How To Choose a Budget Forecasting Software for Project Management?

Budget management is a central issue, both for a project and for an organization as a whole. Faced with this challenge, budget forecasting software appears to be an essential tool: inventory of finances, anticipation of drifts, monitoring, reporting or simulations... All these features save time and above all reliability. 

However, choosing the right tool can be complex given the diversity of offers. That's why we offer you this comparison of budgeting software to help you select the most relevant solution.

Stafiz, The Best Choice For Project Management

An all-in-one software for project, resource, budget, and billing management, Stafiz is designed for consulting firms and the IT Services.

This solution facilitates the organization of projects billed by time or fixed price and integrates time management features, scheduling and billing forecasting. It centralizes all data to facilitate management and optimization of profitability.

The benefits of Stafiz's software

Stafiz is designed and specialized for the needs of service companies such as IT Services, consulting firms and agencies. In addition, it is a French budget management software.  

This tool allows real-time monitoring of project budget, costs, margins, and also offers a vision of profitability project by project.

Real-time monitoring of the margin according to costs and fees disbursed

This financial forecasting software allows for the budgeting of a project based on the cost of the resource planning. This approach is possible thanks to the integration of planning and time tracking, which makes it possible to link the consumption of the budget to the actual activity of the employees.

Budgeting for a project based on the cost of the resource planning

This allows you to track the margin in real time based on costs and fees disbursed, and your invoicing is optimized with reliable and always up-to-date forecasts.

In addition, Stafiz offers you a modular offer. If you already have an ERP or invoicing software, you can choose the options of resource planning and/or financial management that suits you.

Cons

Although powerful and adaptable, Stafiz is geared towards companies that sell projects to external clients.

Monday

Monday is a project management tool consisting of four modules:

• Monday Work Management (project management),
• Monday Dev (development teams),
• monday CRM (customer management),
• Monday Service (IT and Support).

Thus, it covers a wide range of needs and offers, among other things, the possibilities of automating tasks, integrating other tools or visualizing your data in different forms such as dashboards, charts, Gantt, Kanban.

Features to remember

• Tracking budget variances: Functions are used to calculate variances between the initial budget and its actual consumption. To do so, simply enter This allows you to get the rest to spend. Templates are ready to use to make it easier to get to grips with the tool.
• Dashboards: Data from multiple reports is aggregated for reliable monitoring of budget metrics in real-time.
• Automations: Statuses update when a budget threshold is reached. You are also notified by alert. 

The benefits of this software

Monday's interface is quite intuitive and offers a high level of customization. The software can be integrated with popular tools like Slack, Zoom, or Salesforce. The automation possibilities are also Monday's strength.

Cons 

Financial functionalities are sometimes perceived as basic, and therefore not well suited to more in-depth budget monitoring.

The cost of Monday is relatively high. As a budget forecasting solution, it can quickly become too expensive for a small business.

There are many features that make it difficult to understand and master them. Depending on your needs, a software that presents a more modular offer may be better suited to you.

In addition, Monday's budget tracking is similar to a formula spreadsheet system. The software does not offer financial scenario features, nor native EVM (Earned Value Management) management.

Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project is the project management tool developed by Microsoft. It allows you to plan schedules, assign resources, and above all, manage budgets, analyze workloads or track progress for a projected monitoring of the entire budget.

The benefits of Microsoft Project 

Microsoft Project is known for accurately tracking tasks, expenses, and expenses. If you are already using a working environment on the Microsoft ecosystem, its implementation will be easier.

If you work on complex environments with highly structured project methodologies, Microsoft Project is suitable.

Features to remember

• Budget allocation: A system of allocation by primary task, and then a breakdown of planned costs by resources and by task and subtasks.
• Variance tracking: Compare the budget to the initial budget over time.
• EVM integration: for precise monitoring of progress and functional management of drifts.

Cons 

• The interface is not very intuitive.
• Training may then be necessary to master the tool.
• Collaboration features are less developed than on other solutions.
• Microsoft's solution is relatively expensive and does not offer a free or trial version.  

Sciforma, recently acquired by Planview, is a PPM solution focused on portfolio management. It also offers project, product and business management features.

The advantages of Sciforma

Sciforma focuses on advanced analytics, and stands out in its financial PPM management. This solution offers the possibility of simulating projected project cash flow scenarios, by integrating budgets, costs and resource allocation into a global view of the portfolio.

Sciforma is known for its rigorous security and allows for fine management of resources and costs. 

Features to remember

• Multi-portfolio scenario: impact on load, budget and cash flow.
• Portfolio budget : aggregation with a time-phased approach by cost centers (top-down + bottom-up vision).
• Simulation of new product development: This allows you to visualize the effects of the changes to be expected on costs and revenues, with a comparison between the scenario and the reality.

Cons

• This solution can be complex to deploy for SMEs, especially without personalized support.
• Its cost is relatively high. 
• A few bugs have been reported.

What Is a Budget Forecasting Software in Project Management?

Definition: What is a budget forecasting software?

The budget forecasting software supports the project manager in the financial management of the project. Indeed, it allows you to define, manage, monitor and adjust the project budget, offering global visibility on finances. Among other things, it allows:

• to take stock of the expenses, 
• facilitate cash management,
• format information to facilitate financial management,
• to define a provisional budget, based on history and the objectives to be achieved,
• anticipate risks,
• Automate,
• to establish scenarios. 

Can Excel replace a budget management software?

If your means are very limited, Excel can be used temporarily. However, budget management with Excel quickly finds its limits.  

• Reliability: Data is entered manually, which increases the risk of errors.
• Data updates: budget management software generally offers a real-time and automatic view of the data, unlike Excel which requires a manual update.
• Formatting: reduced and basic, it makes the information difficult to interpret.
• Collaboration: Excel is not designed to be a basis for collaborative work and sharing information can be complex.
• Version management: versioning lacks transparency and is not as optimized as with dedicated budget management software.
• Automations: limited, they are complex to set up and the possibilities are more limited than with other tools.

Finally, using Excel to plan and manage the budget is complex.  The use of a provisional budget software offers a significant saving in time and reliability. 

Who uses a budget forecasting software? 

Budget management software is aimed at all companies and different profiles within them:

• CFOs, 
• business leaders, 
• the general managers,
• members of the PMO,
• project managers. 

This type of tool makes it possible to anticipate expenses, an essential exercise in the event of a business takeover. Budgeting software is also aimed at startups that want to raise funds and whose investors are demanding a certain transparency.

What Are the Benefits of a Budget Management Software?

Gain in reliability and accuracy

Budgeting software allows for accurate and reliable monitoring because the data is collected in real time. Thanks to historical data and the objectives defined beforehand, they are able to establish an appropriate provisional budget.

In addition, reporting features such as the creation of customizable dashboards help to highlight the information needed for decision-making.

Reporting in Stafiz

Learn more

Financial management is more precise and facilitates the anticipation of margins and profitability. They are levers for securing profitability, even on a fixed price, which remains a a recurring problem for IT Services.

Get real-time simulations

Budgeting software allows you to track expenses in real time.

Comparisons with forecasts are facilitated, as well as simulations, carried out as accurately as possible. The company can then be very responsive, adapting the strategy and budget according to the insights. 

Facilitate decision-making

Centralizing budget data provides clear visibility into a project's financial situation. The vision is thus shared between management, sales and operations, which facilitates decision-making. The anticipation of resources and costs becomes more precise, based on concrete figures. In addition, the simulation tools help to visualize the potential risks of drift. 

Save time

Centralizing data, visualizing it, and improving its sharing with the rest of the company helps save time and increase efficiency. 

What Are The Criteria For Choosing a Budget Forecasting Software?

The choice of your budget management software depends on your needs. The features can be varied, here is an overview of the most widespread.

Treasury's functionalities 

• Budget monitoring and control

Budget monitoring and control involve comparing the actual with the forecast in order to identify any discrepancies.

Stafiz, the all-in-one solution mentioned in this comparison, allows you to track and analyze the variances of a project, by expense item or by project.

In addition, it suggests dynamic budget revisions, based on updates to schedules or estimated margins.

Stafiz also offers the possibility of setting objectives, depending on the time to be spent or the time achieved.

• Scenarios and predictions

Some budget management software allows you to make estimates and predict cash flow from the recorded data. This makes it easier to create the provisional budget and helps to anticipate different situations.

• Proactive Reporting

The reporting features can be more or less developed but generally allow the development of a budget monitoring dashboard.

In particular, Stafiz provides an overview of the essential accounting elements such as: 

• the projected income statement,
• monitoring of margins by project,
• monitoring of invoicing schedules (invoices, unpaid invoices and reminders),
• synthetic financial KPIs.

Levels of customization

Every business has a specific organization, labels, revenue categories, and expenses. The budget customization modules allow you to define a structure adapted to the needs.

Thus, it is important to be able to define parameters such as: 

• the periods to be studied (monthly, quarterly, yearly), 
• the type of cost management type (fixed, variable, exceptional costs),
• projected revenues (recurring, one-time),
• seasonality (reduction of costs during off-peak periods). 

Multi-project and multi-entity management

Budgeting software can be deployed for both project monitoring and overall financial management of the company. The choice of solution therefore depends on your challenges: do you need a PPM tool, capable of managing the overall project portfolio ? A solution that can manage several projects in parallel? Or a software adapted to a multi-entity organization ?

Compliance and auditability 

Compliance and traceability play a critical role in budget management.

Powerful software usually offers a history of changes to keep track of the changes made, especially useful in the case of budget reviews.

In addition, a feature to lock committed versions also helps to increase security and ensures that no unauthorized changes occur after validation. Finally, access management allows you to strengthen control. 

Integrations 

The number and type of integrations with third-party software should be considered when choosing budgeting software. Thus, the selected tool must be able to integrate with accounting data solutions (expenses, revenues, etc.), HR (capacity planning) but also:

• accounting tools,
• to the ERP,
• payroll management software,
• from resource planning and HRIS. 

Stafiz, for example, offers many native integrations in addition to the API connector. We offer you an offer adapted to your needs and your IS environment: choose whether or not to adopt the resource planning, payroll, or ERP management! Are you just starting out or opting for a radical change? Stafiz can also be used as a fully integrated ERP.

The price

Budgeting software can be expensive, and difficult to assume for small structures. Take the time to define your needs and select the tool that has the features you actually need.

Customer support

The availability of customer support, both for integration and support, must be considered, especially if the software is known to be difficult to use.

Thus, the choice of a provisional budget software depends on the needs of your company and in particular the scope to be budgeted : is it a management of a single project, a group of projects, a portfolio of projects?

Each tool has its strengths and addresses a particular type of need. Stafiz will help businesses that operate on a fixed-price basis maximize profitability, while organizations looking for more customization will head to Monday. Others, looking for particularly advanced analytics, will turn to a tool like Sciforma.

To help you select the right tool, take advantage of the free trials often offered to test and verify that the chosen solution helps you meet your objectives.

Disclaimer
This comparison of budget forecasting software is the result of an internal study carried out in September 2025, and cross-references different sources, such as the official websites of the software, as well as their documentation. The information will be regularly reviewed to keep the content as up-to-date as possible. Our goal is to help you determine your selection criteria and to orient your search as closely as possible to your needs. However, please take into account the possible non-exhaustiveness of the comparison, due to potential changes to be expected, and a limited scope of research.