Time and expense tracking software records the hours and costs associated with client work. For professional services organizations, though, simply capturing that information isn't enough.
The more important question is what happens next.
Time and expenses affect what you invoice, what a project costs to deliver, how profitable the engagement is, and whether the assumptions behind the original plan still hold. When that information lives separately from project delivery, resourcing, and financial management, teams still have to reconcile the numbers before they can act.
The best time and expense tracking software connects those records to the rest of the engagement, so an hour logged or an expense submitted becomes part of the financial and operational picture rather than another data point to move between systems.
Key Takeaways
- Choose software based on what happens after you capture time and expenses, not just how easy they are to enter.
- Professional services teams benefit when time, expenses, projects, billing, and financial performance are connected.
- Standalone trackers may be enough if you mainly need timesheets, receipts, and basic reports.
- PSA platforms are a stronger fit when the same data also needs to support resourcing, project financials, invoicing, and profitability.
- The best option depends on whether your priority is simple capture, financial controls, enterprise governance, or end-to-end client delivery.
What Is Time and Expense Tracking Software?
Time and expense tracking software helps professional services organizations record employee time and project-related costs, assign them to the correct client or engagement, and use that information for approvals, billing, and reporting.
For professional services firms, basic time and receipt capture is rarely enough. The greater value comes from connecting those actuals to project budgets, invoices, margins, resource plans, and other operational decisions.
For a deeper look at time tracking itself, including why accurate time data matters to professional services, read Why Time Tracking Is Important for You and Your Organization.
What Should Professional Services Teams Look For?
For this comparison, the most important question is not simply whether a platform can record hours and expenses; it’s how effectively that information moves into the workflows that depend on it.
We evaluated time and expense software based on their ability to support:
- Time capture: Billable and non-billable time tied to the correct client, project, task, or service.
- Expense management: Project-related costs, receipts, categories, reimbursements, and billable expenses.
- Approvals and billing: Workflows for reviewing time and expenses and moving approved activity toward invoicing.
- Project financial visibility: Connections between actual time and costs, budgets, revenue, margins, and profitability.
- Operational depth: Resource planning, project management, recurring services, reporting, and other professional services workflows.
- Ease of use: Practical ways for employees to submit time and expenses consistently, including mobile access where relevant.
- Pricing and fit: The type and size of organization the platform supports and the level of functionality included.
How this list was compiled
This comparison was compiled by researching each vendor’s current product documentation, feature pages, and other relevant first-party sources.
This is not a hands-on product test or a ranking based on a standardized scoring system. We present the tools alphabetically based on their fit for different professional services use cases. Product capabilities, pricing, and plan requirements can change; buyers should verify current details directly with each vendor.
Best Time and Expense Tracking Software Compared
1. Accelo: Best for connecting time and expenses across the organization.
Accelo is an AI-powered professional services automation platform that connects time and expense records to projects, resources, billing, and the financial performance of client work.
Teams can capture billable and non-billable time against client activity with automated time capture, while expenses and materials become part of the engagement's financial record. That information feeds project costs, invoicing, margin tracking, and profitability reporting rather than remaining isolated in a standalone time system. Accelo also extends into project management, resource and capacity planning, retainers, business intelligence, and AI-powered forecasting.
Differentiator: Automated, AI-assisted time capture reduces the burden of recording work while connecting time and expense data to project delivery, resourcing, billing, and profitability.
Limitation: Accelo is likely more of a platform than a team needs if the requirement is limited to a basic timer, timesheet, and expense log.
Pricing: Accelo uses custom pricing based on team size and growth goals; pricing includes access to the full platform and onboarding support. Request a quote.
Best fit: Marketing and creative agencies, consultancies, IT services firms, accounting firms, engineering firms, and other professional services organizations that need time and expenses connected to the full lifecycle of client work.
2. BigTime: Best for time, expense, and billing controls.
BigTime is a professional services platform built around time tracking, expense management, billing, payments, and project financial control.
Its platform combines timesheets and expense management with invoicing, project planning, resource management, and reporting. All current BigTime plans include time tracking, invoicing, expense management, and payments, making those workflows central to the platform rather than an add-on.
Differentiator: Strong emphasis on the financial workflows that sit immediately downstream from time and expense capture.
Limitation: Firms primarily looking for lightweight tracking may not need the broader PSA and financial capabilities.
Pricing: BigTime Essentials currently starts at $20 per user per month.
Best fit: Professional services organizations where accurate time capture, expense management, invoicing, and financial controls are the primary requirements.
3. BQE CORE: Best for architecture and engineering firms.
BQE CORE combines time and expense tracking with billing, project management, resource planning, and accounting, with a particularly strong position in architecture and engineering.
Employees and vendors can record time and expenses, use timers or mobile entry, attach receipts, and assign activity directly to projects. As time and expenses are entered, project budgets update to reflect actual costs. Approved time and expenses can then move into invoicing. BQE CORE also offers integrated accounting functionality.
Differentiator: The combination of project operations, time and expense management, billing, and full accounting within the same product environment.
Limitation: Organizations with a mature accounting stack may not need CORE's broader financial functionality.
Pricing: BQE CORE uses modular, quote-based pricing based on the packages and licenses selected.
Best fit: Architecture, engineering, and other project-based professional services firms that want time, expense, project management, billing, and accounting closely connected.
4. Clockify: Best for straightforward time and expense capture.
Clockify is primarily a time-tracking platform, but its paid plans extend into expense management, approvals, billing, budgets, scheduling, and profitability reporting.
Teams can use timers, manual entry, timesheets, desktop and mobile apps, and calendar-based tracking. Its Pro plan adds expenses, labor cost and profit reporting, budgets, estimates, scheduling, forecasting, and multiple currencies. Invoicing and approval workflows are available beginning with the Standard plan.
Differentiator: A relatively low-cost path from basic time tracking into expense, billing, and profitability functionality.
Limitation: Operational capabilities are not as deep or tightly integrated as those in a full PSA platform.
Pricing: Clockify offers a free plan. Standard is currently $5.49 per user per month billed annually; Pro, which includes expense tracking, is $7.99 per user per month billed annually.
Best fit: Teams that need accessible time and expense tracking without implementing a broader professional services platform.
5. Harvest: Best for simple time, expense, and invoicing workflows.
Harvest combines time tracking, expense management, invoicing, and project reporting in a relatively lightweight platform.
Teams can track time through timesheets and one-click timers, record receipts and reimbursable expenses alongside project activity, and turn tracked time and costs into invoices. Harvest supports both time-and-materials and fixed-fee projects and provides reporting for understanding how time is being used.
Differentiator: A straightforward connection between time capture, expenses, project budgets, and invoicing without the complexity of a full PSA implementation.
Limitation: Harvest does not provide the same depth of resource planning, project operations, or professional services financial management as a PSA platform.
Pricing: Harvest has a free plan for one seat and two projects. Teams starts at $9 per seat per month when billed annually, while Enterprise starts at $14 per seat per month annually.
Best fit: Small and midsized consultancies, agencies, and other service teams that need dependable time, expense, and invoicing workflows but not full PSA functionality.
6. Kantata: Best for enterprise time and expense governance.
Kantata connects time and expense management to project delivery, resource management, project accounting, and enterprise financial controls.
Users can enter time manually or through an embedded timer, record expenses through mobile or web interfaces, attach receipts, categorize costs, and submit expense reports. Kantata also supports approval workflows, time and budget limits, auditing, and connections between time, expenses, and enterprise billing.
Its broader PSA platform includes resource management, project management, project accounting, forecasting, and profitability analysis.
Differentiator: Strong governance and control around time, expenses, project financials, resources, and billing at enterprise scale.
Limitation: The platform may be more complex than smaller firms need if their primary requirement is straightforward time and expense capture.
Pricing: Kantata provides customized pricing based on company size, goals, and operating requirements.
Best fit: Larger professional services organizations managing complex portfolios, resource requirements, approval structures, and financial processes.
7. Replicon: Best for enterprise time intelligence.
Replicon approaches the category from the standpoint of detailed enterprise time management rather than lightweight timekeeping.
Its platform captures project time and turns it into data for costing, billing, utilization, profitability, and other financial processes. Replicon's professional services capabilities also extend into billability targets, project management, revenue management, utilization, margins, and reporting.
Differentiator: Deep time-management capabilities designed for organizations where project time affects multiple downstream financial, labor, and operational systems.
Limitation: That depth may be unnecessary for smaller firms primarily looking for simple time, expense, and invoice management.
Pricing: Replicon's current pricing varies by product and configuration; buyers should confirm current package and pricing details directly with the vendor.
Best fit: Larger or more complex professional services organizations that need detailed project time data to support billing, costing, compliance, and financial management.
8. Sage Timeslips: Best for detailed time and client billing.
Sage Timeslips is purpose-built for professional services firms that need detailed time capture, expense tracking, billing, and reporting.
Users can record time and expenses through multiple entry methods, including desktop, web, mobile, and cloud options depending on the Timeslips product selected. Its billing functionality supports hourly, flat-fee, project-based, and other advanced billing arrangements, along with customizable invoices and extensive reporting.
Sage now offers both the established Timeslips Premium product and Timeslips Anywhere, a cloud-native option aimed at smaller firms that want straightforward time, expense, and billing functionality.
Differentiator: Particularly deep billing flexibility for firms where tracked time and expenses need to become detailed, client-specific invoices.
Limitation: Timeslips is fundamentally a time-and-billing platform. Firms needing integrated resource planning, capacity forecasting, or broader project operations will likely need additional software.
Pricing: Timeslips Anywhere is currently $44 per month for the first user and $34 for each additional user. Premium pricing varies by plan and number of licenses.
Best fit: Legal, accounting, consulting, engineering, and other professional services firms where accurate time capture and sophisticated client billing are the primary requirements.
Time Tracker vs. Time-and-Expense Platform vs. PSA
The right category depends on what you need to do after you record time and expenses. A standalone tracker may be enough for basic capture, while more connected platforms support billing, project financials, resourcing, and other professional services workflows.
A standalone tool can work well when the main need is accurate capture. A PSA platform is a stronger option when time and expense data needs to inform decisions about project performance, staffing, billing, and profitability.
How Should You Choose Time and Expense Tracking Software?
Start with the problem you are trying to solve rather than the longest feature list. Different problems require different levels of time, expense, financial, and operational functionality.
The right software should shorten the distance between recording what happened and deciding what to do next.
When Connected PSA Software Becomes the Better Fit
Connected PSA software becomes the better fit when time and expense data needs to do more than support timesheets, reimbursements, and invoices. Separate tools can create friction when teams have to reconcile recorded work with project plans, staffing, financial performance, and billing.
A connected PSA platform can use the same data to support:
- Project financials: Compare actual effort and costs with budgets, revenue, and margin.
- Resourcing decisions: See how current work is affecting utilization, availability, and future capacity.
- Billing: Move approved time and expenses into invoicing with fewer manual handoffs.
- Delivery: Identify projects consuming more time or cost than expected.
Accelo connects time and expenses with project management, resourcing and capacity planning, billing, and project financials so professional services organizations can manage client work from the same operational foundation.
The goal isn't to adopt a broader platform simply because it offers more functionality. It's to choose software that matches the complexity of the work you're managing.
If time and expense tracking has become part of a larger challenge around delivery, staffing, billing, or profitability, book a demo to see how Accelo connects those workflows across the lifecycle of client work.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can time and expense software replace accounting software?
Usually not. Time and expense software can capture project activity, support billing, and pass financial information into accounting workflows, but general ledger accounting, reconciliation, tax reporting, and other accounting functions typically remain in a dedicated accounting system unless the selected platform explicitly includes them.
What expenses should professional services firms track?
Professional services firms may need to track travel, mileage, materials, software or subcontractor costs, client-related purchases, and other expenses incurred while delivering work. The right system should distinguish reimbursable, billable, and non-billable expenses and associate them with the correct client or project.
Should time and expense software integrate with accounting software?
In most cases, yes. Connecting approved time, expenses, invoices, and other project financial data with the accounting system can reduce duplicate entry and reconciliation work while keeping operational and accounting records aligned.
Can time and expense software automate time capture?
Some platforms can. Automated or AI-assisted time capture may use calendars, project activity, communications, or other work signals to help create or suggest time entries. Buyers should confirm how much of the process is automated, whether employees must review entries, and which features each plan includes.
When should a professional services firm move from a time tracker to PSA software?
A broader PSA platform becomes more useful when time and expense data also needs to support project financials, resourcing, capacity planning, billing, and profitability. If teams regularly move or reconcile the same information across multiple systems to manage client work, standalone time and expense tracking may no longer be enough.
Last updated: September 9, 2026
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