Combining CRM and Project Management - The 2025 Step By Step Overview

Integrating CRM and Project Management

Let me guess, you have a CRM and you have a project management tool, each their own silo of key business data.

Or at the very least, this is how you’re planning your business systems.

In this article, I’m going to break down the good, the bad and the ugly of having separate CRM and Project Management systems vs having them combined into a Single Source of Truth ✨

Who am I and how can I help?

My name is Ben & I’m the founder of Drum, an operational software platform for professionals that happens to merge project management and CRM functionality together in a unique way. I’m going to remain impartial in this article and share the findings that I’ve uncovered by having conversations with 100’s of professional service business owners over the last 10 years.

The Traditional, Fragmented Way

The default business operation tech stack is often a side-effect of growth.

• You have a piece of software that you start the business with (Excel? 🫠) and you simply add from there.
• You track projects in a simplistic way (Excel or a very generic project management tool)
• Quotes are created via Word & your local file system
• Your CRM is your email and you do your best to keep up.

But around 8-12 staff these systems start to feel very painful.

I recently spoke to a director of an Architecture firm who’d scaled to 30 staff using spreadsheets and a third-party time-tracking tool. Based on that conversation, I would not recommend this path!

• Customer service becomes an issue because your email is a mess
• Project delivery becomes difficult because your spreadsheets aren’t being updated
• Business insights are non-existent because your data is spread so thin across multiple data silos
• You have no inherent internal systems to scale beyond the patchwork of software.

At this point, the standard route is to find both a CRM and a PM tool. You take a stand against your current system and you decide to do the right thing.

The challenge with this decision is that you’re deciding to fragment, just slightly less than you were before.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s better, but creating an system for your business that embraces a single source of truth is where the leverage is.

The Default “Merging” Method

When many business owners thing of a “single source of truth” for their business, they think of the massive players in the market that are “spreadsheet-adjacent”. Products like:

• Notion
• Monday.com
• ClickUp
• Asana

The temptation to use these products is real.

• They’re cheap(ish)
• They claim do do it all
• They’re recognisable, big players

The challenge with these products for a business looking to scale is almost EXACTLY the same as the challenge that growing businesses have with spreadsheets.

These systems are infinitely editable, which is both a blessing and a curse

Do you really want your junior staff creating their own templates or ruining the systems that you’ve created?

They will do it, I guarantee it.

Software built for everyone is naturally limiting

By leaning on one of these “do it all” software platforms, you have to be OK with the system just being OK and not great at everything.

They’re looking for maximum market share across all markets, so for professional service firms, they fall short in many ways.

• How do you manage your project budget efficiently?
• How can we have more power with time tracking?
• How can we easily bill the progress or time we’ve made on this project?

Specific software for specific workflows is the perfect scenario.

Ideally by having a tool that is a CRM and project management in one system.

You want the best CRM and project management software you can find for YOUR specific needs, not for everyone’s needs.

I’ll share what might be a good fit for your business later in this article.

To scale, you need systems

And systems are naturally constrained, by design!

For specific use-cases and business processes, this is a good thing.

• You want a specific way of consistently managing sales opportunities
• You want a specific way of managing customer relationships
• You want a specific way of preparing proposals
• You want a specific flow for task management and assigning team members to these tasks.
• You want a specific way of managing project budget, timesheets, reports, expense management etc etc

Let’s talk about the alternative and why you should be actively looking for a single source of truth that merges your CRM platform and project management software in a systematic and scalable way.

Before We Proceed…

Key CRM Features (merged or otherwise)

You CRM, no matter what form it takes, must do the following:

• Allow easy lead capture. Excessive data entry will prevent your staff from doing what they should be doing.
• Make it easy for you to track the progress or status of deals.
• Capture prospect communication, removing emails from inboxes and ensuring they can be managed by the team as a whole.
• Allow you to visualise future revenue based on your sales pipeline.
• Must be user friendly to ensure it actually gets used internally

I’ll discuss the additional benefits of having a single source of truth below, but these are fundamental requirements, no matter what tool you decide to use.

Must-Have Project Management Features (it depends…)

Just like your CRM, the PM tools for professional service firms must also meet some very specific guidelines:

• It must allow you to break down both your complex and simple projects into a structure that matches your internal workflow. This may include phases, deliverables and tasks.
• It must allow you to track your budget against these items. Managing a project without budget context is a recipe for thin profit margins and cash flow.
• The basics like staff assignment and due dates are non-negotiable.

Now that we understand the fundamentals, let’s talk about the right way of merging a CRM and project management system to ensure your business gets the leverage it needs to scale.

Is a merged Project Management and CRM tool right for my scenario?

If the following is true for your business, merging your key systems into a single source of truth will provide incredible upside:

• You have a more “business-development” style of marketing and sales, not a “spray and pray” method. Think consulting vs e-commerce.
• You need to write specific proposals (and internal budgets) on a project-by-project basis. Sure some projects can be standardised, but you’re sending quotes or proposals weekly to prospects.
• Your “won” project structure matches your proposal budget very closely. i.e. you budget out 3 specific phases of work, each with very specific deliverables and tasks to achieve those. I you were to with that job, your project structure should match exactly (more or less).
• You invoice as a result of milestones or “time and materials”.
• You need to manage third-party expenses being allocated to your projects. Things like disbursements or third-party contractors or consultants are the norm.

If more that a couple of the above are true for your business, then you could see SIGNIFICANT impact from a single source of truth. Here’s how…

Lever One: Process Flow From Enquiry to Invoice

The biggest lever of merging your CRM and project tool into a single source of truth is that your internal processes can all take place in a single operational “source of truth”.

Here’s how that can look:

1. You receive an enquiry from a potential client in your inbox. You forward that email to your CRM and it converts it to a new sales opportunity in moments.
2. Your sales pipeline is automatically updated with the new prospect’s budget.
3. Your sales team is made aware of the new lead and actively starts managing.
4. A proposal and internal budget can be raised in the same system, ensuring that the proposal matches the exact requirements.
5. Upon acceptance, that proposal can be converted into a project with a single click, converting the budget into phases, deliverables and tasks, with a budget assigned to each.
6. Once work starts, time entries, expenses and progress is all managed on the same platform, ensuring your budget remains intact, staff are aware of progress and each invoicing milestone is an opportunity to review the profitability and progress of each project.
7. The management team has absolute visibility across the business, easily understanding the financial performance of each project from a single dashboard.
8. At the end of each month, invoicing is a breeze, with time & materials being invoiced directly to the client or progress payments being claimed or by simply sending an invoice for a percentage of (or the whole amount) of the contract value. 9 Invoicing is managed via your EXISTING finance system and the integration is seamless.

This may seem like a pipe dream, but systems like this DO exist.

For example, at Drum, we've created the flow above EXACTLY for professional service firms!

We worked closely with professional service firms from our conception to ensure our system matched their internal workflows as much as possible.

If the above workflow sounds like something that could help your business, book a call with us here:

Book a Demo With The Drum Team Today!

Lever Two: Data Entry Simplicity

Let me guess, you have spreadsheets to fill the gaps of your operational workflows?

Let me also guess, those spreadsheets require staff to copy and paste data from your different systems in order to merge it all into something that provides actual value?

Here’s the issue with that flow:

• It takes A LOT of time
• It’s prone to human error
• It’s not fun to do and your staff’s time could be better utilised elsewhere

I often tell my customers that ancillary spreadsheets are a red-flag for a more fundamental problem (and I want them to tell me when they find themselves reaching for a new spreadsheet while using Drum).

A merged CRM and project management system will naturally remove the need for “extra” spreadsheets to track key business data, resulting in better and more accurate data without the data entry burden.

Lever Three: Scalable systems are implied

When using a platform that’s been created for your unique workflows (as compared to a more generic spreadsheet-esque system) is that the system itself becomes a core part of your standard operating system.

It’s up to you if those systems are valuable or not for your unique use-case, but the systems are there nonetheless!

By embracing a software system that:

• Is opinionated.
• Has distinct workflows.
• Flows from your CRM to your management of won projects

You automatically have a system that can scale.

It’s now up to you and your internal business rules HOW you leverage those systems.

For example:

• How often are we reviewing our sales pipeline as a team?
• When do we start to get concerned about un-billed costs on a project?
• Who should get notified when a project manager raises an invoice for a project?
• Who’s finalising the invoice by integrating into our finance system (e.g. Xero)
• How often are we reviewing our staff’s billable utilization and implementing professional training?
• Who approves expense claims?

The above should all become internal business rules within the context of your “single source of truth” and allow you to scale in a predictable and efficient way.

Lever Four: Automatic Workflows

The challenge with spreadsheets or “do-it-all” software is that workflows MUST be manual to some degree.

The software (especially true with Excel) doesn’t have enough context around your industry or business to be smart around automating your workflows naturally.

Sure, you can create complex webs of triggers, but these are brittle and prone to break as soon as the business grows or the internal requirements change.

A combined CRM and project management system should automate your internal workflows with concepts like:

• Automatic notification of key events - e.g. an invoice marked as “waiting for approval” or a key project task ready to implement.
• Converting won proposals into projects ready to be implemented.
• Easily converting project progress into a client invoice.
• Time entries automatically updating project budgets.

Drum’s customers take these for granted, but there are many businesses who have to manage these concepts, and many more manually.

For staff and managers alike, it can feel like “death by a thousand cuts”!

Lever Five: A platform for the future

At the time I’m writing this (July 2025), AI is no longer a buzzword (OK, it still is in many cases) and is actually starting to prove that it can provide significant leverage for businesses.

Think about things like:

• Converting email enquiries to sales opportunities in seconds
• Automatic proposal creation based on scope and historic projects
• Converting receipts or invoices into expense claims or direct-to-project expenses
• Insights into business performance automatically unveiled
• Automatic project planning based on staff roles and key project date requirements

Drum already does 3 of the above 5 and we’re striving to reach all 5 and beyond!

Having your data and operations in a “single source of truth” where your CRM and project management are combined is an incredible opportunity to embrace the inevitable and reap the rewards.

Just make sure the platform that you choose isn’t a slug in a world of slug-eating magpies!

Combining Your CRM and Project Management Tool Can Provide Incredible Business Leverage

Merging your systems into a single source of truth can create:

• Implicit business systems and SOP’s
• Less data entry burden for staff
• Real-time insights for the management team
• A platform for scale

Ensure that you deeply review your goals and requirements to ensure that you make the right decision!

If you’d like help, please book a call with the Drum team for a no-obligation look at what a “single source of truth” could look like for your business.

Book the call using this link and if that doesn’t work for you (for timezone reasons), send our founder an email here to find a time that works.