Project accounting software for firms that bill by the job

What project accounting software tracks

Sage describes project management accounting software as tracking project financials, including costs, revenue and billing, alongside time and expenses, so profitability is visible by project as well as for the company. In practice that means each job is a unit of measurement: labor, expenses, subcontractors and revenue sit on that job, and the general ledger still balances for the firm as a whole.

Two numbers make the category different from a project plan or a simple customer invoice. Work in progress (WIP) estimates the financial value of jobs that are underway, because posting expenses before you invoice otherwise makes the statements look worse than the work earned. Revenue recognition can follow milestones, a schedule or percentage of completion, and that posting can be separate from the day you send the bill.

A project accounting system is the ledger treatment of that job. A project cost accounting layer inside it is the budget, the cost rate and the actual cost by phase or task. Billing, utilization and staffing can live in the same product or in a professional services automation (PSA) tool that posts into the ledger. Scheduling software that draws a Gantt chart does not, by itself, post WIP or recognize revenue.

Why a project-based firm outgrows company-only books

Standard accounting answers whether the company made money this month. Project accounting answers whether the bridge study, the tenant-improvement set, or the retainer still has fee left. Accounting Seed's page records the operating complaint in a buyer's words: "When timesheets, project budgets, expenses, and invoices live in separate systems, project margin is only known after finance reconciles the numbers, by which point the work is finished." (Accounting Seed). A Sage Intacct customer, quoted on Sage's project accounting page, said: "Before we had Sage Intacct in place, we had no way to do true project accounting. We spent hours every month manually looking at time clock data to check hours spent on different grant deliverables or consulting projects." (Sage Intacct project accounting).

Engineering and architecture firms feel this on multipliers and overhead. The cost rate is what the person costs the firm. The bill rate is what the contract allows you to charge. Overhead is the pool of rent, software, insurance and non-billable management that has to land somewhere.

Utilization is billable hours divided by available hours. Realization is billed value divided by the standard value of those hours. None of those ratios has a single published target that fits every US or Canadian firm. The software either stores the rates and the hours so you can compute them, or it leaves the math in a workbook.

Assume a 40-hour week and 28 hours coded to billable tasks. Utilization on that definition is 28 divided by 40, or 70 percent. Assume those 28 hours carry a standard bill rate of $150, so standard value is $4,200, and the invoice that goes out is $3,360 after a write-down. Realization is 3,360 divided by 4,200, or 80 percent. A project based accounting software test is whether both rates sit on the timesheet line and whether the write-down is visible before the invoice is sent.

Firms in this size band usually need the same close every month: budget versus actual by phase, unbilled WIP, a multiplier that finance and project managers share, and an overhead rule someone can explain to a principal. They also need the books to survive an audit question on revenue. That is a project accounting problem, even when the firm still calls the tool 'the billing system'.

Project accounting software by the firm it fits

Search results mix Gantt tools, agency PSA products and true ledgers. For a 20 to 100 person engineering, architecture, civil or consulting firm, the useful cut is who owns the general ledger and how the firm bills. The table is a buying shortlist as of November 2026, using each vendor's own page. It is a decision aid. Product setup for Business Central, Project Operations and Odoo is on the linked guides further down, so this page does not repeat those configurations.

Prices below are list prices where the vendor publishes them. Microsoft says its displayed prices are informational and checkout can differ by currency, country and region. Where a vendor page has a quote button and no dollar amount, this page says pricing is by quote. No third-party price was substituted.

Sage Intacct when the project has to live in the ledger

Choose Sage Intacct when the controller wants project cost, billing and revenue recognition in the accounting system, and is willing to take a quote. Sage Intacct project accounting can track expenses by project and budget to actual, generate invoices with fixed-price and time-and-materials methods, and separate revenue recognition from billing. Recognition can be calculated and posted from milestones, schedules or percentage completion.

That separation is the feature many spreadsheet closes fake. You can invoice a deposit or a milestone in March and recognize a different amount in March if the performance obligation is satisfied on a different measure. The public project-accounting page offers a path to talk to Sage experts and does not publish a subscription price. As of November 2026, pricing is by quote. No Canadian list price was on that page either.

The limit for a 20 to 100 person firm is fit and operating load, which a demo has to prove. Ask Sage to post one fixed-fee job and one time-and-materials job, show budget versus actual by task, and show revenue that does not move only because an invoice date changed. If the firm also wants architecture-style utilization and realization on the project manager's screen, confirm those reports in the same tenant rather than assuming a PSA will be unnecessary.

Sage is a strong project accounting software candidate when the firm has outgrown a file-based ledger and the finance team will own dimensions, recognition rules and the monthly WIP schedule. It is a weaker default when the firm mainly needs phase-fee tracking for a studio and does not want a full cloud-ledger replacement yet.

BQE CORE and BigTime for architecture, engineering and billing

BQE markets CORE as architecture and engineering firm software, founded by an architect and an engineer, with time, billing and the general ledger available in the product. BQE states that 3,000+ architecture and engineering firms use it. BQE publishes this testimonial on its own site: "Switching to CORE has opened up a new level of managing projects, and provided us with more insights into our projects that we couldn't get from our previous tool. Our project managers now have the flexibility to set up projects in the way that makes the most sense for them." (BQE CORE). The same page also says: "We realized our return on investment within about 6 months of using CORE." (BQE CORE). Both lines are BQE's own testimonials, so keep them out of your budget.

On the pricing page, Foundations includes time and expense, billing and invoicing (including phased billing), project management with budgets and fee schedules, and reporting on utilization, realization and profitability. Accounting, including project, department and company budgeting, is a separate module. Foundations, Accounting, CRM, HR and Payroll each route to Request Quote. Per-user pricing is described, buyers pay only for additional modules, and the page shows no dollar amount. As of November 2026, pricing is by quote.

BQE CORE Payroll is described as processing for US-based businesses, with federal, state and local tax filing powered by Gusto. A Canadian firm should ask about payroll on its own, because the module is described for US-based businesses.

BigTime fits a firm that wants time, invoicing, expenses and payments in a PSA and will keep the general ledger elsewhere. As of November 2026, BigTime Essentials starts at $20 per user/month. The page uses a dollar sign and does not state whether that figure is monthly or annual billing. All listed plans include time tracking, invoicing, expense management and payments.

Project budgeting, custom cost and rate management, and multi-currency invoicing sit on Premier. Advanced, Premier and Enterprise prices are not listed, so those plans are by quote. Premier lists Sage Intacct among integrations, which matches using BigTime beside the ledger.

A principal who is still closing margin in a workbook should not stop at Essentials and assume project budgets are included. Ask which plan stores a cost rate and a bill rate on the same person, which plan holds a project budget, and how approved time becomes an invoice and then a journal entry in the ledger you already run. A wider look at PSA products is in the PSA software comparison. For many engineering firms the split is BQE when architecture and engineering practice reports are the point, and BigTime when the ledger is already chosen and the gap is time-to-invoice.

Business Central projects and Project Operations

Dynamics 365 Business Central is the ERP path when the firm wants one ledger for finance and a project application for jobs. Microsoft Learn says Business Central supports project accounting: you create projects and schedule resources, provide budget information and monitor progress, and track machine and employee hours with time sheets. That Learn page was updated on 3 July 2026.

As of November 2026, Business Central Essentials lists at USD 80.00 per user per month, paid yearly, Premium at USD 110.00 and Team Members at USD 8.00. On the Canada pricing page the same licenses list at CAD 108.50, CAD 149.20 and CAD 10.90 per user per month, paid yearly, plus applicable tax. The pricing pages do not show whether Projects is included in Essentials. Ask which license posts job costs before you count seats.

WIP in Business Central is how you estimate the financial value of in-progress projects in the general ledger. Methods that ship are Cost Value, Cost of Sales, Sales Value, Percentage of Completion and Completed Contract. Completed Contract recognizes no revenue or cost until the project is complete.

Percentage of Completion recognizes costs as reported and sales in proportion to reported costs. Completion percent equals actual total cost divided by budget total cost. That is an input method: the percent follows cost consumed against the budget. It lines up with an engineer's design percent when the budget stays aligned with that estimate.

Assume a fixed-fee assignment with budgeted cost of $200,000 and a billable contract price of $280,000. Costs posted to date are $80,000, and invoices sent to date are $50,000. Percentage of completion is 80,000 divided by 200,000, or 40 percent. Sales recognized in proportion to reported costs are 40 percent of $280,000, or $112,000. The gap between recognized sales and invoices is $62,000, which is the WIP or unbilled figure the method is built to surface.

Under Completed Contract, that same job would show the $80,000 of cost on the books and no contract revenue until the project is complete. The assumptions are there so you can check a vendor's screen against the formula. Job setup, time sheets and these WIP methods are covered in Business Central jobs and projects.

Dynamics 365 Project Operations is the heavier project product. As of November 2026 it lists at USD 135.00 per user per month, paid yearly, and at CAD 183.20 per user per month, paid yearly, plus applicable tax, on the Canada page. Microsoft says it supports fixed-price, time-and-materials or retainer contracts, tracks budget-to-actual for labor, expenses and materials, and can set cost and revenue profiles with rules for cost, revenue, accruals and postings.

The page says the product supports adherence to accounting standards including IFRS. That page names IFRS and publishes no second license price for a finance app. Use Project Operations when resource scheduling and contract profiles are part of the buy. Use Business Central projects when the firm wants the job inside a mid-market ERP and can live with the WIP methods Learn documents. Contract detail for Project Operations is in Dynamics 365 Project Operations.

Odoo project accounting with analytic accounts

Odoo fits a firm that wants Project, timesheets and Accounting on one subscription and will design the project as an analytic account. Odoo 19 docs say analytic accounting tracks costs and revenues and analyzes a project's or a service's profitability. Costs on journal entries can be distributed across one or more analytic accounts. Plans group those accounts so the company tracks costs and revenues by project or by department.

Project profitability compares resource costs (employee costs, materials, purchases and expenses) with project revenues on billable projects. The dashboard splits expected, to-invoice or to-bill, and invoiced or billed. Timesheet revenue follows the product invoicing policy: prepaid or fixed price, based on timesheets, or based on milestones. A record has to be linked to the project and its analytic account or it will not appear.

That link is where firms lose margin in Odoo. A vendor bill coded only to a general expense account never hits the job.

As of November 2026 Odoo's US pricing page lists Standard at USD 24.90 per user per month on yearly billing, discounted from USD 31.10, and Custom at USD 49.00 per user per month on yearly billing, against USD 61.10 monthly. The yearly discount is valid for 12 months for the initial users ordered. Standard and Custom include all apps, including Accounting and Project. The page shows no CAD price, so a Canadian firm should take its CAD license figure from an Odoo quote.

Light users are priced by quote. On the pricing page, timesheets are a paying-user example, so planners and engineers who enter time should be counted as full users when you estimate the bill.

Custom adds the on-premise or Odoo.sh option, Studio, multi-company and the external API, with Odoo.sh hosting extra. For a single Canadian or US entity that bills in local currency, confirm multi-currency and tax configuration in a trial before you treat Standard as enough. Billing patterns for fixed price, timesheets and milestones are covered in Odoo project billing. The product still needs a designed chart, analytic plan and invoicing policy before it is a project accounting system.

What to test before you pick a project accounting system

Run the same two jobs in every finalist. Job A is fixed fee: a contract price, a cost budget by phase, and costs that arrive before you bill. Job B is time and materials: a cost rate, a bill rate, expenses and a cap. If the vendor can only demo a task list, you are looking at project management software with a billing export, which is a different purchase.

Load a multiplier on purpose. Assume a fully loaded cost of $50 an hour and a contract bill rate of $150. The line should store both numbers. Margin on that hour is $100 before overhead. Then apply an overhead rule you choose, such as a percent of direct labor or a fixed amount per hour, and see whether the job profit moves when overhead posts.

There is no standard engineering overhead percent to copy into the software. The test is whether the allocation is visible and repeatable.

Check four screens after you post, and reject a product that only shows them after a month-end spreadsheet. The script below is the same one a controller can hand to a salesperson.

Start from the contract mix, then the ledger you are willing to change. A firm that is mostly fixed-fee engineering, with discipline budgets and subconsultants, needs phase budgets, a cost rate and a bill rate, unbilled time, and a path from an approved change to a billing line. A civil firm that inspects sites and bills progress on construction-related work needs those same job costs plus the Canadian holdback timing in the Canada section. An architecture studio that bills by design phase needs fee consumed by phase while the phase is still open. A consulting firm on retainers needs the retainer contract type and a clear rule for unused hours.

If finance will replace the ledger, shortlist Sage Intacct, Business Central and Odoo. Add Project Operations when the firm wants scheduling and contract profiles. Its US list price is USD 135 per user per month, paid yearly. The Canada page lists CAD 183.20 per user per month, paid yearly, plus applicable tax. Any finance-app or other license dependency was not stated as a second price on the product page, so that dependency stays a quote question.

If the firm is architecture or engineering and wants utilization and realization in the same product family as time and billing, price BQE CORE by quote and confirm the Accounting module is in the proposal. If the ledger stays, price BigTime with the plan that includes project budgeting, and budget the integration together with the $20 Essentials starting figure.

A consulting engineering firm that then chooses Odoo can scope work packages on the Odoo Engineering Services package. A civil firm can start from the Odoo Civil Engineering package. An architecture practice that bills by design phase can start from the Odoo Architecture and Planning package. Firms that want utilization and project margin on either Odoo or Dynamics 365 can read ERP for professional services firms. The platform choice itself is the selection offer in the last section, on a page that compares several ledgers.

Score the demo with the two jobs. Give a point for each test you could finish without a spreadsheet: budget versus actual, multiplier, overhead, unbilled WIP, recognition on a date other than the invoice, and, in Canada, GST/HST on a progress bill and a qualifying holdback. Ask who configures the recognition policy and who owns it after launch. License price is the vendor's bill. Implementation is a separate proposal, scoped to the jobs you run.

Project accounting for engineering firms fails in a predictable way: time is captured, invoices go out, and the margin report still waits for a finance analyst. Buy the product that makes that report a posting, then staff the monthly review with the same phases the project managers already use.

• Budget versus actual by phase or task, for cost and for fee, on Job A and Job B.
• Unbilled WIP: cost posted and revenue earned that has not been invoiced, with the account it hits in the general ledger.
• A billing-rate multiplier next to the cost rate, and a write-down that changes realization before the invoice is final.
• Overhead posted by a stated rule, so job profit is after overhead or clearly before it.
• Revenue that stays put when you change only the invoice date, and that moves when you change percent complete, a milestone or delivered time, matching the policy you selected.
• For Business Central, percentage of completion equal to actual cost over budget cost, with billable price and budget cost present for the whole project so the formula has inputs.
• For Canada, a progress invoice in CAD and a holdback line whose GST/HST timing follows the contract, as the next section describes.
• A month-end pack: project margin, WIP, unbilled time, and utilization. If any of the four is an export, write down who will maintain it.

WIP, percentage of completion, ASC 606 and IFRS 15

Microsoft Learn defines WIP as a way to estimate the financial value of in-progress projects in the general ledger, because expenses posted before invoicing would otherwise make the financial statements inaccurate. WIP is the bridge between the project cost system and the income statement. Cash collected is a separate report. A project manager's estimate of percent complete enters the books when the accounting policy uses that measure.

IFRS 15 is effective for annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2018. An entity recognizes revenue to depict the transfer of promised goods or services in an amount that reflects the consideration it expects to be entitled to. The five steps are: identify the contract, identify the performance obligations, determine the transaction price, allocate that price to the performance obligations, and recognize revenue when or as a performance obligation is satisfied. Obligations satisfied over time use a measure of progress.

In May 2014 the IASB issued IFRS 15 together with the introduction of Topic 606 into the FASB Accounting Standards Codification. Topic 606 is the US standard usually called ASC 606. IFRS 15 replaced IAS 11 Construction Contracts and IAS 18 Revenue.

Percentage of completion is one way to measure progress on an over-time obligation. Business Central's shipped Percentage of Completion method uses cost: actual total cost divided by budget total cost, then recognizes sales in that proportion. A cost-to-cost percent can diverge from physical progress when early phases are cheap in labor and late phases carry subcontractors, or the reverse.

Sage's project accounting page also says revenue can be calculated from milestones, schedules or percentage completion, and that recognition is separate from billing. Project Operations' product page refers to IFRS and to cost and revenue profiles. Your accountant still picks the policy. The software has to be able to post it.

A practical reading for a professional firm: a single design contract may contain more than one performance obligation (schematic design versus construction administration, or a base fee versus an additional service). The transaction price has to be allocated to those obligations. A 30 percent kickoff bill can be a contract liability when cash arrives before performance, or a contract asset when you have performed and have yet to bill. Ask the vendor to show both postings on Job A from the test above.

CAD prices, GST/HST and holdback on progress invoices

Canadian firms should price the license in CAD where the vendor publishes it, and keep the project ledger in CAD even if a parent reports in USD. As of November 2026, Business Central Essentials is CAD 108.50 per user per month, Premium CAD 149.20 and Team Members CAD 10.90, paid yearly, plus applicable tax. Project Operations is CAD 183.20 per user per month, paid yearly, plus applicable tax. Sage Intacct and BQE CORE publish no CAD amount, and Odoo shows no CAD list price, so their Canadian price is part of the quote.

GST/HST on construction progress payments follows different timing from a simple product invoice. CRA GST/HST Memorandum 19.1 (October 1997, with a notice of change on 16 January 2002) says progress payments on a construction contract are taxed on the earlier of the day the payment is made and the day it becomes due. An engineer's or architect's certificate for payment is not itself the supplier's invoice. The system needs a due date and a payment date on the progress bill, and it should not treat the consultant's certificate as the tax invoice.

Holdback is the amount the recipient keeps pending satisfactory performance. Under subsection 168(7) of the Excise Tax Act, as the memorandum explains it, when a recipient holds back part of the consideration for a taxable supply, either as required by federal or provincial law or under a written agreement to construct, renovate, alter or repair real property, tax on the holdback is payable on the earlier of the day the holdback is paid and the day the holdback period expires. A holdback that is not required by law or by that kind of written agreement does not defer the tax.

The memorandum's worked case uses a 10 percent holdback on a $100,000 contract. That illustration is a teaching case in the 1997 memorandum, and the memorandum's tax arithmetic reflects the GST rate printed when it was written. Use the GST/HST rate that applies on the invoice, and confirm the holdback percent in the contract and in the statute that governs the job.

For a civil or building-related assignment, the project accounting software has to store the progress bill, the holdback receivable or payable, and the date tax becomes due, including the expiry of the holdback period. A professional-services job that is not a contract to construct, renovate, alter or repair real property may not get that deferral. Put the contract type on the job so billing staff do not apply a construction holdback rule to a strategy retainer. Multi-currency matters when a Canadian firm bills a US client: BigTime places multi-currency invoicing on Premier, and Business Central and Odoo need the currency and the tax code tested on a sample invoice before go-live.

How Flectic can help

Flectic implements Odoo project and resource management for consulting engineering firms of 20 to 100 people in the US and Canada, so each work package's budget, engineer utilization and billing sit on the same record. The package configures hours against budget per work package, utilization by discipline, unbilled time and open subconsultant orders, and Core is proposed at 12 to 14 weeks. See how the Odoo Engineering Services package is scoped, or the Odoo Civil Engineering package for civil firms, then Book a free discovery call.

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