BigTime Software vs. OfficeTools by CARET vs. Projector PSA

I believe it is well suited for our industry! We are professional services consulting firm and we need this! However if there is a smaller company who does not need to track these items, then they should not use this big of a platform

Incentivized

For a small office or team keeping track of multiple projects at once can be a challenge. OfficeTools provides an all-in-one affordable (less than $60 per month) and accessible (cloud based) project management solution to keep your team on task. If your organization uses products such as Quickbooks or Outlook you can easily integrate them into this software solution. I honestly cannot think of an organizational structure that would not benefit somewhat from integrating OfficeTools into their operations

Incentivized

We think Projector PSA is a great tool to track and manage people in a professional service environment like management consulting. This system is easy to set up, easy to understand and should easily suit the needs of smaller and medium sized firms. It may be less appropriate for firms that rely very heavily on project management through another system (like MS Project) or firms that rely very heavily on a sales pipeline tracking system. While still very much possible to use, you would (I believe) have to do some re-keying between systems

• Invoice Style and detail..Bigtime allows the user the ability to choose more of what you need to appear on your invoice with its window options.
• Phase/Percentage Billing; ease of adding additional phases to a project mid-project; clearly identifying Retainers
• Support Team- In particular Melissa D and Lina Z...Par Excellent on the Teams
• WHIP/Reports/Review of Invoices just make the entire billing process a BREEZE has cut my time frame in half, a Incredible help in this Season of Remote Work Environment that we are adapting to.

Incentivized

• Software Integration (i.e. Quickbooks, Outlook, etc.)
• Project Management
• Time Management
• Billing/Invoicing

Incentivized

• Time tracking. For a service company that typically bills retainers, it is very important to be able to assign a direct cost to your resources at all levels and analyze your profitability.
• Expense reporting. Projector easily tracks expenses of all types and allows you to categorize them under non-billable projects, client billable projects and/or client development ventures.
• Reporting. Projector has a large list of standard reports right at your fingertips. These reports can be extracted as Excel docs, mdp files and other useful formats. They are intuitive, clear and easy to analyze. For those you need on a standard basis, you can set them up to pull on a recurring basis. It should be noted that all reports are easily customized and Projector's support team is always there to help get you the information you need.

Incentivized

• For some types of projects, we are unable to use BigTime's invoicing feature. It would be nice if we could further customize invoices to fit our needs. We still have to use Quickbooks to complete certain invoices.
• Being able to create Purchase Orders in BigTime would be extremely useful to us. We currently use Quickbooks for this.

Incentivized

• Customizability (i.e. font size, workflows, etc.)
• Increase access to trainings and educational enrichment opportunities
• Customer Support (tends to be slow)

Incentivized

• The split between the desktop and web environments was awkward at times.
• While the reporting modules are powerful, creating reports can be complex and required a fairly deep knowledge of the product.
• The appearance and interface of the desktop application appears somewhat dated.

Its been a huge help in saving time and making billing more efficient. Would like to see the product grow and be able to continue to use it.

Incentivized

We have been using this tool for a year now and find our use of it continually evolves and broadens. We are also very excited about the overhaul that's under way and feel many of the improvements being put in place will help make us that much more effective and efficient. The Projector team is also very responsive and collaborative in terms of user feedback and improvement suggestions, which helps us know they will work hard to help us get what we need out of the tool.

Overall most areas of the software are easy to use. I tend to spend a lot of time in analytics and reports. Those are not as user friendly, in my opinion, and could use some improvements. I think it just takes time to get familiar with where items are stored in the program and what changes affect what.

Incentivized

Desktop interface feels complex to new users.

BigTime is available 99% of the time. At times there are bugs, but most are resolved quickly

Incentivized

In 5 years of use we have never experienced an unscheduled outage.

have not noticed a slow integration issue using QBO

Incentivized

The support is amazing! They are always available through the chat interface in the program. Each support person has fully answered my questions the first time. I have had a positive experience with each inquiry. It is very important to me that I am able to get instant access to help so that I can make the most of the software and all of its capabilities.

Incentivized

I touched on this briefly, in another survey section, but my implementation manager, Kevin, was exceptional. The actual implementation process took 3 months, not 1 before I was comfortable rolling it out to staff. We also had to wait/schedule time and coordinate for our custom xml. invoice to be generated and in a place we felt comfortable sending it out to clients. In the end I was very satisfied, but during the first few months it was challenging.

Incentivized

The main reason why we have decided to change services [...] is because we have carried out an internal analysis to determine which tool [is the best], with the [most] appropriate functionalities to fulfill our labor proposal. [We] came to the conclusion that BigTime [Software] is much more complete in terms of functionalities and even [at a] lower price.

OfficeTools is by far the easiest project management tool that I've ever used. It is very user friendly and easy to pickup. That cannot be said for other products that I've used in the past

Incentivized

We switched to Projector from Open Air. While Open Air was a good tool, we found it wasn't really designed for project management at the level of detail we needed from our PSA and used MS Project and Excel to supplement Open Air. We also struggled with the invoicing side of it, manually combining invoice summaries with custom time and expense reports in Acrobat. Projector however, was designed for project management. We are able to manage projects, track time and expenses, and invoice all out of one system. The project setup can accommodate a wide range of complexity, including milestones, dependencies, etc. Project and resource dashboards also help see the services portfolio and team at a summary level and allows us to zero in on particulars easily and more meaningfully than we were ever able to with Open Air. Invoice templates are also easily customized and we were able to get several set up quickly to meet our needs. Lastly, Open Air required us to purchase and pre-pay licensing for a year, so if we lost staff mid-way through the year, the unused seat was not prorated. Projector licensing is paid monthly based on actual number of active users that month, which makes more sense for a team with fluctuating headcount.

The product is useful for faster billing and efficient timesheet logs. I do like the report features however there are many options and can be overwhelming for the user. It is most helpful to set up reports speaking to an agent to ensure the right fields are set, etc.

Incentivized

• Before BigTime, we were using Excel to track everything, creating invoices, and run reports. Getting on BigTime has saved us tons of time and effort which equates to dollars saved on labor.
• From a legal standpoint, BigTime has allowed us to be organized and prepared in the event we would need to present financial details to anyone.

Incentivized

• Even in the small time that I stayed to see Projector PSA reporting I saw ROI projections become more realistic. There was real data to analyze that proved we were spending way too much and charging way too less on some projects.
• Although employees were not used at entering their hours, this single reporting improved operations management and validated employees concerns that more people were needed to manage workload
• Project proposals were more realistic because they were driven by real data.
• Decision making overall for the department became more efficient and effective

Incentivized