a basic utilization report might look like for an eight-hour working day, building on our designer example:

Different types of utilization reports

There are two main types of resource utilization reports: employee utilization and role-based utilization. 

Employee resource utilization report

An employee utilization report focuses on individual employees’ work patterns. It reveals how much of their time is spent on tasks, projects, and other activities, categorized as billable or non-billable. 

An employee utilization report provides many valuable insights. It can help you to:

• See who is overworked and take action to support them, like rebalancing workloads
• Spot who is available to take on more work so you can take on new projects and optimize resource allocation
• Track employee productivity and efficiency, which can inform performance evaluations, training needs, and workload adjustments
• Forecast capacity, so you can plan how much work your team can take on before committing to projects 
• Support invoicing and billing processes by tracking billable hours for clients and projects

Using a professional services project management tool like Scoro, you can monitor your employee’s utilization.

To access the report, click the “Reports” module. Within the “Reports” module, you’ll find a list of various reports. Select the “Utilization report” option.

The report includes the following information:

• Utilization of selected people: Displays the total hours each team member has worked, broken down into categories such as done, scheduled, unscheduled, and available hours.
• Daily, Weekly, and Monthly View: The report allows you to switch between days, weeks, and months.
• Individual Team Member Utilization: Each member’s utilization shows their total hours worked and the percentage of their capacity utilized weekly.
• Totals: The report summarizes the total hours worked by all team members each week.

Hover over the utilized hours for a detailed breakdown of time spent on each project. This quick view helps you understand your team’s workload and priorities.

Further Reading: Utilization Report In Scoro

Role-based resource utilization report

A role-based utilization report provides insights into the utilization rates of different job roles or functional groups within an organization. It shows you the utilization hours for copywriters, designers, developers, and other roles over a given time period. 

Sometimes, a role-based utilization report might be more appropriate for your needs. It can help you to:

• Analyze resource allocation and workload distribution across different roles or departments
• Identify roles that may be overloaded or underutilized so you can track capacity and rebalance resources where needed 
• Assess staffing needs and prioritize hiring efforts
• Understand how much budget various departments and roles need

In Scoro, you can easily generate a role-based utilization report using the “Role” filter in the “Utilization report.”

For example, let’s say you have an in-house Designer called John and want to check his utilization for the upcoming weeks.

Apply the “Role” filter by “Designer” (or the relevant title). The report will show his planned workload and utilization percentage for future weeks.

In the example below, we can see in week 45, his utilization exceeded 100%, reaching 103%.

This means John is scheduled to work 3% more than his standard available hours. This could be due to a special project, catching up on previous tasks, or overtime. It’s important to monitor this to prevent burnout.

Proactive steps you could take here include:

• Talk to John: Talk with John to understand the context of his workload in week 45. Find out if the additional hours are manageable or if there are any concerns.
• Re-evaluate Deadlines: If the overutilization is due to a project deadline, explore if there’s flexibility to adjust the timeline.
• Redistribute Tasks: Consider delegating some of John’s tasks to other team members to even out the workload.
• Offer Support: Let John know you can support him during this busy period. Encourage him to take breaks and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
• Hire Another Designer: If John’s overutilization becomes a consistent pattern, it’s definitely a sign that you might need to consider hiring another designer.

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Billable utilization report

A billable utilization report zeroes in on the percentage of time employees spend on billable work. It provides a clear picture of how much revenue is generated by the team’s efforts. 

This report is crucial for understanding profitability and financial performance. And it can help you answer questions such as:

• What is the team or company’s overall billable utilization rate?
• Which employees or roles have the highest and lowest billable utilization rates?
• Are there any trends or patterns in billable utilization over time?
• Which projects or clients are most profitable based on billable utilization?
• Are there any opportunities to increase billable utilization and revenue?

Scoro’s “Utilization report” gives you easy access to billable utilization data. 

While it defaults to showing resource utilization (including billable and non-billable hours), you can easily filter the report to focus solely on billable utilization.

Click the “View options” button located within the report interface.

In the drop-down menu next to “Activity types,” choose “Billable / client work.” This will automatically select all activity types classified as billable in your Scoro settings.

Click the “Filter” button to apply the selected filter.

The “Utilization report” will show your employee’s billable utilization for the selected period.

It will be lower than resource utilization as it doesn’t include non-billable work. But, focusing on billable utilization helps you understand how much of your team’s time directly contributes to revenue generation.

The billable utilization report can help you make informed decisions about resource allocation, project planning, and pricing strategies.

For example, the report below shows that Amy only had a 5% billable utilization in Week 40.

Here are a few actions you might take:

• Talk to Amy: Talk with Amy to understand what she worked on during Week 40 and get her perspective on the low billable utilization.
• Review Time Entries: Look at Amy’s detailed time entries for Week 40 to see exactly how her time was allocated.

And here’s how you might address the root cause:

• Onboarding/Training: If it’s a training issue, provide additional resources or mentorship to help Amy ramp up quickly.
• Internal Projects: If internal work takes up significant time, see if those tasks can be reassigned or postponed.
• Lack of Billable Work: If there are no suitable projects, explore whether Amy’s skills could be leveraged on other projects or if she could take on additional training to expand her skill set.
• Skill Mismatch: If a skill mismatch is an issue, consider adjusting project assignments or providing training to better align Amy’s skills with client needs.

How to create an employee utilization report 

Creating an employee utilization report requires careful planning and implementation to ensure accurate and valuable insights. 

Here’s a step-by-step guide:

1. Establish clear work schedules: Use a scheduling tool to define each team member’s working hours, days off, and daily task capacity. This provides a foundational reference for your utilization calculations.
2. Categorize billable vs. non-billable work: Create distinct categories for tasks and projects that generate client revenue (billable) and those that are for internal operations or administration (non-billable). This ensures accurate reporting and analysis.
3. Plan and assign work strategically: Utilize project management software to outline project timelines, allocate the right resources to each task, and assign responsibilities to team members. This promotes balanced workloads and maximizes efficiency.
4. Implement time tracking: Encourage your team to consistently log their time spent on each task or project using the time-tracking tools available in your software. This data is essential for accurate utilization reports.
5. Analyze and act on utilization data: Examine individual and team utilization rates to identify patterns, underutilized capacity, or overloaded team members. Use these insights to adjust resource allocation and optimize productivity and revenue.

Further Reading: We’ve detailed this process in our Employee Resource Utilization 101: Your Ultimate Guide.

Harness the power of utilization reports with Scoro

Utilization reports are a powerful tool for managing and optimizing your team’s time.

When you understand how much of your team’s time is scheduled, available, and utilized, you can make smarter decisions about project resources and timelines, which leads to higher employee satisfaction and better project result

Scoro provides deep insights into how your team spends their time. Start your free trial now to get your utilization report in just a few clicks.

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Employee resource utilization measures the capacity and efficiency of your workforce by comparing the time spent on all work activities (billable and non-billable) to their total available working hours. 

It’s usually expressed as a percentage, showing the ratio of time spent working hours to the total available working hours.

The formula to calculate employee resource utilization is: (total hours spent on work activities / total available working hours) x 100.

Take a web developer who works eight hours a day. If they spend six hours coding for clients and one hour in a meeting, their resource utilization rate would be 87.5% (7 / 8 x 100). 

This 87.5% utilization rate shows that the developer spends most of their time on work activities. The remaining 12.5% could be attributed to non-billable activities or unused time, such as breaks or time spent waiting for tasks.

Resource utilization vs. billable utilization

Both metrics are crucial for effective workforce management and business success.

However, resource utilization provides a holistic view of how your team’s time is allocated, while billable utilization zooms in on revenue-generating activities. 

For example, consider a marketing agency:

• Resource utilization: Tracks the total time employees spend on all tasks, including client projects, internal meetings, training, and administrative work. This helps identify bottlenecks, uncover inefficiencies, and ensure teams aren’t overworked.
• Billable utilization: Tracks the time employees spend on client projects that can be billed. This metric is crucial for understanding profitability and ensuring enough billable work to cover costs and generate profit.

 Further Reading: Billable Utilization 101: Your Ultimate Guide

Benefits of tracking resource utilization

Even small shifts in resource utilization make a big financial impact because it reflects your team’s overall productivity.

By tracking resource utilization, you gain insights into:

• Hiring decisions: High utilization rates may indicate the need for more staff, while low rates may suggest the potential for downsizing or reassigning tasks.
• Sales pipeline: Understanding team capacity helps the sales team make informed decisions about taking on new clients and projects.
• Workload expectations: It helps set realistic employee goals and expectations, preventing burnout and disengagement.
• Overbooking prevention: You can avoid overworking employees and ensure a balanced workload, which promotes job satisfaction and productivity.

Further Reading: Check out how consultancy Bombs Away improved time management by 100% and successfully eliminated overtime by tracking employee utilization.

What’s a good utilization benchmark?

While a “good” resource utilization rate varies across industries and roles, you want to aim between 80% and 90%. This means employees spend most of their time on work-related activities, including billable and non-billable tasks.

Striving for 100% utilization is unsustainable and can lead to burnout. Aim for a resource utilization rate that maximizes productivity while allowing for breaks, training, and other essential activities.

However, you may benefit more from benchmarking billable utilization rates, as this metric correlates with revenue generation.

Parakeeto CEO Marcel Petitpas recommends aiming for the following billable utilization rates:

• 75% for pure producers like developers, copywriters, and designers: This high rate reflects the hours these employees directly spend on work for clients
• Above 35% for delivery managers, account managers, and project managers: This lower rate reflects their role in overseeing project operations rather than direct client work
• Above 0% for support roles like admins and sales: Any utilization above zero is generally seen as a bonus for these roles since they indirectly support revenue-generating activities

Across the organization, a healthy baseline is around 65% utilization. This factors in both billable and non-billable roles. And time off for things like sick days, vacations, and holidays.

How to start tracking employee resource utilization

The easiest way to track employee resource utilization is with an automated work management platform. 

Why?

Because it’s much faster than trying to do it manually with spreadsheets. And leaves less room for calculation errors and oversights.

Here’s how to do it with Scoro: 

1. Set your team’s availability

First, you’ll need to define each team member’s capacity based on their working hours. This usually means a standard eight-hour workday, five days per week, but it can vary if you have part-time staff or a four-day week. 

Defining everyone’s working hours makes it easier to accurately plan how much work each team member can handle monthly or weekly. 

Scoro automatically creates a schedule for each team member based on a standard availability of eight hours a day, five days a week. 

But if some team members have different working hours, it’s easy to change them. 

Go to “Settings.” Then, under “Work and Projects,” click “Availability.”

Next, click “+ New” to set your team’s availability.

You can then set your employees’ working hours, which are reflected in project planning, data tracking, and utilization reporting features. 

Let’s say Amy doesn’t work on Fridays. And Kiran only works 20 hours per week. Make those adjustments and hit “Save” at the bottom of the page.

You can also create different schedules for different time periods. 

Say your team has different working hours over the summer. In the “Modify” view, uncheck the “Indefinite” box and add the relevant dates. Then, hit “Save.”  

Further Reading: Setting Team Availability In Scoro

2. Define billable and non-billable tasks

Clearly categorize tasks as billable (client-facing, revenue-generating) or non-billable (internal meetings, training, admin). This is crucial for accurate resource and billable utilization tracking and reporting.

In Scoro, you can do this by defining “Activity types.”

Navigate back to “Settings” -> “Work and Projects” -> “Activity Types”.

Click “Create group” to add your new category.

Then, organize your activity types into logical groups (e.g., “Billable/Client Work” and “Non-Billable/Internal Work”).

Within each group, create specific activity types for common tasks. For example, consultation, copywriting, design, and strategy for billable work. And admin, internal meetings, sales meetings, etc, for non-billable work.

In Scoro, you can also link each activity type to a corresponding service for better progress tracking and streamlined invoicing.

Further Reading: Activity Types In Scoro

3. Plan and assign work to your team 

Now that you’ve defined your team’s availability and established what’s billable and non-billable, it’s time to start planning and distributing projects and tasks based on each project’s scope. 

Focus on allocating work based on their capacity, unique skills, and labor rates to optimize your team’s workload and the company’s profits. 

Head to Scoro’s “Planner” tab to start assigning tasks. And keep track of everyone’s workload. 

On the left, you’ll see a panel with all the tasks waiting to be completed. On the right, you’ll see your team’s schedules. 

Consider using the “User tags” filter to find team members with specific attributes and skills that best fit each task.

After you’ve confirmed their availability, drag and drop the task to the relevant team member. 

For example, you might assign the “Copywriting” task to Amy. But if Amy’s workload is already high (e.g., her utilization rate is 86%), it’s best to choose someone with more availability.

Further Reading: Planning Your Team’s Workload In Scoro

4. Get your team to track time

Once you’ve assigned projects and tasks, your team members need to track their time on each task—including billable and non-billable activities.

This step is essential for accurately measuring employee utilization rates and understanding which activities take up the most (and least) time.  

Scoro gives users three options for tracking billable and non-billable work, each designed to fit different working styles and preferences:

• Real-time tracking: Team members start a timer when they begin a task and stop it when they finish. This method is ideal for those who want to capture time as they go without forgetting the details later.
• Retrospective tracking: This method lets team members log their time later at their convenience. It’s perfect for those who prefer to log their hours at the end of the day or after completing a task. 
• Automatic tracking: Scoro automatically records time booked on a team member’s calendar for scheduled tasks and activities

As an example, here’s how easy it is to use the timer:  

Go to the “Tasks” module, then click “Task board.” Each task should have an ellipsis (…) icon (three dots) indicating a menu of options. Click on this icon and click “Start time tracker.”

The timer is running at the top. To temporarily stop tracking time for this task, click the pause icon.

When you’ve finished that chunk of work, click the check icon (usually a checkmark or tick) to stop the timer and mark the time entry as done.

The next time you use the timer, you’ll see all the tasks you’ve previously tracked. 

Further Reading: Tracking Time In Scoro

5. Monitor and analyze time-tracking data

The final step is to monitor and analyze the data collected through time tracking. Pay special attention to the utilization rate to identify team members who are overworked or under-utilized. And make the necessary adjustments to rebalance their workloads. 

Regularly reviewing this information helps you understand if you’re using resources effectively and where you can make improvements, such as reallocating resources or asking sales to focus on work in certain areas where team members have greater capacity.

Scoro’s “Utilization report” provides a comprehensive overview of your team’s billable and non-billable hours, utilization rate, and a future capacity forecast based on upcoming tasks.

You can find it by clicking on the “Reports” module and then on the “Utilization report.” By default, it shows utilization rates based on scheduled project tasks and time entries.

For example, you can see Amy is scheduled for more hours than she’s available across weeks 31-34. Putting her utilization well over 100%. So, you might reallocate some of her work to other team members with fewer hours planned for those weeks. 

If your team has a high utilization rate for the upcoming period, you might need to consider outsourcing some work to freelancers or adjusting your project timelines. 

To analyze how employee utilization has changed over time, click the dates filter and select the time frame you’re interested in, like the last 30 days. You can also opt to see daily, weekly, or monthly data. 

This historical data lets you spot trends and patterns, like periods when your team was particularly busy. Or times when they had fewer projects to work on. This helps you make smart decisions about staffing needs and capacity.

Further Reading: How To Read Your Employee Utilization Report In Scoro

Track employee utilization and more with Scoro

Employee utilization is important— but it’s just one piece of the full productivity and profitability picture. 

With real-time data reporting and customizable dashboards, Scoro makes it easy to see the full picture in one spot. Monitor, analyze, and act on key KPIs connected to clients, projects, tasks, and finances.

Learn how Scoro helped agency Aava & Bang improve their team’s work-life balance, optimize resource allocation, and spend their time more effectively.

And see for yourself by signing up for your own free trial—no credit card required.

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Let’s explore the importance of KPIs and our top 9 project KPIs to monitor to boost your profits.

What is a KPI in project management?

KPIs are quantifiable metrics used to measure progress toward specific business goals. In project management, KPIs are used in relation to the famous Iron Triangle: balancing your project budget and costs, your schedule, and your scope.

Project management KPIs give you concrete insight into what is (and isn’t) working with your projects. And help you catch problems before they derail the project—and your company’s profits.

They’re also helpful for determining historical trends, showing you where to improve project lifecycles moving forward. 

Top 9 project management KPIs for profitable projects

Let’s unpack the most important project management KPIs that help you track budget, costs, and scope. And set you up for success.

1. Budgeted vs. actual cost

Budgeted vs. actual cost looks at the difference between what you planned to spend on a project and what you actually spent. 

This project performance indicator tells you how accurate your financial forecasts were. And how on-point your project spending has been. 

Example

Say your team is working on a marketing campaign for a client. The project is expected to take six weeks and cost $10,000 (budgeted cost). After two weeks, you notice you’ve already spent $6,000 on labor costs alone (actual cost). If this trend continues, you’ll go over budget. 

This is a red flag that something is way off—whether scope creep or a resource allocation issue.

Why it matters

Monitoring budgeted vs. actual cost is key for supporting your organization’s bottom line. If a project costs more than you planned, that’s going to eat away at your profit margin.

Project managers may face increased scrutiny when projects consistently exceed their budgets, leading to stress and a higher workload. This financial mismanagement also strains team morale and undermines client trust, jeopardizing long-term business relationships.

Tracking this KPI allows you to make corrections before your company loses money on the project. It can also help you set more accurate cost estimates in the future. 

How to track it

Compare your planned budget with your actual costs using Scoro’s “Quoted vs. Actual” table for each project.

You can find it by clicking on any project and then navigating to the “Budget” tab, followed by the “Quoted vs. Actual” tab.

The “Quoted vs. Actual” table displays each service’s scope, progress, revenue, cost, and profit-related data. 

For each service line, you’ll see two rows of data:

• The bottom row (in gray) shows the estimated values from the quote
• The upper row (in black) shows the actual current results

If the actual value exceeds the quoted value, it will be highlighted in red for easier tracking.

Pay special attention to the “Cost vs Quoted” column. This column includes all your labor costs, bills, and expenses. If your number exceeds your planned costs, look in the other columns to see where the excess spending comes from.

Further Reading: Project Cost Tracking: A Beginner’s Guide

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2. Budgeted vs. actual time

Budgeted vs. actual time is a project management KPI that compares the time a project or task was supposed to take with the time it actually took. 

Example

Say you’ve agreed to design a website for a client and estimated it would take about 50 hours. As you get into the project, unexpected technical issues push your team’s working hours up to 60. 

That’s 10 extra hours of work that will reduce your profit margin. And could delay your project timeline. 

Why it matters

Whether your team bills hourly or uses a fixed pricing structure, tracking billable utilization is crucial. 

You need to ensure you’re spending the expected amount of time on the project. 

If you spend too much time on projects, they will be less profitable. If your team consistently misses deadlines and takes too much time to complete tasks, clients might complain, demand a discount, or churn completely, ultimately impacting your profits.

On the flip side, if you expect a project to take longer, you could be missing out on opportunities to take on more work, which means you’re leaving money on the table. 

So, your initial estimate needs to be as accurate as possible. 

How to track it

Scoro’s “Gantt” chart view can show how long each project task was supposed to take (in hours) and how long it took your team. 

Head to the “Projects” module, click on any project, and navigate to “Tasks” and then “Gantt” to see a Gantt chart displaying your tasks and project timeline. 

The task progress bar visually indicates how the task is progressing against the planned time. The progress line turns red once you exceed the planned hours. Hover over the task name to quickly see the exact breakdown of estimated time vs. done time vs. overtime so far.

If you notice your team is spending too much time on particular projects or tasks, you can talk to your team to find out why this is happening. This will help you out when it comes to scoping, planning, and allocating resources for future projects. 

Further Reading: Gantt Chart in Scoro 

3. Delivery costs (labor and pass-through costs)

The Delivery Costs KPI refers to all expenses incurred while working on a project, including staff salaries, materials, and any other expenses related to project delivery.

These costs can be broken down into two main categories: labor and pass-through.

Labor costs refer to the salaries and wages of your team members who work directly on the project. This includes the time spent by developers, designers, project managers, and other staff members dedicated to delivering the project.

Pass-through costs encompass all other expenses related to the project, such as materials, equipment, software licenses, travel expenses, subcontractor fees, shipping, and licensing. These costs are typically billed directly to the client without any markup.

Example

Imagine your team is launching a new website for a client.

You travel to their office to discuss the project. Then, your developer and graphic designer work with a freelance copywriter to create the new website.

By tracking all project costs, such as travel (pass-through), staffing (labor), and external support (pass-through), you won’t unexpectedly reduce your project profits. The more historical data you get on delivery costs, the easier it is to price projects to ensure healthy profit margins.

Why it matters

Delivery costs are essentially the total cost of a project—which directly impacts profitability. 

If your delivery costs are higher than expected, you should find ways to reduce costs, charge more, or focus on different types of projects that are more financially viable. So you can strike the right balance between revenue and costs to maintain healthy profit margins. 

How to track it

Use Scoro to keep track of all your labor and pass-through costs (bills and expenses) in one place.

First, input the hourly labor costs for each team member by clicking “Settings.” in the top right-hand corner, followed by “Labor cost.” 

You can enter a default hourly rate for your team, by role, or by individual team member.

To calculate a full-time employee’s hourly labor cost, add up their:

• Annual salary
• Training costs
• Equipment costs

Then, divide by 2,080 (40 hours a week x 52 weeks).

For contractors, multiply their hourly rate by their expected hours.

After you enter your team members’ hourly rates, Scoro will automatically calculate their labor costs based on the time they track on project tasks. 

You can easily find the labor costs for a project by looking at the “Quoted vs Actual” table, which will break the labor costs down into phases/tasks.

For pass-through costs, you can either:

1. Use Scoro’s integrations with Expensify and accounting software like Quickbooks to automatically pull invoices and expenses into the platform 
2. Enter project bills and expenses individually in Scoro with the “New bill” and “New expense” buttons, which you can find by clicking on the “+” symbol in your site menu.

After logging bills and expenses, Scoro will automatically display the total amount in the “Quoted vs Actual” table in the “Cost” column.

4. Delivery (profit) margin

Your delivery margin, or profit margin, is a key project KPI. It measures the difference between what you charged the client and what it costs to deliver that work. 

It’s usually expressed as a percentage of the total project revenue, and the formula looks like this:

Delivery Profit Margin % = ((Gross Revenue – Delivery Costs) / Gross Revenue) x 100

Where:

• Gross Revenue = Total Revenue – Pass-Through Costs 
• Delivery Costs = Internal labor costs (payroll)

A healthy delivery margin is usually between 55% and 75%. Many shoot for 60% or even 70%. The higher the delivery margin, the more profitable the project. If it is lower, it threatens the profitability of your entire business, making it difficult to remain in operation.

Example

Say you charged a client $10,000 for a project, and your delivery costs were $6,000 ( $5,000 in labor costs and $1,000 in bills and expenses). 

Your delivery margin would be 40% (($10,000 – $6,000) / $10,000), which is lower than 50%. If this happens often, it will negatively impact the profitability of the entire business. In this case, you would need to either reduce your costs, increase project revenue, or both. 

Further Reading: Calculating Agency Margins: A Beginner’s Guide

Why it matters

Staying on top of your delivery margins helps you prioritize projects that bring in more money for the business and take action to minimize your losses on underperforming projects. 

How to track it

Add the delivery margin metric in the “Project list” view in Scoro.

Just click “View” and then “Data columns.” Select “Project profit” and “Delivery margin” from the drop-down menu and hit “Display.”

You’ll then see the delivery margin for each project. So you can see which projects are helping (or hurting) your bottom line.

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5. Average billable rate

Your average billable rate (ABR) is the amount you charge clients for each hour of work. 

Tracking your ABR can help you identify which services and project types bring in the most revenue relative to the time your team is investing. 

To calculate it, divide your billable revenue by the number of hours. 

Like this: 

ABR = Gross income / Total hours to deliver the project 

Where:

Gross income = Project revenue – pass-through costs (bills and expenses)

Example

Imagine your business’s average billable rate (ABR) is $150 per hour. You analyze the ABR for two projects:

At first glance, Project X would seem more lucrative based on its gross income alone. However, Project Y yields a better return on investment (ROI) per hour worked. 

Based on your ABRs, you might consider prioritizing or seeking more projects like Project Y that are more efficient in terms of time-to-revenue ratio. You could also review the operational aspects of Project X to streamline future processes. Or adjust project pricing to better account for the labor investment.

Why it matters

Tracking your ABR helps you understand which clients and projects bring in the most money in the most efficient time. This helps you decide which projects to focus on—and spot areas for improvement. 

A low ABR is a sign to review that account to identify potential bottlenecks slowing things down.

For example, does the client require more revisions than most? Do you need more team members with niche expertise on their projects? 

Identify the factors that make a project more (or less) profitable. Use those insights to inform decisions about taking on certain projects and clients that are actually worth your team’s time.

How to track it

To track your ABR, open the “Project list” list view in Scoro. Then, click “View” and then “Data columns.” Select “Average billable rate” and hit “Display.” 

You’ll see the ABR for each project. The top number (black) shows your current billable rate based on completed work. The number underneath (grey) shows your expected billable rate based on what was planned.  

By comparing the current and expected billable rates, you can quickly assess whether each project is on track to meet its expected profitability.

Top Tip: You can use the filter button to select “Status: Completed” for completed projects or “Status: In Progress” for ongoing projects. This allows you to focus on specific subsets of projects based on their completion status.

6. Overdue tasks 

Keeping an eye on overdue tasks shows which project activities missed their deadlines. This gives you insight into the effectiveness of your project planning. And find patterns in any roadblocks that cause project delays. 

Example

Let’s say you’re managing a social media campaign for a client. 

Your team needs to prepare graphics and copy and publish the posts. You notice that both the graphics and copy tasks are overdue. If you spot the issue quickly, you can check in with the team to identify the hold-up, address it, and communicate with the client. 

Why it matters

Tracking overdue tasks while a project runs and after it has concluded is helpful. 

Analyzing which tasks frequently miss deadlines can highlight inefficiencies or bottlenecks in your project workflows. 

You might spot recurring patterns or common factors that lead to delays. Understanding these patterns allows for better planning and resource allocation in future projects, whether it’s certain types of tasks, specific teams, or times of the year.

How to track it

In Scoro, open any project. In the summary bar, you’ll see the total number of overdue tasks (1) and the list of tasks with how many days they’re overdue (2).

For a deeper dive, head to the “Tasks” module and click the “Task list” tab. Then, select “Statuses” from the “Grouped by” drop-down menu to get an overview of all project tasks by status.

7. Time usage by all projects

Tracking the total hours logged by your team across different projects helps you avoid underutilization and overutilization issues and makes better scoping, scheduling, and staffing choices for future projects.

Example

Let’s say your team has been working on three projects over the month. You notice Project A has consumed 70% of the total hours logged while only accounting for 30% of the project revenue.  

This suggests that Project A is taking up more resources than it should. So, you will probably need to make some adjustments to get back on track, like identifying the issue, aligning expectations, and ensuring the right people are working on the project. 

Why it matters

Tracking time usage tells you much about whether you are scoping projects and allocating resources efficiently. 

If a project takes way longer than expected, you may need to reassess the scope, redistribute tasks, or adjust processes. Otherwise, a tricky project can become a “time suck” that detracts from overall productivity and profitability. 

How to track it

Scoro’s “Detailed work report” shows how long each project was supposed to take (in hours) and how long it actually took your team. 

You can find it by clicking on the “Reports” module and then on “Detailed report” within the “Work” section. 

To see a breakdown of projects and tasks, select “Projects” in the first “Grouped by” drop-down menu, followed by “Tasks/events” in the second “Grouped by” drop-down menu.

You’ll then see all of your projects showing “Planned” and “Duration” columns to show you how much time has been spent on all tasks within each project.

8. Profitability by projects

Looking at your project profits and losses can help you make informed decisions about which projects to take on and which to pass on.

This metric provides a clear picture of each project’s financial contribution to the business by calculating the project profit after accounting for all direct project revenues and costs (labor and pass-through costs).

Example

Imagine your project generated $10,000 in revenue. After accounting for all associated direct costs, including materials (pass-through costs) and labor, the total expenses amounted to $6,000. This leaves you with a net profit of $4,000.

Why it matters

Profitability by project helps you identify which projects are the true “money makers.” While projects that bring in tons of revenue might initially seem lucrative, you need to factor in your direct costs to determine whether they’re actually worth it.

Digging into the profitability of each project allows you to make informed decisions about where to focus your efforts and resources. So you can support the business’s bottom line and strike a balance between revenue and direct costs.

How to track it

In Scoro, go to the “Project list” view, select “Project profit” in the “Data column” drop-down menu, and select “Completed” in the “Status” drop-down menu. 

You can see which past projects made the most profit and which could have done better financially. Understanding what had a better ROI can help you plan and price future projects better.

To view active projects, you can also select “In progress” in the “Status” drop-down menu. This can alert you to issues impacting the budget, allowing you to adjust to improve profitability before the project finishes.

9. Due dates by project

Monitoring when each project needs to be finished helps you manage and prioritize tasks, so your team delivers work on time.

Example

Imagine you have three upcoming deadlines:

• Project A is due tomorrow
• Project B is due next week
• Project C is due in two months

You can strategically plan and prioritize work by keeping a close eye on these due dates. You can also assign the right people to each project based on their availability and skills, which helps prevent bottlenecks and missed deadlines.

Why it matters

Tracking due dates for each project is essential for delivering work on time. It helps you avoid potential delays and adjust project schedules proactively if there’s an issue or delay—like if a team member is sick or on vacation.

Meeting deadlines consistently is key to keeping your clients happy and maintaining your agency’s reputation.

It’s also important for profitability. Regularly missing deadlines can lead to dissatisfied clients who are likely to churn. 

How to track it

With Scoro, the “Project list” view provides an overview of all your current projects. And their due dates:

If you click “Project timeline,” you’ll see the due dates in a handy Gantt chart. So you’ll know exactly what’s due and when.

Start tracking and improving your project KPIs

Tracking project performance indicators helps keep projects within scope, within budget, and on time. The easiest way to monitor the metrics that matter is with project dashboard software. 

Scoro’s Project Management KPI dashboard lets you monitor your most important data in one place. It shows you a single source of truth for your current projects and their status budget and revenue data to keep you on track as you scale.

You can start simple and then build more complex dashboards as you need to. This way, you, project stakeholders, and senior leadership can operate with real-time data, inform future decisions, and support sustainable business growth. 

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Agency project management software can help you plan projects, assign tasks, and keep your team on track. But with so many solutions, choosing the right one to suit your needs can be tricky. 

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the best agency project management software, including pricing and main features.

How to choose the best project management software for your agency

Choosing the right project management tool depends on your specific needs. Generally, you’ll want to focus on these key criteria: 

• Ease of Use: A straightforward interface helps your team adopt it quickly. 
• Integration: Opt for a tool that integrates with your existing software and tools. Like billing, accounting, and calendar apps.
• Resource Management: Get real-time visibility into team members’ availability, workloads, timesheets, and project progress.
  
• Collaboration: Prioritize tools that make communicating, sharing files, and coordinating workflows easy.
• Reporting: Tap into high-level insights, create utilization reports, and get a financial overview.
  

The best agency project management tools

1. Scoro

Scoro is one of the best project management software for agencies. The all-in-one work management platform gives agencies complete visibility across their projects, finances, and resources.

The project list shows you the projects your team is working on. You can conveniently group the list by clients, statuses, or even the project managers to get the preferred insights:

If you want a more visual portfolio-level overview, open the “Project timeline” tab. Here you see exactly how projects are progressing and how they overlap. Seeing the bigger picture makes it easier to plan future projects and manage workloads.

Open a project to gain visibility into who is working on it and how it progresses. You’ll see the number of hours used, hours remaining, budget, and overdue tasks. This helps you keep client projects on track and budget.

The Gantt chart in the Tasks section visualizes your project timeline and helps you easily track the progress of each project phase and task. For each task, it shows time estimates and actual time spent.

By comparing the estimated time remaining to actual progress, you can identify tasks that may be falling behind schedule. This allows you to course-correct and adjust plans if needed to complete deliverables on time. You can replan and reallocate tasks directly on this dynamic Gantt chart.

Hover over the circular availability indicator to see the capacity of the current assignees. To assign the task to a new person, search their name and click “Assign.”

To get deeper insights into someone’s workload, navigate to the “Planner” tab.

The Planner is excellent for granular work planning. Here, you’ll see each team member’s weekly schedule and remaining availability. This way, it’s easy to balance your team’s workloads and ensure no one is too over-stretched (or under-utilized). You can conveniently distribute new tasks with a simple drag-and-drop.

Another helpful feature is the “Utilization report”. 

You can pinpoint team members’ availability for the day, week, or month. So it’s easy to spot who is available for new projects. 

Open the “Reports” tab at the top and click “Utilization report.” Then, choose the time frame and date range. You can also filter by project if needed. So you can instantly see how many hours each team member is working.

The “Utilization report” insights can help you estimate capacity, inform staffing decisions, and determine if team members use their time effectively.

Core features of Scoro you’ll like:

• Three-time tracking options including real-time (set a timer and mark the activity as done when you’re finished), retrospective (log a task and time slot), and automatic (based on calendar events)
• Detailed quotes, including price estimates, deliverables, and timing, with a link to share with the client
• 50+ report templates covering productivity, utilization, revenue, cost, profitability, and sales
• Retainer projects for long-term collaborations
• Client portal lets you share access to certain modules and features with clients to avoid back-and-forth via email
• Invoicing in a few clicks where you can choose from Fixed Fee, Time and Material, and Retainer
• Pipeline view enables you to forecast revenue, measure sales performance, and evaluate pipeline health

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What we like

Scoro makes it simple to understand which projects, clients, and project managers generate the highest margin for your agency.

You can check each project’s income, cost, and profit. 

In the project list view, click “View” and “Data columns,” then check income, external cost, labor cost, and profit. Click “Display.”

These insights can help you drive profitability going forward. Because you know which types of projects to focus on. And which to avoid. 

Want to see profitability for different clients? You can do that, too.

In the project view, click “View” and then “Data columns.” Ensure “Project profit” is selected, and check “Summarize.”

You’ll see an overview of the income, costs, profit, and average billable rate per client:

Overall, Scoro excels at helping agencies understand what drives profit. So you can set priorities, scope projects more accurately, and boost your margins.

Integrations 

Scoro integrates with key tools to make agency project management smoother. Such as:

• Slack
• Gmail
• Calendar apps like  Google Calendar, iCal, Microsoft Exchange, and Calendly
• GitHub
• Asana
• Jira

Pricing

Scoro has four flexible plans:

• Essential: $19 per user per month
• Standard:  $29 per user per month
• Pro: $49 per user per month
• Ultimate: On request

A two-week free trial is available.

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2. Teamwork

Teamwork is a platform designed to manage every aspect of your client’s work. It covers many areas that are useful for agencies. Like resource planning, time tracking, billing, budgeting, and more.

How does it work?

To see which projects your team is working on, open the “Projects” tab. You’ll find a basic overview of current projects, including the start date and end date:

You can toggle between the grid view (above) and the list view:

Teamwork has a bunch of free templates, including “Task Management,” to categorize and track tasks:

It’s easy to log your time with manual timesheet entry:

Core features that make Teamwork stand out:

• Timers to track your work in real-time or manual logging based on tasks and projects
• Project templates for creative requests, content creation workflows, and more
• Calendar view to get a monthly overview of projects and tasks
• Reports to assess project health, helping you stay on track
• Proofing feature to streamline the review process
• Workload planner to ensure team members are getting an appropriate amount of work

What We Like

You can create insightful performance reports with Teamwork, like project health and utilization. 

To run any report, click “…More” in the menu and then “Reports.” Select the report you’re interested in.

The utilization report shows you a simple overview of the estimated, actual, billable, and non-billable utilization:

The task completion per user report shows you the workload of each team member, including assigned, completed, and overdue tasks. So, you know who is on track and who needs support. 

The project health report shows you each project’s timing, progress, and budget. You can give each project an overall rating, like “Good,” “At risk,” or “Needs attention”.

These reports help you evaluate the performance of each project and contributor. So you can take action if there are issues—before they become more severe delays.

Integrations 

Teamwork has many integrations, including:

• Slack
• HubSpot
• Microsoft Teams
• Stripe
• Email apps like Gmail, Outlook, and MailChimp
• Time tracking applications like Toggl
• Accounting tools like FreshBooks and QuickBooks
• Google Calendar (but not iCal or Calendly)

Pricing

Teamwork has four plans available, including a free plan for small teams:

• Free
• Starter:  $5.99 per user per month
• Deliver: $9.99 per user per month
• Grow: $19.99 per user per month

The tool offers a 30-day free trial.

3. Productive

Productive brands itself as a one-stop shop for agencies of all types and sizes. It strives to be a single source of truth for all your financial data, leads, budgets, and team communication. So you can use one tool for everything. 

The “Projects” tab shows you an overview of all your open projects:

For each project, you can toggle between different views, including board, calendar, table, list, timeline, and Gantt:

With Productive, you can create boards for each task. You’ll see the task name, status, assignee, and last activity:

The time tab gives a basic overview of the number of hours each contributor has worked. So you can track and optimize team productivity. 

To gain insight into the workload of a specific team member, click “Resourcing” and then “People.” You’ll see their schedule and availability for the week:

Core features that make Productive stand out include:

• Six different views to visualize projects and tasks, including table, list, Gantt, board, calendar, and timeline
• Overview of estimated and tracked time to drive efficiency
• Financial reports to improve revenue and budget usage
• CRM feature to save clients’ and prospects’ contact details
• Invoicing via your invoicing tool
• Time off feature to see when team members are unavailable
• Docs function where you can write notes and briefs

What We Like

With Productive, you have many reporting options for almost every business area.

To access them, click “Reports.” Then, select “+Add from library” to access the templates or “+ Create from scratch” to build your own.

There are many templates to choose from, including Financials, Forecasting, Operations, Profitability, Sales, and more:

Integrations

Productive integrates with key tools such as:

• Slack
• Gmail, Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook
• GitHub
• Jira
• HubSpot
• Accounting tools like FreshBooks, Sage, and Xero
• HR software like SAP and Personio

Pricing

Productive offers four pricing plans:

• Essential: $9 per user per month
• Professional:  $24 per user per month
• Ultimate: On request
• Enterprise: On request

A 14-day free trial is available. You’ll need a credit card to use your own data.

4. Wrike

Wrike is an app that streamlines collaboration. It can help you visualize projects, manage team members, and automate key workflows. 

Let’s take a closer look.

The “Space” overview shows you your current tasks and their status, ordered by “New,” “Planned,” “In progress,” and “In review”:

The productivity dashboard shows you the tasks completed in a given week. Those in review and key to do-dos:

To set up a project, click the “+” next to “Projects and folders.” Give it a name, then select the start and due date. You can also choose the default view.

When you’re done, hit “Create.”

You’ll see the project you’ve just set up. Now, you need to add tasks to it. Add the task name, assignee, start date, and due date:

You can prioritize the tasks. You can also group them by status, due date, assignee, and start date. 

You can also add additional fields like “Effort” and “Time spent” to gain more insights into project efficiency:

Core features that make Wrike stand out:

• Space overview showing an overview of key tasks
• Split your work into folders, projects, and tasks
• Project dashboards to visualize progress, key metrics, and workloads
• Dynamic forms for agencies to streamline their request processes 
• Timesheets to see at a glance which tasks were worked on in a given week
• Automation Engine to receive notifications and automate resource allocation and approvals
• Mobile and desktop app to work anywhere

What We Like

Wrike makes it easy to gain insight into your team’s workload. 

To check which tasks your team members are working on, click “Workload” from the menu on the left. Then, hit “Create Workload Chart.”

Next, give the workload chart a name. Then, under “Users,” choose “My Team” or select the users you want to analyze. When you’re done, click “Create.”

You’ll see an overview of the tasks your team members are working on. This enables you to monitor their productivity and if they are behind on any tasks. So you can step in and fix any issues.

You can click on any project for more details or drag-and-drop to re-assign tasks. So everyone has an optimal workload.

Integrations

Wrike has several integrations, including:

• Power BI
• Google Sheets
• Tableau 
• Zoom
• Adobe Creative Cloud
• File sharing platforms like OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox
• Email platforms like Gmail and Outlook
• Google Calendar 
• HubSpot (via Unito)

Pricing

Wrike has various plans available based on business size and needs:

• Free
• Team:  $9.80 per user per month
• Business: $24.80 per user per month
• Enterprise: On request, for large teams
• Pinnacle: On request, for teams with complex needs

The tool offers a 30-day free trial.

5. Float

Float is a tool to plan capacity and schedule projects. It can help agencies plan upcoming client work, schedule tasks, and track their time. 

To get started, check out the “Projects” tab. You’ll see an overview of your current projects, and can add new ones. 

In the “Schedule” view, you can see which projects and tasks your team is working on and on which days of the week.

To add new projects, you can create them in Float or import them from elsewhere. So, there’s no need to start from scratch. 

When you add a new project, you can set a budget, involve key team members, and set up milestones and tasks. 

Key features include:

• Capacity management to account for time off and public holidays
• Resource scheduling to assign projects to team members
• Project planning split into phases and milestones
• Mobile app for iOS and Android 
• Time tracking via an in-app timer and manual logging 

What We Like

You can access detailed reports at the project and individual contributor level.

Select “Report” to see an overview of each team member’s capacity, their scheduled hours, billable hours, and time off. 

Click on any person to see more information about their projects and billable vs. non-billable time:

Integrations

Float offers a few integrations, including:

• Slack
• Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook
• Jira
• Other project management tools, like Trello and Asana

However, key integrations with accounting, HR, and marketing tools like HubSpot are not currently available. 

Pricing

Float offers three plans:

• Starter: $6 per user per month
• Pro:  $10 per user per month
• Enterprise: On request

A 30-day free trial is available.

6. Paymo

Paymo is a project management, time tracking, and invoicing app for small to medium businesses. It is available in your web browser and on Android and iOS. So you can manage projects on the go. 

A good place to start is the “Home” tab. The dashboard gives you a handy overview of the number of projects and billable vs. non-billable hours. So you can track how effectively team members are using their time. 

The tab “Teams Tasks” shows you who is working on what. Categorized by Backlog, To Do, In Progress, and Complete. This helps you keep projects on track and minimize delays.

What We Like

You can create and manage invoices and estimates directly in the tool in just a few clicks. 

To get started, click “+ Add invoice” and fill out the required data:

Integrations

Paymo offers several integrations, including:

• Slack
• Google Calendar and Shift (a desktop email client for Gmail, Outlook, and Office 365)
• QuickBooks and Xero for accounting
• Integrators that connect with other tools, like Pabbly, for integration with Google Apps, Dropbox, Microsoft Teams, and Shopify

Pricing

Paymo has various plans available based on business size:

• Free
• Starter:  $5.90 per user per month
• Small office: $10.90 per user per month
• Business: $16.90 per user per month

The tool offers a 15-day free trial.

7. Runn

Runn is a type of resource planning and forecasting software. You can use it to assign projects to team members, track the progress, and estimate outcomes.

In the “Projects” view, you’ll see an overview of everything your team is working on, ordered by project.

To gain visibility into your team’s capacity, open the “People” tab. So you know who is free for new tasks and who needs a hand.

Core features include:

• Easy timesheet tracking with daily and weekly entry options
• Capacity management to balance your teams’ workloads
• Project forecasting to plan ahead and see how much revenue, profit and costs your projects will incur
• Resource allocation based on availability, skills, and job role
• Retainer and flat-rate projects to better categorize and analyze your client work
• Timesheet reports to measure output and achieve optimal workloads 

What We Like

You can create and assign skills to people in your team. This makes it easier to assign projects to qualified team members.

Select “Manage” from the menu at the top, then click “Skills” and “Add People.”

This will help you add the right people to the right projects. This is especially helpful for creative agency project management. 

Integrations

Runn offers some integrations, including:

• HR software like Workday, Personio, and HR Cloud
• Time tracking apps like Harvest and Clockify

Slack, email, and calendar are not currently available. 

Pricing

Runn has three plans available, including a free option:

• Free
• Starter:  $8 per user per month
• Enterprise: On request

The tool offers a 14-day free trial.

Find the right project management tool for your agency

There are many great project management tools for agencies. Which one you choose depends on your needs. 

We believe Scoro is the best choice. Why?

Scoro centralizes all your data about projects, clients, tasks, and more into a single platform with real-time reporting capabilities.

This data-driven approach enabled feat. Agency to boost their revenue by €550,000.

Want to give Scoro a shot? Sign up for a free trial—no credit card required.

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You don’t want to pay for software with tons of features you won’t actually use. But if you go too basic, you might need to change platforms in the future.

Simplify your search by focusing on our top 13 key features of project management software. With these elements, you’ll gain a solid, scalable foundation and strong ROI—no matter your industry or team size.

1. Streamlined project quotes 

Instead of cobbling together quotes in Word or Excel, use a project management tool to create polished cost estimates for clients quickly. 

Scoro suggests client and project data, making it quick to put the quote together.

Once complete, you can share the quote directly within Scoro, keeping all project-related communication centralized and making it simple to track quote statuses and follow up as needed

Instead of emailing back and forth, the client can approve the quote with one click, helping you bring in more work and get started faster.

If clients have feedback, they can message you in real-time with the secure chat feature. This will help you quickly make any necessary changes and speed up deals. 

2. Automated budget management

Once your projects start running, you need to track the actual costs compared to your planned budget. But this can get messy (and inaccurate) if you’re using spreadsheets—especially if you fall behind on data entry.

Look for a project management tool that automatically tracks your spending, giving you a real-time look at project costs.

For instance, Scoro’s “Quoted vs Actual” table compares your planned budget, labor costs, expenses, and profit margins to your current numbers as projects progress. 

With up-to-date info and a clear financial overview, you can avoid financial issues derailing your project profits. You can also use these insights to improve your budget planning for future work. 

3. Gantt charts

Gantt charts offer a clear, visual look at project timelines and the relationships between tasks. They’re especially useful for large, multi-step projects with dependencies. 

Why?

Because the colored bars make it easy for team members to see how much time they have to complete their work. And how their work impacts the next project phase.

Let’s say you’re working on a rebranding project. Research must be done before you can start creating a strategy. In Scoro, that would look like this:

Looking at this Gantt chart, a project manager would immediately notice that the research phase is running behind schedule. They could quickly reallocate resources to the research team or adjust the project timeline to accommodate the delay. 

The delay might go unnoticed without this insight until it’s too late. Potentially causing a domino effect of missed deadlines and rushed work throughout the project.

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4. Task boards

Are you unsure what’s been done and what your team still needs to do? Use task boards to examine the status of individual tasks. 

Task (or Kanban) boards are a helpful way to evaluate project progress. They complement Gantt charts, which provide a more holistic view of whether or not your team is on schedule.

A task board categorizes work into different columns, like “Planned,” “In Progress,” “Completed,” and “Needs Attention.” So you always know what’s being worked on. And where you might need to step in to resolve bottlenecks and backlogs.  

For example, if one team member has many tasks stuck in the “In Progress” column, you’ll know to check in with them to see if they need additional support or resources to move those tasks forward. 

5. Resource planning

Suppose you rely on outdated spreadsheets, scattered emails, or your memory to keep track of your team’s schedules. 

In that case, assigning balanced workloads is nearly impossible—especially if you work in different timezones.

So, a project management feature displaying accurate availability is key to preventing overutilization and underutilization. As well as frustrated pings from team members reminding you that they’re actually off on those days you gave them new assignments.

Scoro’s “Bookings” feature eliminates those issues, letting you tentatively reserve a team member’s time before projects even start. 

Plan ahead and ensure that the right people will be available when you need them, without overloading their schedule or surprising them with a last-minute assignment.

Scoro automatically creates bookings for you based on project quotes. It divides the quoted hours equally across the working days within the project timeframe. You can adjust the bookings as needed via drag-and-drop. 

This gives you a clear overview of:

• Each team member’s available hours (marked in green)
• How much time they’ve already booked up (marked in purple)
• The total hours (column on the left)
• If there’s a conflict (it will turn red)

6. Utilization rate measurement

When choosing project management software, make sure it calculates your employee’s utilization rates.

Utilization rate allows you to measure who is overloaded and underutilized objectively. 

You can make adjustments before it starts to negatively impact morale and projects, and you can maximize revenue without burning people out.

Calculating this manually daily or weekly is time-consuming and prone to inaccuracies. 

Luckily, a good PM tool will handle it for you.

In Scoro, the “Utilization” report is the go-to tool. You’ll find it in the “Reports” section. It shows you a heatmap of each team member’s utilization. Red indicates overbooking, while green shows they have the capacity to take on more tasks:

To get more detailed insights on how your team members are spending their time, hover over the utilized hours summary field: 

This granular view helps you understand why someone is overbooked or underutilized and exactly what they’re working on. You can also filter to see only billable utilization (time spent on client projects).

Further Reading: Employee Utilization Reports 101: Your Ultimate Guide

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7. Time tracking

If you can’t accurately keep track of your team’s time, it’s nearly impossible to plan project timelines, balance workloads, and keep labor costs under control.

Most project management tools provide at least one way for employees to track their time. Scoro offers three options, so teams can log hours in whatever way works best for them. 

For instance, employees can log activities in real-time using the built-in timer. It runs in the background, documenting the time spent on tasks until the user clicks it again.

Just take it from explosives consultancy Bombs Away. The company eliminated unplanned overtime by implementing time tracking and improved time management by 100%. 

8. Discussion threads and comments

Key information can easily slip through the cracks when conversations are scattered across emails, apps, and recorded Zoom meetings. This can lead to frustration, project hold-ups and errors, and wasted time. 

Instead, keep project-related communication easily accessible using discussion threads and comments.

In Scoro, you can leave comments and tag team members to share info about a specific project or task. 

So, your team has quick access to all the information and context they need to do their jobs well, while also cutting down on email chains and lengthy meetings.

You can also tag clients if they have signed up to use the Customer Portal.

Further Reading: Comments and Notifications in Scoro

9. Calendar and meeting management

Constantly managing separate Google calendar invites and adjustments can feel like a nightmare—especially if you have to track the time spent in those meetings manually.

A centralized calendar makes scheduling and tracking time much faster. 

You can see when relevant team members are available without toggling between multiple views or emailing them to check in. You can also sync the main calendar with individual calendars in platforms like Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook so everyone’s on the same page.

Also, unlike a Google or Outlook calendar, Scoro’s calendar automatically tracks the time for any events you add—no need to log separately. 

If you need to add in clients, just send an invite right from the platform and let them choose their best day and time: 

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10. Invoices and payments

Managing payments and invoices can be a juggling act—bouncing between systems, manually creating invoices, and trying to keep track of who’s paid what. It’s a recipe for delays, mistakes, and a whole lot of wasted time.

Making clients jump through hoops to pay you is just asking for late payments, which wastes valuable time and can cause cash flow issues.

Scoro automatically creates invoices for you based on the quote. This is much faster than creating the invoice from scratch. 

Clients can also make payments with just a few clicks thanks to an integration with Stripe. This streamlines the billing process while helping you keep your cash flows healthy.

11. Project reports

Tired of spending hours manually compiling project data from different sources just to create one report? 

Instead, look for a platform that centralizes all project data and offers pre-built report templates (Scoro has 47). This way, you can generate up-to-date reports with just a few clicks. 

And use that time to focus more on analyzing the data than pulling it together.

For example, our “Profitability by projects” report quickly lets you compare income, costs, and profits across projects:

This can help you identify which types of projects have the best (and worst) ROI. 

Real-time visibility into project financials allows you to spot issues early on and make adjustments. For example, if you notice a project has higher labor costs than expected, you can identify the root cause and take action, like renegotiating the scope.

Further Reading: A Beginner’s Guide to Project ROI (And What To Track Instead)

12. Customizable dashboards

Customizable dashboards give users a personalized view of the KPIs, tasks, and goals that matter most to their role. This helps team members focus on their unique priorities while supporting bigger-picture business goals. 

For example, a project manager might create a dashboard with key project health indicators like:

• Percentage of tasks completed
• Actual vs. projected costs
• Billable utilization rate
• Profitability margin

This high-level overview lets them quickly identify which projects need attention and take corrective action.

On the other hand, an individual team member might set up their dashboard to show:

• Their assigned tasks and deadlines
• Time entries for the week
• Remaining project budget

This helps them stay organized, prioritize their work, and accurately track time.

Even an executive can benefit from a custom dashboard, focusing on metrics like sales performance, pipeline overview, and overdue invoices:

13. Software integrations

Your project management tool needs to connect with your existing tech stack.  

Why?

Because integrations help you create a single source of truth. And avoid app-switching and time-consuming manual data entry.

Without integrations, routine tasks get complicated. 

Say your client asked you to add another deliverable to a project. You’d need to hop over to Slack to message your team about the changes, update all the project details in your PM tool, and then switch to QuickBooks to adjust the invoice.

Make things easier with software like Scoro—one that integrates with a wide range of tools:

• Calendar: Google Calendar, iCal, and Microsoft Exchange to keep all your events in sync across platforms
• Accounting & Finance: QuickBooks, Xero, Expensify, and Stripe to streamline invoicing, expense tracking, and payment processing
• File Storage: Dropbox, Google Drive, and FTP servers to provide easy access to your files and documents 
• Communication: Slack to send notifications and important updates directly to your Slack channels

For instance, let’s say you want to be notified through Slack whenever Sales adds a new quote worth over $10,000. Just set up a rule with Scoro’s Slack integration to get automatically notified:

Get all the project management software features you need with Scoro

Using a bunch of different project management tools makes managing projects harder than it needs to be.

That’s where Scoro comes in. It’s got all the essential features you need to keep your projects and team on track—all in one platform.

And here’s the best part: Scoro isn’t just for project managers. It makes life easier for your whole team, from the finance department to individual contributors. With a single solution that works for everyone, you get stronger collaboration, greater efficiencies, and a healthier bottom line.

See for yourself by signing up for a free trial today. No credit card is required.

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