Best project management software for engineering firms in 2026

In a firm that bills by the hour, the timesheet isn't admin. It is the invoice. One 20-person geotechnical firm described what goes wrong without a good system: "the engineers/project managers many times forget to track hours of the field personnel and sometimes forget to invoice the clients" (Eng-Tips, 2023). Hours that nobody records are fees nobody collects.

The tools below are for consulting engineers (structural, civil, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, geotechnical), not software engineering, which most lists for "engineers" mix in. Arkscape, a project tracking tool for architects, designers, and engineers, is one of them: it tracks who owes what across your team and the architect's, but records no hours.

Arkscape makes one of the tools below. Prices checked on vendors' own pages in October 2026.

Do you need to bill hours, or track the work?

Time, fees, and invoicing is practice management: timesheets, budgets by phase, billing rates, invoices, and often accounting. BQE CORE, Deltek Ajera, Deltek Vantagepoint, and Monograph do this.

Who is doing what by when is work tracking: tasks, schedules, the requests going back and forth with the architect, and what is late. Wrike, Smartsheet, TeamGantt, and Arkscape do this. Wrike and TeamGantt also record time on their higher plans, but none of the four sends invoices.

If you bill hourly, pick the time and billing tool first, then check whether its own scheduling covers your planning before you add a second tool. Some firms add one. A structural engineer on Eng-Tips described the result: "We use BQE for project management, budgeting, invoicing... We use Wrike for time management. I wish the two worked together" (2023).

When is a spreadsheet enough?

A firm of two to five engineers with a handful of projects can run on accounting software, a spreadsheet of tasks, and a simple way to record hours. Keep that setup while one person can read the whole sheet and the hours get into the invoices.

The breaking point usually comes with headcount. On Eng-Tips in 2023, an engineer described the 10 to 15 person stage: "simple systems like excel didn't work anymore, but it was difficult to justify a dedicated person to run a new system". Another, replying to a 20-person geotechnical firm, warned that "no software solution that does what you want will be simple to set up. You're going to have to dedicate at least one employee to learning it inside and out for a few weeks".

If you're still at the spreadsheet stage, two guides help. The project tracker guide works for engineering jobs too: one row per task across every project, with a Responsible person, whether they accepted it, who owes it, and a due date. The team workload tracking guide shows who has too much on from their open tasks, without asking anyone for hours.

Practice management: time, fees, and invoicing

BQE CORE

BQE CORE is practice management for architecture, engineering, and other professional services firms: time and expenses, billing, and project management, with optional Accounting, CRM, HR, and Payroll modules. It fits firms that want time, billing, and possibly full accounting in one system, and can give one person time to set it up. Timesheets come pre-populated, invoices can be manual, batch, recurring, or automatic with online payment, and it handles fee schedules and estimates, with Gantt charts in the base Foundations tier.

The price isn't published: "Our pricing varies based upon the modules you require and the number of users," and every module says "Request Quote". A trial is offered; its length isn't stated. Its pricing pages describe no access for people outside the firm.

Getting it right takes time. A firm about six years in: "we're only now starting to get what we want out of it, mostly because nobody was taking it seriously (garbage in garbage out)" (Archinect, 2026). Another: "we had as many issues with it as we had benefits" (AIA Community Hub, 2026). Choose it if you want timesheets, invoices, and optionally your books in one system, and someone will own the setup.

Deltek Ajera

Deltek Ajera is project accounting and project management for small architecture and engineering firms: timesheets, expenses, billing, scheduling, and reports. Deltek describes it as "built for the way small architecture and engineering firms actually work". Timesheet Assist suggests entries from recent work and upcoming assignments, receipts captured on a phone go into expense reports, invoices come straight from project data with approval routing, and Schedule Manager assigns people by availability.

The price isn't published, and no trial is mentioned. Third-party figures differ by more than ten times, so we don't repeat them. A structural engineer said that when their firm was 3 engineers, "they quoted 10 to 15k just for setup" (Eng-Tips, 2023). Clients get a portal for paying invoices only.

An architect called it "pretty good functionally and reporting wise (but user interface could have been improved" (Archinect, 2018). Choose it if you want project accounting built for a small engineering firm and the setup cost fits.

Deltek Vantagepoint

Deltek Vantagepoint is project-based ERP for professional services firms: CRM, projects, resource planning, time and expense, billing, and accounting. It replaces Deltek Vision. It fits mid-size and larger firms, often with several offices, that want CRM, staffing, and accounting connected; Deltek says it serves "professional services firms of all sizes". It has Gantt charts, project dashboards, and resource management views, with AI help for timesheet and expense entry.

The price isn't published, and no trial is mentioned. Its product page doesn't mention access for people outside the firm.

We found no forum posts about Vantagepoint itself. About Vision, its predecessor, a small-firm architect wrote "Deltek Vision seems great but too expensive for us" (Archinect, 2018). Choose it if you run several offices or teams and want business development, staffing, and accounting in the same system.

Monograph

Monograph is cloud practice management for architecture and engineering firms: timesheets, phase-based fees and budgets, invoicing, staffing forecasts, and reports. It fits small to mid-size firms that bill by phase and use QuickBooks Online, though Monograph's own guide for engineers says it isn't built for "detailed engineering design". Weekly timesheets have timers on web, desktop, and mobile, approval works by phase, and invoices from billable time and expenses sync to QuickBooks Online.

The price isn't published; buying starts with a demo. The pricing page shows only a "$45 - $490 /mo" calculator range without saying whether that is per user or per firm, and Monograph's blog mentions annual plans with a five-seat minimum. Consultants and clients are records in it; we found no outside login.

A small-firm owner: "It is doing everything my small firm needs and I love it" (Archinect, 2025). The complaints are slow additions ("They took over a year just to add PTO tracking", Archinect, 2025) and pricing for the smallest practices (Archinect, 2022). Choose it if you bill by phase, use QuickBooks Online, and want timesheets and invoices to agree.

If your main problem is staffing across many projects rather than billing, look at Mosaic as well. It plans capacity and workload with timesheets, sits beside an accounting system (it integrates with Deltek Vantagepoint and QuickBooks Online, among others), and sells per seat on annual plans by quote. Its optional AI add-on is the only published price, at $50 per user a month.

Work tracking: schedules, tasks, and requests

Wrike

Wrike is configurable work management: tasks, projects, Gantt charts, dashboards, automation, and request forms, with time and resource management on higher plans. It fits growing firms that want structured workflows and, from the Business plan, time tracking and timesheets in the same tool as the schedule. The Gantt chart comes from Team up.

Per user a month, billed annually, Team is $10 (2 to 15 users) and Business $25 (5 to 200 users). Business and above are annual only, and seats are sold in groups of five up to 30. The free plan has no Gantt or time tracking. Viewers, such as clients and contractors, are free.

The complaint is input time. A specifications consultant wrote: "We started down the road with it [Wrike] but decided it took too much in input time compared to value of output" (AIA Community Hub, 2020). There's no invoicing: budgets with bill rates need the custom-priced Pinnacle plan, and billing goes through integrations. Choose it if you want the schedule and the timesheet in one work tracker and can commit to a year.

Smartsheet

Smartsheet is spreadsheet-style work management, with grid, Gantt, board, and calendar views, automations, forms, reports, and dashboards. It fits firms that already think in spreadsheets and want schedules, trackers, and automatic reminders. "Its basically the step up from Excel / Google Sheets" (AIA Community Hub, 2022), and it "sends automatic updates if an item is answered or becomes overdue" (Archinect, 2019).

Pro is $9 per member a month billed yearly, or $12 monthly, for up to 10 members (new customers only). Business is $19 yearly or $24 monthly, from 3 members. There's no free plan; the trial is 30 days, with no card. Gantt is on every plan, and contributors and guests are free.

It depends on everyone using it: "If everyone buys into this process, this can be an effective platform" (Archinect, 2019). Time and expense tracking needs the Resource Management add-on, which is quote only and not offered on Pro. Choose it if your team lives in spreadsheets and wants Gantt schedules and reminders without learning a new way of working.

Arkscape

Arkscape is project tracking and team task management for architects, designers, and engineers. Each project is a group with its own Arkboard, a board of cards in columns. When someone accepts a card there, the same card sits on their own board, Your Ark, so the project plan and each engineer's list are one list. It fits engineering consultancies whose hours and invoices are already handled, or who bill fixed fees, and who lose time to requests that go unanswered between them and the architect. An engineering firm can create the project group and invite the architect, or join the architect's.

Business Growth is $25 per user a month and Scale $40, billed monthly (there is no annual plan), the owner included, with a 14-day trial and a card at checkout. Sole practitioners can use the Personal plans: Free, Connect at $10, and Pro at $20 a month. The people you invite join free.

Arkscape is new, and we found no independent reviews or forum threads about it, so judge it on what you can check in the trial. A request such as "Confirm beam sizes at the level 2 opening" goes to a named engineer, who must Accept or Decline it, and a decline can carry a reason. The Delegation panel in Reports shows Median time to accept and Waiting on someone now, and Stalled lists undated cards untouched for 14 days.

Choose it if the timesheet is covered and the problem is coordination: who owes what to whom, across your team and the other firms on the job. Its own documentation lists what it lacks: no timesheets or hours of any kind, no fees, budgets, or invoicing, no Gantt chart or dependencies, no integrations with time or accounting tools, and no native phone app yet, so staff out of the office use it in the phone's browser. Choose something else if you bill hourly and want one tool (any of the four practice-management tools), need dependencies and a critical path (TeamGantt), or want timesheets in your work tracker: Wrike Business costs the same $25 per user, billed annually, and includes them.

TeamGantt

TeamGantt is Gantt-first scheduling, with dependencies, critical path, baselines, and workload, plus board and list views. It fits small teams that run projects from a shareable schedule and want to pay by project, not by seat. Dependencies and critical path come from Base, Business adds a Time Sheet across all projects, and it exports to CSV, PDF, or Microsoft Project format.

Base is $59 a month billed monthly (1 manager, 5 projects, 10 collaborators). Business starts at $120 a month (5 projects, unlimited managers and collaborators), plus $24 a month for each extra project. The page shows a 20% saving for annual billing. The free plan covers 1 user and 1 project; the 14-day trial needs a card. Collaborators can track their own time, but "can't change dates or edit tasks".

We found no engineering-firm discussion of it. Its own page shows no time tracking on Base, a single manager on Base, and per-project pricing beyond 5 that adds up for a firm with many small jobs. Choose it if the schedule drives your work and you have fewer live projects than people.

What it costs for 5, 10, and 20 people

Per-seat prices hide the bill. This table multiplies each plan's price by the team size, for the entry tier and the tier that adds time tracking. All figures are per month.

TeamGantt is priced by projects. A firm with 15 live projects pays $120 + 10 × $24 = $360 a month on Business, whatever its headcount.

Wrike Business and Arkscape Growth cost the same per user. Wrike includes timesheets and Gantt, which Arkscape doesn't, and it is billed annually. Arkscape is billed monthly, and the people you invite from other firms join free.

None of these tools publishes a setup fee. The one figure we found is the Ajera quote above, "10 to 15k just for setup", and practitioners count the bigger cost in staff weeks.

What architects, clients, and contractors cost

What two tools cost together

For a 10-person firm, here is what adding a work tracker costs, on top of a practice-management tool (all quote only):

If you bill by the hour, Arkscape isn't enough on its own. It records no hours, so it can't produce a timesheet, a utilization figure, or an invoice, and it doesn't sync with the tool that does. You'll run a time and billing tool beside it and set up each project in both.

What Arkscape covers in that setup is the coordination around the hours: the requests to and from the architect, who has accepted them, and what has gone quiet. A repeating card can remind each engineer to submit their timesheet every Friday, but the hours still go into the other tool. If keeping two tools current costs more than the coordination problem, choose one tool: a practice-management suite, or Wrike Business.

A lighter setup some firms use is accounting software with its own time add-on, such as "Quickbooks and Quickbooks Time", plus a separate tool for tasks (AIA Community Hub, 2022). We didn't price those for this list.

Comparison table

Common questions

What project management software do structural engineers use? In the Eng-Tips threads we read, small structural firms describe BQE CORE for budgets and invoicing, paired with Wrike for time, and being quoted for Ajera's setup. One 2-person structural firm found the options "either wildly expensive or not right for consulting engineering" (2012).

Do engineering firms need timesheets? Yes, if you bill by the hour: unrecorded hours are unbilled fees. If you bill fixed fees, you may only need hours to check whether a fee is profitable, and some firms do that in accounting software instead.

What is the cheapest project management software for a small engineering firm with timesheets? Of the tools priced here, TeamGantt Business at $120 a month for up to 5 projects with unlimited users, or Wrike Business at $25 per user a month billed annually, so $125 for 5 people.

Can the architect and the client join for free? Yes, in Smartsheet (contributors and guests), TeamGantt (collaborators), Wrike (viewers only), and Arkscape (the people you invite join free). The practice-management tools describe no outside logins apart from Ajera's invoice payment portal.

Read next: internal and external groups, how architects and engineers work together, and the best project management software for architecture firms.