PSA (Professional Services Automation) software is the tool category built for companies that sell time and expertise — agencies, consultancies, IT service providers. A full PSA suite runs the whole quote-to-cash chain: sales pipeline and CRM, project planning, resource management, timesheets, project accounting, invoicing, sometimes revenue recognition.
The economics of the category matter as much as the features. Full suites price per user per month, and the parts a services company lives in daily — resourcing, utilization, billing — typically sit in tiers around $25–50 per user. For a 20-person shop that is a serious line item, and at that size a good share of the suite (sales pipeline, revenue recognition, portfolio reporting) often goes unused.
Strip a PSA down to what a 5–50-person team touches every day and you get the delivery core: who is allocated where (capacity), what was actually worked (timesheets), what to bill for it (invoices), and whether the engagement makes money (margins) — with the HR basics usually living next door in a second tool.
In Helia, that delivery core is the Delivery pack — capacity matrix, timesheets, client invoicing and per-project profitability — at $9 per billable user per month, in one system with the HR side; full PSA suites remain the right call for teams that also need sales pipelines and advanced project accounting under the same roof.