Feature
Resource Management Software for Project Teams
Know who is available, who is over-committed, and whether next quarter is deliverable — before you promise it.
Resource management software plans who works on what and when, comparing each person's capacity against the work already committed across every project, and reporting on utilisation once the work is done.
The spreadsheet everyone is quietly maintaining
Most firms plan resources in a spreadsheet, and most of those spreadsheets are wrong within a fortnight. Not through carelessness — they are a snapshot maintained by hand while the projects underneath keep moving, and the actuals they are supposed to be compared against live somewhere else entirely.
The symptom is familiar: three project managers each believe they have the same senior engineer next month, nobody notices until the week it matters, and the fix is overtime or a slipped date. The second symptom is a utilisation figure produced at quarter end that nobody quite trusts, because the billable hours came from one system and the available hours from another.
Resource management in Chronodesk sits on the same records as timesheets, rate cards and billing, so the plan and the actuals are the same data seen at two different times.
What resource management covers
Capacity planning
Available hours per person and per skill for a future period, net of leave and public holidays rather than a notional working week. This is the number a sales conversation should be checked against before a delivery date is promised.
Allocation across projects
People are booked to work, not to a single project. Allocations from every active engagement are visible together, which is where double-booking is normally discovered — usually too late, when each project manager could only see their own plan.
Over-allocation warnings
When bookings exceed a person's capacity for a period, that shows up as a conflict at planning time. The alternative is finding out in the week it lands, when the only remaining options are overtime or a slipped date.
Utilisation tracking
Billable hours over available hours, per person, per team and per period — computed from approved timesheets rather than estimated. Planned utilisation and achieved utilisation sit next to each other, so the gap between what was booked and what happened is measurable.
Forecasting from committed work
Because allocations carry rates, the committed pipeline produces a revenue and cost forecast rather than just a staffing plan. A resourcing decision and a financial decision stop being separate conversations.
What is a good utilisation rate?
For billable consultants, most professional services firms target 70–80%, and 75% is the figure quoted most often. The band matters more than the number:
- Below ~60% — the firm is carrying more capacity than it is selling. Either the pipeline is short or the bench is too large for it.
- 70–80% — enough billable work to be profitable, with room left for pre-sales, training, internal projects and the fact that people take leave.
- Sustained above ~85% — there is no slack. Quality slips, nothing gets improved, and attrition follows about two quarters later.
Calculation is billable hours divided by available hours for a person and a period. A consultant with 160 available hours in a month who logs 120 billable hours is at 75%. Available hours should be contracted hours less leave and public holidays — using a notional 40-hour week inflates the denominator and flatters nobody usefully.
The figure is only worth having if non-billable time is recorded honestly. A firm whose people log only billable hours will report excellent utilisation and learn nothing from it, which is why billable/non-billable separation belongs at the point of capture in timesheets rather than in a reporting rule afterwards.
Why it matters that this is not a standalone tool
Standalone resourcing tools plan capacity well and then stop. The plan lives in one place, the actual hours in a timesheet system, and the rates and invoices in a third — so comparing what was planned with what happened is a monthly export-and-reconcile exercise, and by the time it is done the quarter has moved on.
In Chronodesk an allocation, a timesheet entry and an invoice line refer to the same project and the same rate card. Planned versus actual is a view rather than a reconciliation, an over-run is visible while there is still time to act on it, and a resourcing decision carries its financial consequence with it.
This is the argument for treating resourcing as part of a professional services automation software platform rather than as a separate purchase. See also PMO and portfolio management for the programme-level view.
Which plan includes resource management?
Resource management is on the Advanced plan — $40 (R600) per user per month — with PMO and project portfolio management, work breakdown structure, ticket SLA management, contract and retainer management, custom forms and API access. Timesheets and rate cards are on every plan from Essential ($15 / R225). Full detail on Chronodesk pricing.
Resource management software FAQ
What is resource management software?
Resource management software plans who works on what, and when. It compares each person's available capacity against the work already committed to them across every project, flags over-allocation before the delivery date rather than after it, and reports on utilisation once the work is done. In a services business it is the tool that answers whether the next engagement is actually deliverable.
What is a good utilisation rate?
For billable consultants, 70–80% is the range most professional services firms target, and 75% is the figure quoted most often. Below about 60% the firm is carrying more capacity than it is selling; sustained above 85% there is no slack for training, pre-sales, internal work or illness, and delivery quality and retention both suffer. Support and delivery roles that carry unplanned work are usually planned lower. The number only means anything if non-billable time is recorded honestly — a firm that logs only billable hours will report excellent utilisation and learn nothing from it.
How is utilisation rate calculated?
Billable hours divided by available hours, for a person and a period. A consultant with 160 available hours in a month who logs 120 billable hours is at 75%. Available hours means contracted hours less leave and public holidays, not a notional 40-hour week. Some firms also track realisation — billable hours actually invoiced over billable hours worked — which exposes write-offs that utilisation alone hides.
What is the difference between capacity planning and resource allocation?
Capacity planning is the aggregate question: how many hours of each skill does the firm have available next quarter, and how much work is committed against them. Resource allocation is the specific one: which named person is booked to which project, on which days. Capacity planning tells you whether to take the work; allocation tells you who does it.
Which plan includes resource management?
Resource management is on the Advanced plan at $40 (R600) per user per month, together with PMO and project portfolio management, work breakdown structure, SLA management and contract and retainer management.