PSOhub’s combined functionality for professional services provides a highly innovative, holistic way to manage the ins and outs of your business in a singular platform.
In simpler terms, PSA + Project Management = PSOhub.
However, the idea of combining PSA tools with project management software into a singular platform is a relatively new concept.
As of date, PSOhub is the only solution to offer both, filling the gaps other platforms on both sides have left behind.
We chatted with Martijn van der Hoeden, PSOhub’s Founder & CEO, about how this kind of all-in-one functionality provides tangible benefits for people in professional services. Check out what we discussed and discover the advantages of a platform that provides both PSA and project management in a closed loop.
Martijn explains:
The common PSA tools like Financialforce (embedded in Salesforce), Kimble, etc are very financially focused. Whereas in the project management space, it’s typically managing your work, managing the tasks, managing everything around who’s going to do what. It’s all about what you need to do, when you need to do it, and who is going to do it.
PSOhub is an integrated solution, so you can compare the financial status of your project with the actual tasks that are completed, not completed, etc.
In PSOhub, you can create a task board or task list, and you can assign tasks to people with seamless communication around the project via mentions, notes, files etc. PSOhub is a more collaborative environment than the typical psa tool in that it offers all-in-one project management.
In the vision for PSOhub– and why we call it an all-in-one project management solution– it’s better to combine those two. Because if you know what the financial scope is of a project, along with your budget and rates, then you can do time tracking like what those other PSA software does. But you don't know what exactly you need to do for that financial scope and how many tasks are open, what is completed, and what is not completed because that is in a completely different solution like a Trello or an Asana. Basically you are always working in two worlds: The financial people and the people that track time are in a kind of PSA solution and the people managing the project are in a project management solution.
It is a fantastic benefit if you combine those two worlds. It also gives you numerous business advantages because you can see at once how many hours have been tracked for ‘x’ amount of money. But also you can see what is completed and what’s in progress. All in the same software environment.
Another advantage is better projections. Let’s say you have a $10k budget and you've spent $5k. A PSA solution– from a financial perspective– will say the work in progress is 50% because they only have the financial data. But if you also have the to-do data and see, for example, if only 10% of tasks are done, you're not at 50% at all. So you can really see that you're behind if you compare your actual spent time with your actual completed tasks. All these PSA tools don't offer that, only the financial part: time, rates, budget, etc.
Another great example, and one of the features PSOhub users love the most, is invoicing. For example, in a PSA solution, you see invoices are not paid. If you have access to the project management part like in PSOhub, you can see what's completed or not complete. This can explain from the project management side why invoices aren't paid to the financial side with the click of a mouse.
FinancialForce and other PSA solutions don’t have task management capabilities like kanban boards and task lists. As explained earlier, this helps you create more accurate projections and have a more holistic view of the status of your project.
In PSOhub, you can trigger an invoice automatically when a milestone is hit. The completion of tasks is combined with invoicing: If a certain task is completed in PSOhub, that will trigger an invoice. That's only possible when you have a combined solution. If not, i.e. in Trello, you can complete the task, but your PSA will never know that’s happening. Typical Trellos and Asanas don’t have the financial stuff in their solution, while PSA tools don’t have the project stuff.
Combining PSA with project management promotes tangible transparency in an organization. You can easily see how much time has been spent vs how many tasks have been completed, etc. When invoices are not paid on time, the financial person can see what's going on with the project side of things.
One of the best PSOhub user advantages is that everything is in one place; you can see a complete picture of the project on both the project management and financial sides. And important information is easier for users to find because it’s all in one interface.
[End of Interview]
Both PSA software and project management software can offer enormous benefits for professional services. Combining the two in one platform is huge leg-up for small businesses, with advantages including:
As of yet, PSOhub is the only platform to merge PSA automation with project management in a singular environment.