4 Best Resource Management Software

When you’re running a business, it’s important to have a grasp on your resource management.

Being a business owner can be a game of fine margins. Whether it’s managing budgets, employees work schedules or stock management. There are a number of resources that have to be carefully considered.

Resource management requires a thorough understanding of your objectives and the capacity available. Therefore, establishing a good process for management and planning is key.

Knowing the importance of resource management, many managers or business owners turn to software. This is to help automate and optimise their process.

But what exactly is resource management software? We’ll take a closer look at resource management and the 4 best software currently available.

Here’s What We’ll Cover:

What Is Resource Management?

Why Is Resource Management Important?

What Does Resource Management Involve?

What Is Resource Management Software?

What Are the Benefits of Using Resource Management Software?

4 Best Resource Management Software

Key Takeaways

What Is Resource Management?

Resource management is the process of planning, scheduling and allocating your available resources. This is to maximise efficiency and reduce loss.

A resource can be defined as anything that is needed to execute a project or task. This could be hardware, software, inventory or even the skill sets of your employees.

Therefore, there are many different types of resource management. But the overall arcing skill needed is being able to confidently and efficiently divide your resources. This is to help you effectively complete the task at hand.

Why Is Resource Management Important?

When it comes to project management, resource management is a key tool to enable you to do more with less. When you’re running a business, you want to minimise the amount of waste. That’s why the planning and efficiency that comes with resource management is so vital.

What Does Resource Management Involve?

There are three main steps when it comes to managing resources:

1. Resource Allocation

It’s important to not just have the right amount of resources but to get the most from the resources you have available. Resource allocation is the process of tackling projects using whatever resources you have at your disposal. It is then taking these resources and using them in the most efficient way possible.

2. Resource Levelling

This is a technique that is used to discover underused or under utilised resources within the organisation. These are then taken and used to your advantage.

An example of resource levelling is having a highly skilled employee. But this employee’s skill exceeds the job that they are currently performing. Resource levelling would be taking that employee and putting their skill to use elsewhere. This would be instead of hiring a separate freelancer.

3. Resource Forecasting

No resource management task would be complete without a detailed plan. This is critical to enable you to optimise people, materials and budget efficiency.

Having accurate resource forecasting is vital. It allows you to predict your future resource availability and requirements for a project before it gets underway. This includes the project planning, the project’s scope, possible constraints and potential cost and risks.

What Is Resource Management Software?

To put it simply, resource management software enables you to plan and schedule projects with ease.

Sometimes referred to as resource capacity planning software. It’s a type of project management software that enables the user to plan, track and allocate who is working on what project, when and for how long.

Good software will also allow you to see the availability of resources and capacity. These details, along with the available skills of each employee, can then be used to provide reporting. This can help to show historical and forecasted resource needs.

What Are the Benefits of Using Resource Management Software?

There are a number of benefits that come with using a resource management solution These may include:

• Streamline Resource Management:

The software enables workers to be as efficient and effective with their resources as possible. This helps to reduce downtime and increases the utilisation of the available resources.

• Detailed Overview:

You can use software to provide a detailed overview of the capacity of the organisation or project. This helps to prevent unforeseen hiccups.

• Accurate Forecasting:

By keeping a detailed historical log, the software can provide reports on upcoming projects. As well as the estimated resource deployment.

• Communication and Transparency:

Software allows an integrated platform that can bring an entire team together. This allows people from other departments to gain visibility into your workings so that they can plan accordingly.

• Prevents Miscommunication:

If a project is unsuccessful due to a lack of resources, then resource management software can establish that you performed as well as you could.

4 Best Resource Management Software

Let’s take a look at the 4 best resource planning tools currently available.

1. FreshBooks

FreshBooks’ services are perfectly tailored for project and resource management. It is smart, manageable software that is easy to use and gives you more time to focus on what matters.

FreshBooks is software that provides accounting solutions for any type of small business owner. With invoices, payments, credits, and other financial information in one place, it’s easy to keep track of your employees and your clients.

FreshBooks allows you to spend less time trying to get projects over the finishing line. You can easily collaborate with your project team and keep things moving forward.

They also offer a number of extra features. These include time tracking, document management, project tracking and project scheduling.

FreshBooks offers a free trial. This means you can try it out to see if it fits your business before putting any money down.

Once your trial is up, FreshBooks’ basic plan offers its ‘lite’ services for just £15.00 per month.

2. monday.com

monday.com offers flexible resource planning software. It helps teams to communicate and get a birds-eye view of a wide range of integral parts. This includes outstanding projects, available resources and projected timelines.

They have a simplistic and easy-to-use interface. That means your team collaboration can get started straight away with minimal fuss. They also offer various views to represent data in actual time, so each team member can customize their experience.

Monday.com has a basic pricing plan that starts from £7 per user per month when billed annually.

3. 10,000ft

10,000ft is a high-level project and resource management software. It helps teams to be more confident in their decision making and resource allocation.

The software allows managers to match each team member to projects that fit their skill set. This is according to different criteria such as disciplines, skills and availability among others.

Their basic plan starts at £25 per user per month.

4. Runn

Runn is a resource, demand and capacity planning tool that excels for financial reports and forecasting.

The tool has an integrated time tracking system as well as powerful forecasting capabilities. The system has a drag-and-drop functionality that lets you plan out work and phases in real-time and with ease.

Runn offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. It is then free for start-up users for up to 5 people, or their basic plan starts at £10 per user per month.

Key Takeaways

Resource management is a vital aspect of running any business.

Being able to efficiently and effectively share out resources in a way that boosts productivity and minimises waste can be the difference between a successful business and an unsuccessful one.

That’s why using resource management tools such as FreshBooks is the perfect solution to your resource management needs.

Are you looking for more business advice on everything from starting a new business to new business practices?

Then check out the FreshBooks Resource Hub.

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