Cost tracking produces many advantages:
- It prevents budget overruns,
- Promotes a greater sense of control over project funds and the way they are utilized,
- Allows for more informed decision-making in terms of both current spending and future investments.
In other words, cost tracking is core to superior financial performance, and the best part is that you don’t need to spend long, tedious hours keeping a record of project expenses – this job can be delegated to a tireless digital helper.
In this article, we’ve reviewed the 10 best cost tracking tools you can choose from to reduce time spent on expense management and make it more streamlined.
Free Project Cost Management Software
1. actiTIME
Key features:
- Mobile app
- Calendar view
- Automatic time tracking
- Client billing
- Budget notifications
- Time off management
- Integrations
This project cost management software lets you monitor project budgets, track employee time, and generate insightful reports that actually help you make informed decisions. It gives you the confidence to keep your projects on track financially without the headache of complicated spreadsheets.
actiTIME is perfect for monitoring labor costs incurred by the project. To get a detailed overview of this kind of expense with actiTIME, all you need to do is:
- Create projects and tasks in the app and set up the preferred hourly rates;
- Assign those tasks to your team members and ask them to record hours spent on the assignments in their digital timesheets;
- Run the Cost of Work Report and see how much money you’ve spent on the project based on employees’ hourly rates and the total cost of labor invested in every piece of work.
More than that, actiTIME enables you to review costs against revenues with the Profit / Loss Report. It calculates project revenues just like labor expenses – depending on predetermined hourly rates and work time reported by employees. This feature will be of great service if you want to stay informed of changes in the financial performance of your business and detect risks on time.
Best for:
Project teams of any size.
Pricing:
- Free 30-day trial.
- Free version for 1-3 users.
- Paid plans start at $5 per user/month.
2. Avaza
Key features:
- Project collaboration
- Invoicing
- Mobile app
- Time tracking
This project cost management software comprises a multitude of useful features for an integrated work experience and has everything needed to monitor employee expenses and create invoices.
You may:
- Add expenses to the Avaza management system via multiple means and devices, including manual entry, mobile receipt snapshots, and automated entry of repeating expenses;
- Categorize and group different expense items for greater convenience;
- Approve employee expenses individually or in bulk;
- Run real-time reports to overview project costs and keep an eye on your team’s compliance with budgets.
By affording all these functions, Avaza will increase the cost- and time-efficiency of your expense tracking process and aid you in making more informed management decisions.
Best for:
Collaborative project management environments.
Pricing:
- Free version with limited functionality.
- Paid plans start at $11.95 per month.
3. Harvest
Key features:
- Time tracking
- Invoicing
- Online payments
- Accounting integrations
- Reports
This easy-to-use tool combines time tracking and expense monitoring functionality.
When implementing Harvest as a timesheet, you can keep detailed records of hours worked and then retrieve data on billable time and labor costs in a report on project progress. This way, it is possible to review the costs of the project as a whole and each task separately and identify whether your team is facing the risk of budget overrun or if everything is going as planned.
Along with labor costs, Harvest allows for the tracking of other types of business expenses with the receipt scanning feature – just take a photo of a receipt with your mobile app, and it will be immediately uploaded to your account. What can be easier than that?
Best for:
Streamlined invoicing in project teams.
Pricing:
- Free 30-day trial.
- Free version for freelancers.
- Paid plan starts at $10.80 per user/month.
4. Expensify
Key features:
- Budget management
- Virtual cards
- Billing
- Global reimbursements
Expensify is one of the most popular project cost management software solutions today. With its help, you can easily scan receipts, create expense reports, and manage your credit card data, and more.
Its core feature is SmartScan – an optical character recognition technology that can read receipts through a camera on your mobile device and then automatically code and add them to relevant expense categories in your Expensify account.
Another essential feature, Concierge DoubleCheck, supports the automatic detection of duplicate receipts and cases of incompliance with organizational policies. It assists in the prevention of unplanned employee expenses and fraud, while also eliminating the risk of human error in the pre-accounting and accounting processes.
Besides, Expensify allows for automatic expense approval and reimbursement, real-time reporting, mileage tracking, and many more. Clearly, this tool is called smart for a reason, and there’s no doubt that, by implementing it, you’ll make financial management in your company more efficient, painless, and accurate.
Best for:
Personal use and small teams.
Pricing:
- Free version with limited functionality for personal use.
- Paid plans start at $5 per user/month.
Best Paid Project Cost Tracking Tools
1. Rydoo
Key features:
- Receipt scanning
- Mileage tracking
- Daily allowances
- Accounting integrations
- Flexible approval workflows
Rydoo is one of the best cost tracking tools that streamline the expense management process and make it as effortless and quick as possible.
The key features of the app are:
- Receipt scanner created to help you digitalize receipts with just a snapshot and upload them right away;
- Mileage tracker facilitating the calculation of travel costs;
- Straightforward and customized expense approval flow with opportunities for automation and notifications on out-of-policy expenses, which fosters a higher level of control over organizational costs.
Besides, with Rydoo’s real-time reporting features, you can access and overview submitted data at any moment without investing extra resources into its processing. What you’ll get as a result is a prompt detection of possible adverse changes in team spending trends and a lower workload within your financial department.
Best for:
Finance teams looking to streamline their expense management processes.
Pricing:
Plans start at $9 per user/month.
2. Birdview
Key features:
- Time tracking
- Financial targets
- Flexible billing
- Business intelligence
- Resource management
Birdview is work automation software designed to assist you in managing all aspects of your business, starting with planning and ending with results analysis. And as you’ve probably guessed, the tool includes powerful functionality for budgeting and cost monitoring as well.
Here’s what makes Birdview an indispensable tool for effective cost tracking:
- You can set clear financial targets for your projects and outline budgets and benchmarks at the outset, giving your team a clear roadmap to follow;
- Set different billing rates for various team members or task types, ensuring that all costs are accurately reflected based on the resources allocated;
- Easily see such metrics as schedule and budget variance to quickly grasp where you stand in relation to your financial goals.
Best for:
Professional services businesses.
Pricing:
- Free 14-day trial.
- Plans start at $37 per user/month.
3. Twproject
Key features:
- Gantt charts
- Resource management
- Kanban
- Cost reports
If you’re looking for an app that would enable you to track expenses while monitoring project progress and managing team collaboration all in one place, Twproject is what you need. Being one of the project cost tracking tools, it incorporates features for project planning, time tracking, file sharing, and, more importantly, cost management.
With this project cost management software, you may:
- Set up project budgets and compare actual costs with the estimated ones;
- Oversee labor costs based on employees’ hourly rates and information from their time logs;
- Upload data on other types of project expenses by taking photos of invoices and receipts;
- Analyze data on project costs by different periods, groups of users, and expense categories.
All in all, Twproject will help you adopt a flexible approach to cost management and support your efforts towards the ultimate financial success of the project.
Best for:
Agile project management teams.
Pricing:
- Free trial.
- Plans start at €80 per month.
4. TriNet Expense
Key features:
- Tax management
- Time tracking
- Receipt management
- Expense reports
TriNet is project cost management software that offers a multitude of features for uncomplicated management of work expenses online.
When using this piece of software, you may:
- Submit new expenses either one by one or import them in bulk from credit cards or CSV files;
- Track mileage and automatically calculate reimbursement for the tracked trips;
- Create custom expense categories to add as much detail to your cost monitoring routine as you wish;
- Receive notifications on expense reports requiring approval;
- Set up expense policies to prevent excessive spending and promote budget compliance;
- Analyze historical and real-time data.
Along with all that, TriNet Expense can be integrated with many of your favorite accounting and payment management apps to streamline expense reporting even more and increase efficiency.
Best for:
Project teams looking for a comprehensive cost tracking tool.
Pricing:
- Free 30-day trial.
- Expense Only plans start at $8 per user/month.
- Expense + Time Tracking plans start at $10 per user/month.
5. LiveCosts
Key features:
- Procurement management
- Labor cost tracking
- Invoicing
- Pricing catalogs
- Mobile app
LiveCosts is powerful construction cost tracking software that helps to manage project budgets and track work-related expenses effortlessly.
Here’s how LiveCosts can enhance your approach to project management and financial oversight:
- You can create, send, and approve purchase orders directly through the platform, which makes the procurement process smoother than ever;
- Access your pricing catalogs via your mobile device so that you’re never out of the loop during site visits or client meetings;
- Sync your project cost and financial data with third-party tools without the hassle of manual entry to streamline your accounting workflows and reduce the risk of human errors.
Best for:
Financial management in large construction projects.
Pricing:
- Free 14-day trial.
- Pricing information is not available.
10. Emburse
Key features:
- Expense management policies
- Receipt scanning
- Analytics
- Reimbursements
- Credit card reconciliation
Emburse is cutting-edge project cost management software that enhances financial visibility thanks to intuitive interfaces, powerful automation, and data visualization.
Emburse offers a plethora of useful features:
- Receipt scanning and digitalization;
- Automatic creation and approval of new expenses;
- Mileage tracking with the registration of travel origins and destinations;
- Overview of travel expenses;
- Synchronization with other accounting tools for even more efficient project cost management;
- Real-time reporting.
Moreover, by using Emburse, your team may communicate regarding costs incurred and leave notes on submitted expenses. You can also share information about relevant organizational expense policies in the app, which will let you promote compliance with estimated project budgets.
Best for:
Medium-sized and large businesses.
Pricing:
No pricing information available.
Ready to Try Any of These Best Cost Tracking Tools?
Choosing business software is never easy – you need to study dozens of software lists and read hundreds of online reviews to make your choice. If this list looks overwhelming to you, consider taking a closer look at one of the best project cost tracking tools to get a better understanding of the available solutions and features that are crucial to you and your business.
For example, you can start with actiTIME – it offers a free 30-day trial and doesn’t ask you to leave your credit card data. So, it’s a no-risk completely free opportunity to explore one of the leading solutions on the market.
actiTIME relies on time tracking data and multiple types of cost of work and billing rates that you can set up in the software. It also lets you run multiple time and cost reports, adjust their content, and build automatic invoices in a few clicks.
Give it a try!
