If you work as a project manager in professional services — consulting, accounting, engineering, advisory — you already know that people are the business. Unlike product companies or manufacturers, your revenue lives entirely in the time, skills, and availability of the team. Get that wrong and you’re either turning down work you could have taken or burning people out trying to deliver work you shouldn’t have accepted.
I’ve spoken to a lot of operational leaders and resource managers over the years, and the story is almost always the same. They start with spreadsheets. The spreadsheets get messier. Someone builds a ‘better’ version. More people add tabs. Nobody trusts the numbers anymore. And then the firm hits a growth point where the whole thing falls apart.
That’s when they come looking for software.
The problem is, the resource management software market is large and genuinely confusing. Some tools are built for agencies and creative teams. Others are designed for enterprise-scale global firms. Some do scheduling well but fall apart when you try to do anything strategic. And the marketing tends to sound the same no matter which tool you’re looking at.
If you are just beginning your search for the best resource management tools, it’s important to understand that the ‘best’ choice depends entirely on the size of your firm and the complexity of your projects.
You probably already know that tools like Float or Resource Guru are popular, but you need to better understand what’s good (and not so good) about any tool when considered in conjunction with the specific needs of a professional services firm.
So let’s review the pros and cons of the leading systems to help you choose the right fit for your specific needs, because the right tool for a 30-person consultancy is very different from the right tool for a 3,000-person firm operating across multiple countries.
Why professional services firms need something purpose-built
General project management tools (the ones you’d use to manage a software development sprint or a marketing campaign) don’t cut it for professional services resourcing. The complexity is just different.
You’re not just asking ‘who’s free on Thursday?’ You’re asking: Who is available for that new audit in June? Do we have enough senior engineers to meet our sales forecast? Why are some teams overstretched while others have no work?
Modern resource management software is designed to answer these questions. However, the market is split. Some tools are excellent for quick scheduling, while others, like Retain are built for the strategic complexities of large-scale, international firms.
Retain: Best for large professional services firms
Retain is widely recognised as the most sophisticated resource management platform built specifically for large-scale professional services organisations. While many tools focus on a simple calendar view, Retain takes a much deeper approach, combining skills-based planning with long-term demand forecasting.
Retain stands out because it does not just show you who is free today; it helps you model your entire workforce for the year ahead. For a global consultancy or a large engineering firm, this level of foresight is the difference between a profitable quarter and a missed target.
What works well
- Deep skills intelligence: You can search for resources based on specific criteria like certifications, past project experience or language skills, rather than just job title. That means the right expert is always on the right job.
- Advanced forecasting: You can connect your sales pipeline to your delivery team, so you can see exactly when you will need to hire new staff months in advance.
- Scalability: The system is built to handle thousands of users across multiple countries and tax jurisdictions without losing performance.
- Centralised truth: It eliminates “spreadsheet silos,” giving partners and resource managers a single, real-time view of the entire firm’s capacity.
Watch out for
- Implementation time: Because it offers such deep functionality, it requires a thoughtful setup process rather than a ‘plug and play’ approach.
- Operational maturity: It is best suited for firms with established processes; very small agencies might find the level of detail more than they currently require.
If you’re still figuring out how your resource management should work, you might need to get your foundations right before you get the most out of a system like this.
Retain is the clear leader for firms that have outgrown simple scheduling. If you manage hundreds or thousands of people and your profitability depends on matching the right skills to the right projects, Retain provides a level of clarity that other tools simply cannot match.
It’s not trying to be a general scheduling tool, it’s built specifically for organizations where resource planning is a strategic function, not just a logistics one.
Dayshape: Best for accounting firms
Dayshape has built a solid reputation in the accounting and advisory space. It uses algorithm-based ‘intelligent scheduling’ using algorithms to help firms allocate people to engagements while balancing regulatory requirements and staff wellbeing.
What works well:
- Automated scheduling: The tool suggests the best resource for a task based on several factors, which is a significant time-saver for high-volume audit work.
- Compliance focus: It is excellent at handling the strict ‘independence’ and regulatory rules that accounting firms must follow.
Watch out for:
- Sector specificity: While it is a powerhouse for accountants, firms in more creative or varied consulting fields may find the interface and logic a bit rigid.
- User learning curve: The automated ‘optimization’ features can take some time for resource managers to trust and master.
If you are a large accounting practice where compliance and high-volume scheduling are your main headaches, Dayshape is a very strong contender. However, for more general consulting firms that need broader workforce modelling, it may feel a little specialized.
Kantata: Best all-in-one PSA platform
Kantata (previously known as Mavenlink) takes a different approach. Rather than focusing purely on resource management, it’s a full Professional Services Automation (PSA) platform, covering the entire project lifecycle from initial lead through to final invoice.
What works well
- Financial integration: Because Kantata handles billing and project accounting alongside resourcing, you can see in real-time how a staffing decision affects your margins.
- Comprehensive features: It gives you everything in one place: task management, file sharing, time tracking, and resource scheduling in one system, which appeals to firms that want to reduce the number of tools they’re managing.
Watch out for
- Implementation complexity: Moving your entire firm onto a PSA is a significant change management project. Budget the time and resource accordingly because this isn’t a quick win!
- Busier interface: Because it tries to do everything, the system can feel overwhelming for team members who just want to see their schedule.
Kantata is a great fit for firms looking to replace several different tools with a single operating system. But if your primary goal is to solve complex resource planning specifically, you might find a dedicated specialist tool more
Runn: Best for smaller tech consultancies
Runn has become popular with mid-sized technology services firms, the sort of business that’s outgrown spreadsheets but isn’t quite at the scale where an enterprise platform makes sense. It sits comfortably between simple scheduling apps and full enterprise systems and provides a visual way to see your team’s capacity.
What works well
- Clear visual capacity planning: The interface makes it easy to see where your bottlenecks are at a glance. The capacity charts are very easy to read.
- Scenario planning: You can easily model what-if scenarios to see how a new project would affect the team’s workload.
Watch out for
- Limited detail: It lacks the deep skills taxonomy and complex global configuration options found in enterprise-grade tools like Retain.
- Standard reporting: The standard reports cover the essentials, but larger firms may find them lacking the detail needed for board-level insights or management information.
Runn is a smart step up for a 30–50 person firm that’s tired of maintaining spreadsheets. It’s intuitive, friendly and well-designed. But if you’re running a global operation or need deep skills-based planning, you’ll hit its limits fairly quickly.
Float: Best for simple scheduling for small teams
Float has made its name as a user-friendly tool. It is widely known as one of the simplest resource scheduling tools available. It focuses almost entirely on the visual ‘who is doing what’ calendar which is what makes it perfect for small teams.
What works well
- Ease of use: You can get a team set up in minutes. The learning curve is almost flat, which means less time on tool adoption and more time on actual work. You won’t need training.
- Operational speed: Making changes to a schedule is as simple as dragging and dropping blocks of time.
Watch out for
- Limited horizon: Float is excellent for short-term scheduling (like the next couple of weeks) but it doesn’t have the features to support longer-term workforce planning (the next 6 months).
- Basic resource data: You can’t easily search for resources based on complex expertise or past performance.
Float is perfect for small creative teams or agencies. However, for a professional services firm with complex delivery needs, it acts more like a shared calendar than a strategic management platform.
How to choose the right tool for your firm
Choosing the right software comes down to your firm’s operational maturity.
For a smaller firm (under 50 people, relatively straightforward project mix), Float or Runn provide the visibility you need to keep things moving. They are easy to adopt and solve the immediate problem of not knowing who’s doing what.
However, as a firm grows and the stakes get higher, the questions become more difficult.
You need to know more than just who is ‘busy.’ You need to know if you have the right expertise to deliver on your promises to clients. You need to be able to look at your sales pipeline and know exactly how it will affect your staff’s wellbeing and your firm’s profitability. You need to understand utilization rates, flag burnout risk before it happens, and give your partners meaningful data to make hiring decisions.
That’s where a platform like Retain comes into its own. It’s built for precisely that level of complexity. It is the only platform that truly bridges the gap between daily scheduling and long-term business strategy. By focusing on skills and forecasting, it allows leaders to move away from reactive ‘firefighting’ and toward a model of calm, predictable growth.
Whatever tool you’re evaluating, I’d encourage you to start with the problem you’re actually trying to solve, not the features list. Be honest about your firm’s current maturity and where you want to be in two or three years. The best tool is the one that fits where you are, gives you the confidence to lead, and grows with where you’re going.
When you can see your team’s capacity clearly, you can make better promises to your clients and provide a better work environment for your people.
