What is the main difference between PSA and general project management software?

General PM coordinates who does what by when. PSA connects those assignments to bill rates, utilization, WIP, and margin in one data model. PM treats time as scheduling; PSA treats billable time as financial inventory.

Can consulting firms fix gaps with time-tracking add-ons on Asana or Monday?

Add-ons improve capture, not the math. They won't apply rate cards, calculate WIP, flag margin risk, or feed a revenue forecast without exports. More integrations mean more cleanup, not one shared truth.

What is utilization and why do consulting firms care?

Utilization is billable hours divided by available hours. A consultant logging 32 billable hours in a 40-hour week is at 80%. A 10-point drop across a 20-person team can represent six figures in lost annual revenue. SPI's 2026 benchmark sets the high-performer target above 75%, against a 2025 industry average of 66.4%.

At what size do general PM tools typically stop being enough?

Roughly 20+ billable staff or 10+ engagements running at once. Cross-project conflicts, blended rates, and month-end merges outgrow boards and automations: coordination still works; economics does not.

Why can't general PM tools track WIP?

WIP requires linking delivered work to billing status and contract terms. PM tracks task state, not invoice state. Without that link, WIP stays a manual month-end chore, error-prone and always late.

Is migrating from PM to PSA always disruptive?

Change management is real. Most firms run parallel for one billing cycle, migrate active engagements first, and keep PM for internal ops if useful. Gains in rate accuracy and live margin usually appear within the first invoicing round when rates and hours share one record.