Projector's cloud-based Professional Services Automation (PSA) software helps project-based services organizations track time and expenses, invoice clients, schedule resources, and manage projects. Its three modules span a more comprehensive set of uses than typical project management software. The Accounting module helps the user track time and expenses and manage invoices and billing. Also it syncs with the company's accounting systems as a sub-ledger. The Resource Scheduling module matches…
$15
per user
Service Autopilot
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Service Autopilot, from BACKTELL in Richardson, is a business operations management system for small home services businesses.
Projector PSA is a great option for entering time. Our employees have no issue allocating their time to the correct tasks types. Projector PSA does not require a written description for time, and our employees have noticed that this makes for a cleaner, straightforward entry. …
Projector PSA provided a better value and much smaller initial commitment. The implementation process required minimal professional services. Projector PSA also had a strong data security model to limit visibility appropriately to personnel using the system.
Projector had the most features that best aligned with our usage. We liked the scheduling and reporting features.
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose Projector PSA
During our assessment of alternate systems we examined the functionality of: ASTEA, Technology One, SAP, Microsoft Project Server, and SalesForce.com. Offerings were assessed against the following evaluation criteria: system functionality, application integration, …
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose Projector PSA
We did pursue Quick Arrow another tool that was similar. We found that be in inflexible in use. Projector allows a lot of flexibility in setup. Our organization has very specific business processes and we were able to set up Projector to work with those processes. Several other …
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose Projector PSA
Primavera is an excellent product but much more sophisticated than what my department needed at the time I selected and recommended Projector PSA.
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, …
We use the two systems collaboratively. Both systems offer different features which we use bits and pieces of what we need from each to make the system work for our needs.
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
Service AutoPilot is a fantastic system for client service tracking and scheduling. While there are a few features and details I would personally like to see changed or added, the ultimate purpose of the system is well executed, fairly simple to use, and easy to understand. My recommendation would be to add more specific details such as canceled or closed clients and closed/canceled service history on active clients to remain permanently.
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.
when closing/canceling a service completely from a clients account it would be nice to still have the history to see what they had done in the past incase they change their mind later and wish to continue the service
cancel/closed client historys would also be nice as if someone sold their home, it would be nice to be able to see what was done on that property prior to inform new owners, etc.
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.
Service Autopilot has a versatile set of features that we use across all facets of our business. We use it for history tracking on clients properties, notes specific to the service and/or the client, as well as pricing details
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.
We use the two systems collaboratively. Both systems offer different features which we use bits and pieces of what we need from each to make the system work for our needs.
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
