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Fresh Projects vs Total Synergy

Built for how A&E firms actually work.

Go ahead, compare for yourself.

All-in-One System

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Handles Complex Projects

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Project Health

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Resourcing

Total Synergy
Project management, resource planning, budgets, timesheets, and project financial performance all live in one connected system and update in real time. Integrations with Xero, QuickBooks Online, and Sage keep your accounting platform in step.
Built to manage staged fees, evolving scope, contract administration (CA) effort, and long A&E project lifecycles without workarounds. Gantt charts and project scheduling sit alongside stage budgets, so you can plan and cost each stage in one place.
Instantly see project performance, risk, and profitability without needing reports or spreadsheets.
Capacity planning and resource management show workload and availability across your team, so work stays balanced and deadlines protected.
Fresh Projects


Project tracking and task management are strong, but financial and commercial insight sits outside the core tool. Seeing project profitability usually means taking data into a spreadsheet.

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Better suited to simple, short projects. Multi-stage work often requires manual tracking.

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Tasks and progress are visible, but true project health and risk are harder to see.
Limited resource planning, with capacity issues often managed outside the system.

Explore our Features

Why Total Synergy?

Total Synergy is a complete project management platform that guides architecture and engineering practices to the clearest path to project profitability.

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We bring together project management, project financials, and project analytics to help practices eliminate time-sucking tasks, reduce common project risks, and gain access to real-time practice insights for smarter decision making, ensuring repeatable project success.

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Frequently Asked Questions for Fresh Projects Users

Why would an A&E firm look for a Fresh Projects alternative?

Fresh Projects is a capable tool for task management and tracking project progress, but financial and commercial insight tends to sit outside the core platform. Firms that want project management, timesheets, project financials, and dashboards connected in one system often look to Total Synergy for that all-in-one fit. Total Synergy is project management software designed for architects and engineers, so A&E practices can run project management, financial management, and analytics from one set of data. It integrates with Xero, QuickBooks Online, and Sage, which keeps your accounting platform and your project financials in step without double entry.

Total Synergy is built to manage staged fees, evolving scope, contract administration effort, and long A&E project lifecycles without workarounds. Gantt charts and project scheduling sit alongside stage budgets, so your team can plan and cost each stage in one place, and task management stays linked to the fee for that stage. If you work to RIBA stages, you can structure fees and tasks around them. Budgeting and quoting tools also replace the separate fee calculators many practices keep in spreadsheets. Fresh Projects is better suited to simple, short projects, and multi-stage work often requires manual tracking outside the tool, which adds admin and risk as a project grows in complexity.

Total Synergy shows project performance, risk, and project profitability instantly on live dashboards, without needing separate reports or spreadsheets. Pre-built dashboards cover projects, finance, and teams, so a project leader sees budget against actuals while a managing director sees project profitability across the practice. Project financial dashboards also show WIP and forecast revenue as time and expenses are recorded, which supports stronger financial management. In Fresh Projects, tasks and progress are visible, but true project health and financial risk are harder to see without pulling data out into another tool for analysis.

Yes. Total Synergy’s capacity planning shows workload and availability across the team, so deadlines and staff wellbeing stay protected. Resource management also connects to project budgets and timesheets, so you can see how a staffing change affects project profitability. Capacity planning highlights overallocation early, and Gantt charts show how project stages overlap across your portfolio. Fresh Projects offers more limited resource planning, and capacity issues are often managed outside the system entirely, which makes overallocation harder to catch before it happens.

The biggest shift is having project management, resource planning, budgets, and project financials all live in one connected system that updates in real time, rather than strong task tracking sitting apart from the commercial view of a project. For architects, engineers, and quantity surveyors, that means quoting and billing from the same data the team uses to plan work and track time. For firms that have outgrown simple task tracking, this connected view is usually the deciding factor.

Smartsheet and other project management tools are flexible and handle project scheduling and Gantt charts well, but they are not designed around A&E fee structures or utilisation reporting, so practices often add spreadsheets to cover them. Procore and Buildertrend are construction management software built to run the build for contractors and home builders. Houzz Pro and Simpro are aimed mainly at remodelers and trade businesses. Total Synergy is a cloud-based platform for the design and consulting side of the built environment, not a cloud-based construction management platform. It covers fee budgets, timesheets, resource planning, and project profitability, and practices that carry out contract administration track that effort inside the project.

Yes. Total Synergy syncs with Xero, QuickBooks Online, and Sage, as well as MYOB and Wiise, so invoices, expenses, and project financials stay aligned with your accounting software. You manage the job in Total Synergy while your accounting platform keeps the books. That means month-end project financials come from one source, and your finance team spends less time reconciling spreadsheets against the ledger.

Your team can track time with timesheets or timers, recorded against projects, stages, and tasks. Timers sync across desktop, tablet, and the mobile app, so staff can log hours from site visits or client meetings and link them to a project later. Because hours are measured against budgets as they are recorded, project leaders see project costs while there is still time to act. Accurate time tracking also means billing matches the work delivered, which protects project profitability.

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Why Total Synergy?

Simplify Product Delivery

Free Your Team to Focus On What They Do Best: Delivering Great Projects

Reduce Project Risk

Reduce Project Risk with Real-Time Financial Insights.

Win the Right Projects

Win Projects That Drive Profit and Avoid the Ones That Don’t.

Receive 24/7 Support

Expert A&E-Focused Support Whenever You Need It.
Solutions

Produce Budgets & Quotes

Make budgeting and quoting easier, more accurate, and less stressful.

Manage Projects

Stay organized, on time, and on budget with tools that drive project profitability and efficiency.

Track Time

Track time effortlessly, stay on budget, and improve billing accuracy at every project phase.

Allocate Resources

Easily see who’s working on what, their availability, and how to best balance workloads.

Process Invoices

Get invoices out faster, reduce delays, and keep cash flowing with clear project finances.

Track Finances

Make budgeting and quoting easier, more accurate, and less stressful.

Decide with Data

Make smarter decisions with real-time dashboards and reports.

Forecast Revenue

Gain crystal-clear visibility into your future revenue, project profitability, and resource needs.

Apply Document Control

Centralize your project information for seamless collaboration, better control, and fewer headaches.

Use Cases

By Practice

Architecture

Deliver Your Best Designs with Project Management Built for Architects

Engineering

Manage Engineering Projects with Precision and Clarity

By Role

Business Owner

Run a Smarter Practice with Less Stress

Finance Leader

Take Charge of Your Firm’s Financial Future with Confidence

Project Manager

Lead Projects Without the Stress

Operations

Simplify Your Operations for Unmatched Efficiency

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