TL;DR: In short, most resource planning tools stop at scheduling. The platforms that create the most value for engineering firms connect staffing decisions directly to project budgets, utilisation, and profitability.
When resourcing is done badly in engineering firms, teams end up overworked, underutilised, or allocated to the wrong projects.Â
Resourcing problems rarely come out of nowhere. They appear as missed deadlines, burned-out staff, and projects that were profitable on paper but not in practice.
Resource Planning Software gives engineering firms a clear view of capacity, availability, and project demand, so you can make allocation decisions based on data rather than instinct and memory.
What Resource Planning Software Needs to Do For Engineering Firms
Resourcing in engineering is more complex than a simple availability calendar. Firms are managing multiple concurrent projects, varying fee structures, staff with different disciplines and charge-out rates, and a pipeline that is constantly shifting.
The best resource planning tools for engineering firms will offer:
- Capacity planning across the full team, showing availability by week or month
- Project-based allocations that connect to timesheets and budget burn
- Visibility of utilisation rates at the individual and firm level
- Conflict detection when staff are over-allocated across projects
- Integration with project management and financial tools so resourcing decisions reflect actual project data
- Forecasting to see resource demand based on the project pipeline
Top 8 Resource Planning Software Options For Engineering Firms
1. Total Synergy
Total Synergy is purpose-built for A&E firms, and its resourcing tools are designed around how engineering practices actually plan work. Unlike standalone resourcing tools, resource allocations in Total Synergy connect directly to project budgets, timesheets, and profitability reporting.
Capacity planning gives you a full view of team availability by week or month, with conflict detection flagging over-allocations before they affect delivery. Staff are allocated to specific projects and phases, with visibility of how those allocations compare to budgeted hours, so resourcing decisions are grounded in real project financial data.
Timesheet data connects directly to allocations, letting you compare planned versus actual time at the project and phase level. Utilisation dashboards show billable versus non-billable time across the firm in real time, making it easy to spot who is consistently under or over capacity.
For leadership, revenue and capacity forecasting combines pipeline data with allocation data to give a forward-looking view of workload and revenue, not just a snapshot of today.
2. Float
Float is a dedicated resource planning and scheduling tool used by professional services teams. It offers a visual drag-and-drop schedule, capacity tracking, and project-based allocations.
For engineering firms, Float’s visual interface makes it easy to see who is allocated to what and when. It doesnât connect to project budgets or profitability reporting, so resourcing decisions are made without financial context.
Best for: Firms wanting a standalone visual resourcing tool to complement existing project management software.
3. Smartsheet
Smartsheet is a work management platform with resource management features including workload tracking, capacity reporting, and project scheduling. It is highly configurable and integrates with a wide range of tools.
Smartsheet’s resource management features require significant configuration to deliver engineering-specific outputs, and can work well as part of a broader tech stack.
Best for: Firms with operations managers willing to invest time in configuring a flexible tool for their specific workflows.
4. Resource Guru
Resource Guru is a resource scheduling platform with a clean calendar interface, availability management, and utilisation reporting. It is used by professional services teams across a range of industries.
Like Float, it does not integrate with project financial data, so it functions as a scheduling overlay rather than a connected part of your project management workflow.
Best for: Firms needing a simple, reliable resource scheduling tool with clear availability reporting.
5. Runn
Runn is a resource planning and forecasting platform with project tracking, capacity management, and financial forecasting built in.
Runn goes further than Float or Resource Guru by connecting resource planning to project revenue forecasting. Its project financial capabilities are less developed than purpose-built engineering platforms, but it is a stronger option for firms that want resourcing and forecasting in one tool.
Best for: Firms that want resource planning and revenue forecasting connected, without adopting a full project management platform.
6. Kantata
Kantata is a professional services automation platform with resource management, project tracking, financial reporting, and business intelligence. It is designed for mid-size to enterprise professional services firms.
For A&E firms, Kantata offers more financial depth than standalone resourcing tools, but its implementation complexity and pricing tend to position it toward larger organisations.
Best for: Larger engineering firms wanting a comprehensive professional services platform.
7. Productive
Productive is a professional services platform covering project management, resource planning, budgeting, and invoicing. It combines resourcing and financial management in a single interface.
Productive’s combination of resource planning and budget tracking is more integrated than standalone scheduling tools, but its phase-based project management and consultant cost tracking are less developed than purpose-built A&E platforms.
Best for: Engineering consultancies wanting a modern professional services tool with resourcing and financial management combined.
8. Teamwork.com
Teamwork is a project management platform with resource scheduling, workload management, and time tracking built in. It is designed for professional services teams managing client projects.
For engineering firms, Teamwork handles resource scheduling and utilisation reasonably well in the context of its broader project management features. But its financial management depth is limited, and it is not built for engineering-specific project structures.
Best for: Professional services firms wanting resource scheduling integrated with project and task management.
FAQs About Resource Planning Software For Engineering Firms
What is resource planning software for engineering firms?
Resource planning software for engineering firms is a platform that gives project leaders and principals a clear, real-time view of how their team’s capacity is being used across the project portfolio. In engineering, this means managing staff across multiple disciplines (structural, civil, mechanical, electrical, hydraulic) each with different skill requirements, varying charge-out rates, and different levels of demand depending on project type and delivery stage.
The best resource planning tools for engineering firms connect staff allocations directly to project phases, budgeted hours, and financial performance, so resourcing decisions are made with financial context rather than based on experience and memory.
What is the difference between resource planning and project management software for engineers?
Project management software organises the work: the schedule, the tasks, the milestones, the deliverables, and the budget. Resource planning software organises the people: who has the right skills, who has the available hours, and how to allocate your team across competing project demands.
For engineering firms, these two functions are closely related but distinct. A project manager needs to know that the structural design phase is scheduled for weeks four through eight. A resource planner needs to know that the two structural engineers who need to deliver it are already committed to another project for three of those weeks. The best platforms for engineering practices handle both in one connected system, so scheduling and resourcing decisions are always informed by the same underlying data.
Why is utilisation tracking important for engineering firms?
Staff costs are the single largest expense for most engineering consultancies. Utilisation rate, the proportion of available hours spent on billable project work, determines how effectively those costs are being recovered through project fees.
A senior engineer billing at $250 per hour who is operating at 60% utilisation is generating significantly less revenue than the same engineer at 80%. Across a team of 20, even small differences in average utilisation translate into material differences in annual profitability.
How does resource planning software handle multi-disciplinary engineering teams?
Multi-disciplinary engineering firms face a resourcing challenge that single-discipline practices do not: different project phases require very different staffing mixes. A civil and structural project might require civil engineers at the start, structural engineers through design development, and site engineers during construction.
Managing these transitions across multiple concurrent projects requires a platform that supports discipline-level filtering and phase-based allocation.
Purpose-built tools like Total Synergy allow firms to view capacity and allocations by role or discipline, making it practical to plan staffing across a multi-disciplinary portfolio. This replaces the disciplinary silo management that often leads to some teams being consistently overloaded while others have available capacity that is not visible to project managers working in other parts of the firm.
What should engineering firms look for in resource planning software?
The core requirements for engineering firms are discipline-level capacity visibility, integration with project phase budgets and timesheets, conflict detection across concurrent projects, and reporting on both planned and actual utilisation. Tools that only show a calendar view of availability are useful for basic scheduling but insufficient for managing the financial dimension of resourcing in an engineering practice.
Beyond the core features, look for: integration with accounting platforms (Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks), support for part-time staff and variable working arrangements, leave and public holiday management, and the ability to model future capacity against the project pipeline. A platform that connects resource planning to revenue forecasting gives engineering leadership the forward visibility they need to make informed hiring and business development decisions.
How can resource planning software help engineering firms reduce project risk?
Many project delivery risks in engineering firms trace back to resourcing decisions made without adequate data: a phase staffed with the wrong skill mix, a deadline set without checking whether the right people are actually available, a project kick-off while a key engineer is still finishing another commitment.
Resource planning software reduces these risks by making the relevant data visible before decisions are finalised. When a project manager can see that the geotechnical engineer they need is allocated to a different project for the first three weeks of a phase, they can either push the start date, bring in a contractor, or have a conversation with the other project manager about priority. None of those conversations can happen effectively when resourcing data lives in someone’s head or a shared spreadsheet.
What Happens When Resource Planning and Project Profitability Are Connected
Resourcing isnât just an operational challenge. Itâs a financial one. When staff are consistently over-allocated, project quality suffers and burnout risk increases. When teams are under-utilised, your overhead is working against you. Getting resourcing right is one of the most direct ways engineering firms have to improve both project delivery and profitability.
The firms that manage this best are the ones whose resourcing decisions are grounded in real project data, not guesswork. That means connecting your resource planning to your project budgets, timesheets, and financial reporting in a single platform.
Built in Australia with support teams in Sydney and London, Total Synergy has been serving A&E practices for over 25 years. Book a demo to see how connected resource planning works in practice.
