Project management
Sales & Proposals
Time tracking
Invoicing
Financial Performance
Consulting Engineers
Architects
Town Planners
Building Designers
Abtrac Alternative: What Engineering and Architecture Firms Are Switching To
Ben Walker
Written for Drum
In This Article
If you’re searching for an Abtrac alternative, you’ve probably hit a wall. Maybe it’s the reporting that doesn’t quite give you what you need. Maybe your team is tired of a system that feels like it was designed in 2005 (because, well, large parts of it were). Or maybe you’ve grown beyond what Abtrac can handle and you need something that covers more of your business than just timesheets and invoicing.
You’re not alone. Abtrac has been around since 1999 and has built a loyal following among Australian and New Zealand engineering firms, architects, and surveyors. But as firms grow past 10-15 people and start needing visibility across their entire operation, the cracks start to show.
Let’s talk about what’s actually driving firms away, what you should look for in a replacement, and where Drum fits in.
What Abtrac Does Well (And Where It Falls Short)
Credit where it’s due. Abtrac handles time tracking and project costing effectively for smaller firms. It integrates with Xero and MYOB, offers close to 100 pre-built reports, and its per-user pricing (starting around AU$60/month plus AU$15 per additional employee) keeps costs predictable. For a 5-person surveying practice that just needs timesheets and invoices, it works.
But here’s where things get difficult.
The interface hasn’t kept pace. Users on Software Advice and GetApp consistently mention the dated feel. The system auto-saves so frequently that data entry slows to a crawl. Adding addresses is confusing. And if your internet connection dips even slightly, the whole experience grinds down because it’s entirely web-dependent with no offline capability.
Reporting took a step backwards in the cloud migration. Several reviewers point out that the move from desktop to AbtracOnLine dropped features they relied on. One commonly cited example: the “Fees Earned by Employee and Job” report that existed in the desktop version simply isn’t available in the cloud product. That’s a meaningful loss for firms that need granular visibility into who’s earning what on which projects.
There’s no CRM, no sales pipeline, and no proposal management. This is the biggest gap. Abtrac picks up the story once a project exists, but it has nothing to say about how work gets won. If your firm tracks leads, manages tenders, or needs to forecast future revenue from your pipeline, you’re maintaining a separate spreadsheet or bolting on another tool entirely.
For a 25-person engineering consultancy juggling active projects, pending tenders, and a growing team, those gaps add up fast. You end up with project data in Abtrac, leads in a spreadsheet, proposals in Word, and financials spread across three systems. Nobody has a full picture of how the business is actually performing.
What the Right Abtrac Alternative Actually Looks Like
Before comparing specific tools, it’s worth defining what a genuine Abtrac alternative should deliver for a firm your size. This isn’t about finding the most features. It’s about finding the right coverage so your team isn’t constantly jumping between systems.
A single operational hub. Your PSA software should handle the full lifecycle: sales pipeline through to invoicing and financial reporting. When a lead comes in, it should live in the same system where the resulting project gets tracked, where time gets logged, and where the invoice gets raised. That continuity eliminates the data re-entry and context-switching that eats into your team’s billable hours.
Time tracking that people actually use. The best time tracking system is one your team fills in without being chased. That means a clean interface, mobile access, and the ability to log time against specific project phases in seconds. If your current system makes timesheets feel like a chore, you’re probably losing 10-15% of billable time to under-recording. A 2022 study by Harvest found that professionals who track time daily capture significantly more billable hours than those who batch their timesheets weekly.
Real-time project financials. You shouldn’t have to run a report to know whether a project is profitable. The right system shows budget burn, margin, and financial performance as a live dashboard that updates every time someone logs an hour or records an expense. For architecture firms running multiple concurrent projects, this visibility is the difference between catching a budget blowout at 60% completion versus discovering it at invoice time.
Accounting integration that actually works both ways. Abtrac connects to Xero and MYOB, but the connection is fairly basic. What you want is a two-way sync where invoice statuses, payment tracking, and contact records stay current across both systems without manual intervention. A proper Xero integration or QuickBooks connection should make your accounts team’s life easier, not create reconciliation homework.
How Drum Compares to Abtrac
Drum was built specifically for professional service firms in Australia and New Zealand. Rather than listing every feature, here’s a practical comparison of the areas where firms most commonly feel Abtrac’s limitations.
| Capability | Abtrac | Drum |
|---|---|---|
| Sales pipeline & CRM | Not available | Full pipeline with AI-powered inbox |
| Proposal generation | Basic proposal tracking | One-click proposals with Word document export |
| Project management | Task and budget tracking | Staged projects with templates, budgets, and task management |
| Time tracking | Web-based timesheets | Mobile-friendly timesheets with one-click approval |
| Revenue forecasting | Not available | Real-time projections from pipeline + active projects |
| Xero/MYOB integration | One-way push | Two-way sync (invoices, contacts, payment status) |
| Reporting | ~100 pre-built reports (some lost in cloud migration) | Customisable dashboards with real-time data |
| Onboarding support | Phone/email support during business hours | Dedicated onboarding with data migration assistance |
The biggest difference is coverage. Abtrac handles the middle of your project lifecycle well. Drum covers the full arc, from the moment a lead lands in your inbox through to the final invoice being marked as paid in Xero.
One consulting engineering firm we worked with had been using Abtrac for timesheets alongside a spreadsheet for their sales pipeline and a separate Word template process for proposals. After moving to Drum, their project managers were spending roughly 4 fewer hours per week on admin because the data flowed through one system instead of three.
Making the Switch Without the Pain
Switching operational software is a genuine project, and it’s fair to be cautious. You have years of project history in Abtrac, staff who know where to click, and workflows that mostly work (even if they’re held together with spreadsheets on the side). The firms that transition smoothly tend to share a few traits: they plan the migration during a quieter period, they bring their team along early, and they work with a vendor who understands their industry.
Drum’s onboarding process is hands-on. The team helps migrate your existing client list, project data, and staff records. Training is structured around your firm’s actual workflows rather than generic feature walkthroughs. If your firm invoices in stages with retention, that’s what the training covers. If you run multi-discipline projects with different charge-out rates per team, that gets set up before go-live.
Most teams are comfortable within a week or two because the interface is designed to be picked up quickly. The common feedback from firms switching from Abtrac is that their team actually starts filling in timesheets more consistently because the process is faster and less frustrating.
The other thing worth noting is that Drum’s support team is based in Australia. When you call with a question about how to structure your project phases or configure your invoice templates, you’re talking to someone who understands how Australian professional service firms actually operate. That context matters more than most vendors realise.
Is It Time to Move On from Abtrac?
Abtrac served a generation of ANZ engineering and architecture firms well. It solved a real problem when most firms were tracking time on paper or in basic spreadsheets. But the expectations of a modern professional service firm have shifted. You need project management that connects to your sales process. You need time tracking that feeds directly into financial dashboards. You need one system, not four.
If you’re spending more time working around your software’s limitations than benefiting from its features, that’s the clearest signal that it’s time to explore an Abtrac alternative. Drum was purpose-built for exactly this moment.
Ready to see what a modern Abtrac alternative looks like in practice?
We'll walk you through how Drum handles the workflows your firm cares about most.