The Best BigTime Alternative: Top 11 Professional Services Tools & Competitors

If you’re looking for a BigTime alternative, you’re at the right place.

BigTime can be described as comprehensive project management software. While it can be a good option for many agencies, you might be looking for a more affordable tool, or one with a bigger emphasis on specific features. Modernizing your technology can help you stay competitive, so be sure to take a look at our review of top competitors and their key features.

BigTime is a PSA software solution that helps streamline agency operations and improve productivity. Some key features include project planning, time tracking, resource management, and client invoicing.

BigTime has overall positive customer reviews, with a 4.5-star rating on both G2 and Capterra. Despite this, users have noted some specific downsides of the tool:

When it comes to benefits, users state that the tool is easy to use for the most part. Additionally, reviews mention that it provides a useful feature range for professional services agencies.

Learn more about the top BigTime alternatives and their main benefits and downsides based on user reviews.

Productive is an agency management software tailored to professional services agencies. While Productive and BigTime offer many of the same features, Productive goes further with an integrated sales pipeline, collaborative documentation, and workflow automation.

The tool has highly positive reviews on G2 and Capterra, averaging 4.6 stars. Recent reviews mention that the tool provides comprehensive features for agency project management, including project, financial, and resource management. Additionally, users often praise the responsive and reactive customer support team.

By providing support for a wide range of daily agency processes, Productive distinguishes itself as an all-in-one solution for agencies of all shapes and sizes:

According to the State of SaaS Sprawl 2021 Report, only 45% of company apps are being used on a regular basis. The benefit of a comprehensive solution is reducing many of these apps to a single platform, which can increase employee engagement and reduce IT overhead.

Check out which features make Productive the best all-in-one BigTime alternative.

Productive’s Time Tracking features help agencies track their billable and non-billable hours while ensuring the process is as painless as possible. Your tracking can be adjusted according to preference so that employees can use the integrated timer with a desktop widget, enter their hours after tasks have been completed, or even eliminate this chore completely with automatic time tracking through resource bookings.

Timesheets can be locked for editing after a specified period of time, and managers can easily view hours and mark them as billable, approve entries, or request additional information.

Additionally, Productive lets you handle your leave management through the platform, helping you cut out one more tool from your tech stack. Add agency-specific categories, approve employee requests, view their vacancies through platform statuses, and get reports for total time off per person.

Learn more about the best agency time tracking practices with Parakeeto:

With Project Management, Productive helps agency leaders support their team collaboration. The main capabilities include various project views, meaning you can organize your progress with Gantt, Kanban boards, List view, and many more, depending on your workflows and personal preferences. You can also invite clients to projects free of charge and give them access to review tasks, create new ones, and even view their budgets, improving communication and transparency.

Learn how Productive supports efficient workflows for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

Keep your project teams accountable with streamlined task management, which includes essential features such as:

Productive puts a special emphasis on managing your project finances through its Budgeting feature. You can set up your budgets for any type of client engagement, including hourly, fixed-price, retainer, or hybrid. For complex projects, budgets can be split into separate phases to simplify money management.

Budgeting integrates with Resource Planning, so you get key oversight into your key agency metrics, such as profit margins, revenue, and budget burn, and forecast them across upcoming periods of time. The best part is that all of this data changes in real-time, according to how your resources are allocated.

Additional project accounting features include:

Some key features of Productive’s Resource Planning include:

Productive offers more than 50 templates for projects with its Reporting features, all of which can be populated with diverse agency data from your budgeting, project management, resource planning, invoicing, and more. Some key features include visual dashboards, real-time updates, email sharing, and custom fields.

Additional features: Sales, Docs, Automations.

Integrations include: Xero QuickBooks, HubSpot, Breathe, Zapier, Slack, Jira, Google Calendar, and more.

Productive offers a 14-day free trial so you can decide if it’s the right BigTime software alternative for your agency.

Accelo is a project management platform designed to boost productivity and business efficiency.

Key features:

While Accelo is certainly a powerful client work management platform, some users mention that it can be difficult to learn to use effectively: “It can be rather daunting to get started with using, it’s not the most intuitive software” (Source: Capterra). Additionally, the pricing tiers can be considered quite high compared to some available Accelo alternatives.

BQE CORE is an architecture project management software that helps businesses automate their tasks and get real-time insights.

Key features:

BQE CORE is an effective solution for professional services agencies. However, consider that it’s tailored specifically to the A&E industry. This can make it an excellent pick for architecture agencies, but it might also mean that businesses in other industries might encounter features that aren’t fully suitable to their specific workflows or needs. 

We also covered BQE Core in our guide to top Replicon alternatives.

Zoho Books is a project accounting software solution from the Zoho product suite, designed to support collaboration and financial planning.

Key features:

Zoho Books can be a good BigTime alternative for users that find its financial and expense tracking capabilities lacking. Zoho Books also offers an integration with QuickBooks for agencies, making for a more seamless transition. However, consider that Zoho Books lacks some essential project and agency management capabilities; if this is something you’re looking for, you can consider more robust tools with a QuickBooks integration, like Productive.

Kantata, previously Mavenlink, is a cloud-based project management solution for managing employee time and providing real-time visibility into projects.

Key features:

Kantata can be a good solution for professional service firms, as it offers all of the essential features needed to build a productive team. However, some users of the platform mention that the onboarding process can be lengthy, and that better customer service might help streamline these difficulties. 

If you’re looking for some streamlined options with similar features, check out our list of Mavenlink alternatives.

Scoro is a professional services automation software that helps agencies track projects and support successful delivery.
Key features:

Users appreciate Scoro for its ability to streamline processes and increase efficiency. On the flipside, negative reviews mention that customization options can be quite limited, and some users have reported issues with customer support. Consider this if your agency has complex or unusual processes.

Related: 13 Best Scoro Alternatives for Growing Agencies in 2023

Avaza is a work management software for client-based projects, with features such as time tracking and expense management.

Key features:

Users mostly report positive experiences with Avaza, especially when it comes to ease of use and its range of features. However, many users mention that the reporting feature can be lacking, as well as difficult to customize. For more info check out our guide on alternatives to Avaza.

Sage Intacct is one of the best ERP software for financial operations in various industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, and professional services.

Key features:

Sage Intacct offers robust financial management features, but it does require some consideration beforehand. For one, the pricing of the tool is not available online, which can make the decision-making process lenghtier. Otherwise, some reviewers mentioned that the tool is designed very simplistically, which might not be compatible with creative teams or inexperienced users who want a more user-friendly approach.

Netsuite is a robust business performance platform that provides enterprise apps for various industries (you can read this article if you wonder which erp software is best).

Key features:

Netsuite is similar to Sage Intacct, in that it’s a complex solution that can be a good BigTime alternative for agencies that are ready for a challenge. However, it might not be compatible with smaller agencies on a time limit or budget. Users mention that implementation time can get lengthy and that the documentation is often insufficient to streamline the process.

We also have a Netsuite and QuickBooks comparison that you can check out to learn more.

PlanGuru is a financial management platform for small to medium-sized businesses.

Key features:

PlanGuru is another good alternative to BigTime when it comes to focusing on your financial management. It also provides a functionality for integrating your workflows with useful third-party integrations. As with Sage Intacct and Netsuite, it might not be the best alternative if you’re looking for more streamlined team collaboration and productivity features.

Paymo is a project management tool that helps agencies track time and keep projects on course.
Key features:

Paymo can be an affordable alternative to BigTime software, as it offers approachable pricing tiers with a free version for unlimited users. However, users who are looking for advanced features, such as utilization or profit forecasting, might want to consider a more robust software solution instead.

We’ve explored a variety of BigTime software alternatives for agencies, from team collaboration tools to financial management solutions. Although your best choice can be subjective, there are some things to keep in mind, such as user-friendliness, scalability, and comprehensiveness.

All of these factors are important in ensuring software adoption across teams and positive ROI. All-in-one software, or comprehensive solutions, can play an especially important part in this. By reducing the tedium of switching between multiple tools and supporting agency operations, these tools can increase the chances of employee satisfaction and provide long-term support.

To find out more about the benefits of all-in-one agency management software, book a demo with Productive.