Fill the teams
Assign the right skills to the right projects, forecast demand and spot overloads or gaps before they cost money. This is the core of a PSA: the resource is the main asset of a services company.
Comparison PSA software comparison: which tool for which organization?
This PSA software comparison sets Kantata, Timetta, Certinia, Deltek Vantagepoint and pylotik. side by side. A PSA answers one precise question: how a services company fills its teams, enters its time, invoices and protects its margin. The first four answer it, each for a particular organization profile. pylotik answers it too, for any organization that runs projects, by steering contracts, projects and maintenance with the client and by building in team management.
The family
What PSA software solves.
PSA stands for professional services automation. This software was born in consulting firms, IT services companies, agencies and engineering firms, where revenue is sold in days and lost in badly allocated days.
Turn time into an invoice
Time entry and approval, fixed-price or time-and-materials projects, invoices produced from actuals. Most PSAs issue the invoices themselves or prepare them for the accounting tool.
Protect the margin
Budgets, forecasts, revenue recognition, profitability per project or per client. The PSA gives the finance department a consolidated view of the activity.
A PSA looks at the activity from inside the services company, through utilization and invoicing. Yet the profitability of a commitment is also lost in two places. First the relationship with the client: scope that slips, dates that move, validations that come late. Then the team: workload, wear and tear, departures. These concern any organization that runs projects, not only services companies. This is the ground covered by project steering software turned toward the client and the team.
Selection guide
If your priority is…
Start from your priority, not from the list of features.
| Your priority | Suitable tool | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The profitability of your projects and commitments, steered where it is lost: with the client and in the team | pylotik | Workload plan, time, fixed-price or time-and-materials contracts, ordered, invoiced, paid, amount still due, cost and forecast margin; committees and client validations, team management; invoicing orders sent to the ERP. |
| Steering contracts, projects and maintenance with the client, under traced governance | pylotik | Committees, minutes validated by the client, free client access, maintenance contracts linked to projects and, in addition, intervention planning. |
| Issuing invoices in the same tool, fixed price and time and materials mixed, with no ERP alongside | Kantata | Mixed fixed-price and time-and-materials invoicing on a single invoice, revenue recognition, SX offer for multi-entity groups. |
| Staying within the Salesforce ecosystem | Certinia | Built natively on Salesforce: same client records, projects created from opportunities. |
| Finance, accounting entries and invoicing in one tool, with an open API | Timetta | PSA and PPM combined, P&L per project, program and client, accounting entries, documented OData API. |
| A project ERP, accounting included, for an architecture, engineering or consulting firm | Deltek Vantagepoint | CRM, resources, projects and accounting in one system, fees suited to these trades. |
The players
Four PSAs, four profiles.
The profiles draw on each vendor's public documentation, checked on the date shown under the table.
Kantata
Born from the merger of Mavenlink and Kimble, Kantata brings together project management, resource forecasting, time, invoicing and financial steering, in two offers: OX for growing organizations, SX for large multi-entity groups. It stands out for capacity forecasting and for invoicing that mixes fixed price and time and materials on a single invoice. It is less suited to small organizations and to unbilled internal projects; maintenance contracts and interventions are not documented in the pages consulted. The pylotik vs Kantata comparison details these differences.
Timetta
Timetta covers both PSA and PPM: projects, programs and portfolios, resource booking by skill, project finance with P&L, time-and-materials invoicing from approved time, and a documented OData API. It targets consulting, integration or architecture firms, from the small team to the group. Its cloud is hosted in Russia according to the vendor, no client portal is described, and only the English and Russian versions of the site are documented. The pylotik vs Timetta comparison goes further.
Certinia
Certinia (formerly FinancialForce) sells a PSA built natively on Salesforce, which links sales, delivery, resources and finance. It stands out for its project hierarchies with consolidation, its risk registers and a mobile app for time and expenses. It is less suited to organizations that do not use Salesforce; client access goes through Experience Cloud, which requires community licenses. The pylotik vs Certinia comparison covers these points.
Deltek Vantagepoint
Vantagepoint is a project-oriented ERP for architecture, engineering and consulting firms: CRM, resources, planning with critical path, time and expenses, fee invoicing and accounting. It offers hosting in the European Union. It is a full ERP, with a real implementation project, designed for these trades; no client portal is documented.
Feature by feature
What each software documents.
"Not documented" means the vendor's public documentation does not mention it, not that the feature is absent.
| Feature | pylotik | KantataCloud Act | Timetta | CertiniaCloud Act | Deltek VantagepointCloud Act |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| European sovereignty | France | Non-EUUnited States | Non-EURussia | Non-EUUnited States | Non-EUUnited States |
| Project management (tasks, milestones, schedule) | YesWork packages, tasks, phases, milestones, Gantt | YesTasks, deliverables, milestones, Gantt chart and task tracking. | YesPlanning, Gantt, backlog and sprints. | YesProjects, tasks, milestones, Gantt. | YesProject plans, schedule, Gantt, resource scenarios. |
| Multi-project steering | YesPortfolio steering and arbitration | YesDashboards across the whole portfolio. | YesPortfolio management and consolidated reporting. | PartialConsolidation through project hierarchies and regions / practices / groups; no portfolio module described on the website. | PartialMulti-project dashboards and resource views; portfolio management belongs to another Deltek product (Project Portfolio Management). |
| Linked or nested projects | Via moduleLinked projects, one level (Extended Project) | Not documented | PartialPrograms group projects; no nested sub-projects described. | YesParent and child projects, master project, consolidation of amounts and time. | PartialThree-level structure (project, phase, task); no project or program hierarchy documented. |
| Resources and assignments | Yes | Yes | Yes | YesAssignment by skills and availability. | Yes |
| Workload plan | Yes | YesDemand forecasting and capacity optimization. | YesBooking calendar, detection of overloads and under-utilization. | YesResource requests, utilization rate, forecasts. | YesUtilization rate, skills search, staffing forecasts. |
| Time entry | YesWeekly, on web and mobile | YesTime entry and approval; reserved for the Premier and Enterprise plans according to the mobile help. | YesTimesheets, absences, approval workflows. | YesTimesheets (timecards) and expenses. | YesTimesheets and expense reports. |
| Client contracts | YesA contract for each project | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented | YesContract Management form: contract amounts and expected fees per project. |
| Maintenance contracts | YesVolume, catalogue, committee | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented |
| Intervention scheduling | Via moduleInterventions module | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented |
| Fixed-price projects | YesPayment schedule on milestones | YesFixed Fee at task, deliverable or milestone level. | YesTime-and-materials and fixed-price invoicing announced; the Finance module computes revenue "by fixed amount". | YesFixed-price or mixed projects, milestones billed at a fixed amount. | YesFixed fees or fees by percent complete, suited to fixed-price contracts according to the documentation. |
| Time-and-materials projects | YesMonthly schedule, days × rate | YesTime & Materials, optionally mixed with fixed price. | Yes | Yes | YesBilling on time and expenses; confirmed mainly by commercial sources. |
| Invoice issuing | Via integrationBilling orders sent to the ERP; the invoice is issued by the ERP | YesSeveral invoices possible over the life of a project. | YesInvoices generated from time, templates and approval workflow. | Via moduleThe PSA produces billing events; invoices are issued in Certinia Accounting / Billing Central or a connected ERP. | YesBilling and invoice issuing workflows. |
| Financial tracking and margin | YesOrdered, invoiced, paid, margin | YesBudgets, margins, revenue recognition. | YesBudget, actuals, forecast, P&L. | YesOrder backlog, billing, budgets, revenue, rate realization. | YesBudgets, alerts on revenue and expense variances. |
| Decision log | Yes | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented |
| Risk register | YesShared or internal | PartialRisk identification and health indicators; no risk register described. | Yes"Milestones, risks, and dependencies" at portfolio level; depth of the register not detailed. | YesRisks on a project, milestone, account or opportunity, with a mitigation plan. | PartialThe Dela assistant flags project risks; no risk register documented. |
| Client access | Yes | PartialThe client can be invited on the "Client" side of the project workspace; no dedicated portal described. | Not documented | Via moduleSalesforce Experience Cloud sites for Customer Community Plus users or partners. | Not documented |
| Client access without a license | YesExternal client organizations | Not documented | Not documented | NoCertinia Community license required (vendor guide, 2021) | Not documented |
| Client validation | YesMinutes, amendments, interventions | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented |
Information checked in October 2026, against the vendors' public documentation. It changes: see the sources. The flag shows the vendor's country; the Cloud Act badge flags a vendor under US law, or owned by a US group, subject to the CLOUD Act; Non-EU, a vendor established outside the European Union.
Frankly
Where pylotik is relevant, and where it is not.
pylotik is not just another PSA. PSAs target services companies; pylotik targets any organization that runs projects. It covers workload, time, fixed-price or time-and-materials contracts, ordered, invoiced, paid and forecast margin, without issuing the invoices, and adds the client and team management.
pylotik is relevant when…
- The profitability of your projects and commitments is at stake pylotik was built during turnarounds and restructurings of service and project centers. It serves any organization that commits human time to projects, with an external or internal client: industry, construction, engineering, digital services, administration, public service. Workload, time, contracts, invoiced amounts, amount still due and forecast margin are read alongside what moves them: the client and the team.
- The client is part of the steering They follow what concerns them and validate committee minutes, with a reason if they refuse. Their access is free on all tiers, and they do not see your margins, your workload or your HR data.
- Contracts, projects and maintenance are intertwined Each project has its contract, fixed price on milestones or time and materials. Maintenance contracts track their volume in days and their committee; in addition, planned interventions are accepted through the client's signature.
- Governance must leave a trace Agendas, minutes, decisions, actions and risks, shared or internal, live in the project, not in a mailbox. See project governance.
- Teams are heard Workload plan, weekly time entry, weekly report and feedback whose author chooses the recipient, without scoring. See team steering.
A PSA remains preferable when…
- The invoice must be issued in the same tool, with no ERP alongside pylotik does not issue invoices: it connects to the ERP, through a connector built to your needs, to send it the invoicing orders. Without an ERP, Kantata, Timetta or Deltek Vantagepoint issue the invoices themselves.
- Multi-entity accounting and revenue recognition are at the heart of the need Kantata SX targets multi-entity groups, Timetta produces accounting entries, Deltek Vantagepoint includes accounting. pylotik does not keep accounts and does not do CRM.
- Your organization is standardized on a specific ecosystem Certinia is built natively on Salesforce and takes over its client records and opportunities.
Many organizations keep an ERP for invoicing, then rebuild profitability and the client relationship every month in spreadsheets. pylotik proposes another split: the invoice is still issued by the ERP, to which pylotik sends the invoicing orders, but workload, margins, committees, validations and reporting rest on a single data set, read by the supplier and, for what concerns them, by the client. This is the meaning of operational commitment management; project financial tracking shows what pylotik calculates and what it leaves to your invoicing.
Frequently asked questions
What people ask before choosing a PSA.
Which PSA software should you choose?
There is no single one for every organization. Kantata targets medium to large services companies, Certinia those living in Salesforce, Timetta those who want PSA and portfolio combined, Deltek Vantagepoint architecture and engineering firms. If the profitability of your projects mostly depends on the relationship with the client and on the workload of the teams, pylotik builds in both, whatever your sector: minutes validated by the client, workload plan and team time.
Is pylotik PSA software?
Not in the strict sense. It covers the workload plan, time entry, fixed-price or time-and-materials contracts, ordered, invoiced and paid amounts and forecast margin, and adds the client and team management. However, pylotik does not issue invoices: it connects to the ERP, through a connector built to your needs, to send it the invoicing orders.
PSA or project steering: how to decide?
Start from where the margin is lost. If it is in the relationship with the client and in the team, a steering tool that brings the two together, like pylotik, answers it. A PSA remains preferable if the invoice must be issued in the same tool without an ERP, or if multi-entity accounting is at the heart of the need. The PSA or PPM guide also clarifies the boundary with portfolio management.
Can the client access a PSA?
It depends on the tool. Kantata lets you invite the client on the "Client" side of a project workspace, Certinia goes through Experience Cloud with community licenses, and the documentation of Timetta and Deltek Vantagepoint does not describe a client portal. In pylotik, access for external client organizations is free on all tiers.
Can you keep your PSA and use pylotik?
Yes. pylotik connects to the ERP, through a connector built to your needs, to send it the invoicing orders; its connectors are optional. It has no public API or SSO.
How much does pylotik cost compared with a PSA?
pylotik prices are public: two seats, Pilot and Contributor, three tiers, and modules from the Business tier. They are on the pricing page. We do not publish other vendors' prices, which change often.
Next
Going further.
- pylotik vs Kantata: the PSA for services companies, facing steering for any organization that runs projects.
- pylotik vs Timetta: a combined PSA and PPM, facing a tool centered on commitments.
- pylotik vs Certinia: the Salesforce-native PSA, and when it remains preferable.
- PSA or PPM, the difference: two families, two questions.
- The product tour: contracts, projects, maintenance and committees in the same tool.
- The pylotik pricing: seats, free client access and modules.
- All the software comparisons: PSA, PPM, work management and interventions.