Using QuickBooks to manage your financial backend?
Then it only makes sense to use a project management solution that integrates with QuickBooks. This way, you can have more visibility, transparency, and you can even make sure you get paid faster.
Project management software will help you manage the moving parts of your project, but a project management integration for QuickBooks will help you take things up a notch by way of efficiency and even profitability. Here’s what to look for if you want the best project management integration for QuickBooks.
All projects begin and end with what’s in the contract, making it vital that your project management solution includes contract management under its digital umbrella. Getting an outside contract management solution that’s separate from your project management can get expensive; not to mention, it doesn’t make sense not to have your contract parameters connected to what’s happening in the project lifecycle. For professional services especially, it’s important that your QuickBooks project management integration offers different contract types: time-and-material, fixed price, recurring, and installment payments. And to save major time, get a solution that offers contract templates. This way, you can reuse old contracts when clients decide to do another project with you, and you can also replicate past contracts with new clients to make everything easier.
A surefire way to lose money on your projects is to let your time tracking fall by the wayside. Any solid project management integration with QuickBooks should offer you a time tracking feature that is linked to your other project data, i.e. your contracts, your task management, etc. You want to make time tracking as simple as possible for your team, so going with a solution that offers the following industry-best features can do just that:
Obviously, your QuickBooks project management integration should have awesome project management capabilities! That means that the solution must provide everything you need to plan, budget, and track your projects. One of the key features to help you keep things on track are alerts: the project management solution should let you easily set up automated alerts. You can customize these to ping you when a particular milestone is hit or when budget gets to a certain point, based on the contract parameters. And finally, real-time reporting and dashboards should not be an afterthought– this is how you actually learn where your project stands at any given time based on data. With adept dashboards and reporting, you’ll be able to garner insights from successes and failures in the past and adjust accordingly to stay profitable.
Perhaps the most glorified feature of any project management solution, task management is just what it sounds like– it’s how everyone on the team knows what they’re responsible for, when it’s due, and any information needed to complete tasks. While platforms like Asana are popular for task management alone, make sure that whatever QuickBooks project management integration you use also has the other components on this list. If not, you’ll end up paying extra for monthly licenses. Also, look for included Kanban boards that are intuitive and easy on the eyes.
Invoicing- If you’re not already using invoicing with QuickBooks, definitely let your project management solution manage your invoices for you. This will enable you to automate most (if not all) of your invoicing process and eliminate manual error.
Resource management- Depending on the size of your organization and the complexity of your projects, it may be beneficial to look for a QuickBooks project management integration that includes resource management. If you decide to go this route, look for something that can do both hours-based and task-based capacity planning.
Predictive analysis- A project management solution that offers predictive analysis provides another
safeguard to your budgets and key insights into profitability. With this feature, your software will be able to aggregate past data, learn from it, and alert you when future outcomes may be affected.
Self-driving features- This follows along the same line as predictive analysis in that it involves machine learning or AI. A feature like self-driving time tracking will mean you and your team do significantly less work on the admin side.
CRM integration- If you’re using a CRM for sales, get a project management tool that integrates with what you use as well as QuickBooks. The best solutions out there will integrate with the most popular 3: Salesforce, HubSpot, and Dynamics 365.
You already know you want a project management solution that integrates with QuickBooks. And now you know what to look for to get your money’s worth. The inevitable conclusion is that if you can find project management software that provides ALL the above, you’ll be more efficient and you’ll save cash by not having to pay a dozen licenses. Luckily, a few geniuses and veterans of project management for professional services came up with a cheap solution…
PSOhub is currently the only affordable project management solution that integrates with QuickBooks and the top 3 CRMs AND offers all-in-one project management. PSOhub was developed with professional services in mind, particularly those who use a CRM to manage sales. With PSOhub, the efficiency of your organization doesn't stop at 'closed won'-- it provides everything you need to manage your projects across global teams and the smartest technology that takes menial admin tasks out of your hands.