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by Catherine Rozyczko on March 27, 2024
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Summary: Work management is a scalable discipline that establishes the framework to orchestrate people, products, and processes across an organization.
Work management tools are software solutions that help connect data from all your teams to streamline workflows and benefit from a secure, closed-loop environment.
The author has tried almost a dozen work management tools and offers a review score for the top software contenders.
To effectively grow and scale any business, you’ll need a comprehensive work management strategy.
If you’ve never heard of work management, but you already know how to put people, tools, and processes into play to grow your business, congratulations! You’re already doing it.
Work management, as a concept and as a discipline, takes into account all of your processes at a task-by-task level, puts those into manageable workflows across the entire organization, and then finds a way to unite or align these workflows with the overall company goals.
On a more simplistic level, work management will seek to organize and empower the three Ps: People, Process, and Product.
When it comes to software, work management means finding a tool that can both manage and connect everything under one digital roof.
I myself have tried almost a dozen of the most popular work management software solutions in my work for various clients and for market research for PSOhub.
I created my rating system to evaluate each one thoroughly for 2024. My criteria work according to the features that are non-negotiable for most small businesses.
Here are the top work management solutions to help businesses grow and scale:
- Best Overall - Monday.com
- Best for HubSpot Users - PSOhub
- Best for Startups - Microsoft Teams
- Best for Developers - Wrike
- Most User-Friendly - Airtable
What does work management software do
Let’s cut to the chase–
Work management software will give you the ability to codify processes and employ collaboration across your entire organization, not just individual teams.
This is essentially glorified task management that can connect to other important moving parts of your business, namely invoicing, resource management, CRM data, and more.
Therefore, work management tools are generally more robust than simple task management functionality, with the ability to streamline your processes and securely share data across sales, marketing, projects, and accounting.
A legit work management software solution will give you a way to set up invoicing and time tracking across the organization.
Work management software must also offer valuable integrations, particularly with a CRM, so that you can easily share and exchange data without costly errors from manual entry. This will also give you better analytics and reporting across the board, making for more accurate profitability tracking.
Automation is another big selling point for work management tools. The more you can automate your admin and other repetitive processes, the more efficient your teams become.
Finally, because work management software interacts with so many key elements of your day-to-day operations, it must be both user-friendly and affordable.
Top 5 Work Management Software 2024
1. Best Overall - Monday.com
Invoicing: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Monday.com has built-in invoicing that’s easy to use, plus they offer an integration with Quickbooks to make the process even more seamless. However, FYI for European teams, they don’t offer an integration with Xero, Moneybird, and other commonly used financial tools.
Time tracking: ⭐⭐⭐
Monday.com only offers time tracking at the PRO level and upward and provides native integration with just one bonafide time tracking tool, Harvest.
CRM sync: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Monday.com is a CRM as well as a work management solution, which scores major points in the interest of consolidating your tech stack. However, when it comes to outside CRMs, the only two-way integration they currently offer is with HubSpot.
Integrations: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Monday.com offers a ton of integrations, and household names like Facebook, Dropbox, Slack, etc are easy to connect with the platform.
Automation: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Monday.com lets you configure no-code automation to your heart’s content, and most small businesses will stay within the monthly limit.
UX: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I give Monday.com 5 of 5 stars for UX, as it’s incredibly easy to use. Easily customize your workflows with virtually no training, but if you need it, they’ve got a great support team that can help you get exactly what you want out of the solution.
Affordability: ⭐⭐⭐
Monday.com is moderately affordable, with a Pro license costing $19 per seat per month. It’s not the cheapest, but it can handle all your work management as you scale without having to go to an outside solution.
Find out more about work management with Monday.com
2. Best for HubSpot Users - PSOhub
Invoicing: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
PSOhub gets a perfect score for invoicing because they offer it out of the box. Furthermore, there are multiple native accounting integrations for the most popular tools like QuickBooks and Xero. But the best part is the smart invoicing feature that will automatically generate invoices based on tracked time that then ties to the correct project and contract.
Time tracking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
PSOhub also gets a perfect score for time tracking, offering a mobile app, browser extension, and GPS functionality. You can also get self-driving time tracking and HubSpot Service Hub time tracking exclusively with PSOhub.
CRM sync: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
PSOhub provides native two-way integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, and Dynamics 365, earning it five stars.
Integrations: ⭐⭐⭐
PSOhub offers a healthy list of integrations with your favorite tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams, but they’re not the most plentiful on the list.
Affordability: ⭐⭐⭐
PSOhub isn’t the cheapest software out there, starting at $25 per user per month. That said, it covers so many bases, that you can usually save money by dropping other tools.
Automation: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
PSOhub is one of the best work management tools if you want to configure automation on the project side.
UX: ⭐⭐⭐
PSOhub would earn a 5 of 5 UX score for HubSpot users, specifically, but the HubSpot-cloned interface isn’t always intuitive for other users who will require a bit more onboarding training.
Find out more about work management with PSOhub
3. Best for Startups - Microsoft Teams
Invoicing: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Microsoft Teams lets you manage your invoices and accept payments, making it one of the best options for work management.
Time tracking: ⭐⭐⭐
Microsoft Teams offers basic time tracking by way of clocking in and out and creating manual timesheets. However, most Microsoft Teams users are better suited to an integration that can give them more, like TimeCamp or Jibble.
CRM sync: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Dynamics 365 CRM is in the Microsoft family, and Teams also gives you the option to connect with HubSpot, Salesforce, and other popular CRMs.
Integrations: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Microsoft Teams lets you configure pretty much any integration you could ever need with its powerful API.
Affordability: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Microsoft Teams is highly affordable at around $13 per user per month, though you may incur more costs with apps for time tracking, contract management, etc.
Automation: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
You can use Power Automate in Microsoft Teams to optimize your workflows, and we love the flow bot feature.
UX: ⭐⭐⭐
Microsoft Teams is undoubtedly easy to use, but the UX is very Microsoft-esque with that corporate vibe to it that isn’t always intuitive. Other work management tools like Airtable provide better value in this area.
Find out more about work management with Microsoft Teams
4. Best for Developers - Wrike
Invoicing: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Wrike’s built-in invoicing will connect with all your other relevant project data, like time tracking and more. Wrike also provides native integrations with QuickBooks and the other popular financial backends.
Time tracking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Wrike offers built-in time tracking that can connect with individual tasks and projects to get a better handle of overall time management in your organization.
CRM sync: ⭐⭐⭐
Wrike provides a native one-way integration with Salesforce, but you’ll need to incur an extra charge with Unito to leverage a two-way integration with both Salesforce and HubSpot. No other CRMs are supported.
Integrations: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Wrike has grown by leaps and bounds in the past five years and migrated toward more all-in-one functionality. Accordingly, they offer a strong integration package, especially for developers who can connect Jira and GitHub.
Affordability: ⭐⭐⭐
Wrike isn’t one of the cheapest software solutions out there, as you need to spend around $25 per person per month to get full-blown work management functionality.
Automation: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Automations are relatively easy to set up in Wrike, with no coding knowledge required.
UX: ⭐⭐⭐
Wrike’s UX is usually rated higher by developers than other sectors. It can be a bit crowded and overwhelming for newer users.
Find out more about work management with Wrike
5. Most User-Friendly - Airtable
Invoicing: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
With Airtable, you can invoice within the platform and track time to specific invoices. They also offer various functional invoice templates for different niches– freelancers, ecommerce, etc– that come in handy for startups.
Time tracking: ⭐⭐⭐
Airtable offers a time tracker extension that can keep track of how much time is spent on individual tasks and use this data to run-time management reports that can be super-effective at motivating team members.
CRM sync: ⭐⭐
At present, Airtable only provides a native integration with Salesforce, though it’s worth noting that a good chunk of users use Airtable as their CRM.
Integrations:⭐⭐⭐
Airtable has a little over 30 native integrations with social media tools like YouTube and Instagram as well as collaboration software like Slack and Trello.
Affordability: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Airtable is affordable, with a free version that offers more features and functionality than most. For Gantt charts and other more advanced features, you’ll have to upgrade to at least $20 per user per month, still on the low end in comparison.
Automation: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Airtable actually offers automation in their free version with 100 runs per month, and at the other pricing tiers, small businesses should have no problem automating as much as they can handle.
UX: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Airtable is known for its friendly and intuitive interface, and most users can pick it up with no training. Organizations stick with the tool as it’s easy to configure automation and get a lot of practical usage from all their customizable bases.
Learn more about work management with Airtable
What is work management?
Work management encompasses managing all tasks at all levels while making sure the processes and workflows align with the overall goals of the organization.
Work management is a sprawling discipline, including the following subsets:
- Task management
- Time management
- Project management
- Resource management
- Customer relations
- Process management
- Analytics & reporting
What’s the difference between work management and project management?
Project management is merely a subset of work management. While project management deals with MOTIQ– money, organization, time, information, and quality– on the project level, work management goes a step further to coordinate all teams within the organization and support all tasks.
Furthermore, solidifying these processes within work management means keeping everything in step with:
- Your mission
- Your goals
- Your company culture
What to look for in work management software
When I went to make a solid list of the best work management software, I tried to gauge how much value each solution delivers in executing the major lynchpins of the work management framework.
A major focus of work management is task management, which is executed with software that enables you to create, assign, track, and share information around tasks.
The thing is, all the most popular work management tools are built with task management either at their core functionality or within their feature set at all pricing tiers.
So while task management is undoubtedly important, I simply did not evaluate work management solutions in this category, since they all provide it anyway in more or less the same iteration.
Instead, I focused on key elements beyond base-level task functionality that are needed for work management. Things that will make or break whether or not you pick one tool over another, like the following:
Invoicing
You want to be able to keep your invoicing in the same digital environment as your task data. That means you either need to find a work management tool that provides native invoicing or you need to make sure the software you’re using integrates with your financial backend and send the invoices from there.
Time tracking
Like invoicing, you’ll want to keep your time-tracking data in the loop with all your other important project data, so you can connect time with invoices, projects, and resources. Many work management tools provide time tracking out of the box, but if yours does not, make sure it integrates with a time tracking tool you use across the entire organization.
CRM sync
If you’re using a CRM, your work management software should provide a two-way sync. If not, you can get stuck in one-way siloes and end up re-entering data over and over again. This is a waste of time! Another tip is to go with a work management platform with a CRM as part of the package (Monday.com is just one example).
Integrations
A work management tool isn’t the only software teams need to do their jobs. That’s why your software must provide a healthy amount of integrations, especially for the tools you already use. Integrations create harmonious systems where data can flow where it needs to, so they’re very important in the work management framework. To be comprehensive enough to scale with a growing business, work management software should integrate with your CRM and accounting software at a minimum.
Affordability
How much value does the software deliver for the price? Make sure that your work management tool fits within the constraints of your budget. If you need more functionality, you may have to go up in price. However, because work management software is more holistic by design, you may be able to drop another solution like a time tracker, collaboration tool, etc.
UX
UX is a big thing with work management tools since so many people in the organization use them. Try to go with more intuitive solutions, and make sure you take them for a spin before you commit. The best work management software will require little onboarding training, and if it is required, they’ll have a good support team to put you on the right track.
Final thoughts
Remember that work management software tools are most often marketed as project management tools. The key indicators that make them suitable for more than just projects are invoice functionality, automation, UX, and more.
These types of tools are what will help set up your people, products, and processes across your organization, aka work management.
Hopefully, you’ll be able to benefit from my previous experience using these work management platforms that each offer something a little different, but all of which represent perhaps the best options available today to grow and scale a business.
