It also speeds the billing process and reduces errors through the removal of redundant data entry. For their part, managers can approve time and expense online as well. As you would expect, the most common type of software that PSA products interoperate with are accounting packages and e-mail systems. Another feature cited by PSA vendors is support for knowledge management. All PSA suites capture and store human resources, project, and other types of information.
Some tools even provide forms of document management, including archiving.
Still others offer more robust knowledge management modules that support not only the sharing of static documents, but methodologies, templates, libraries and other types of information typically in a Web-based collaborative environment. It is not uncommon for PSA suites to support business intelligence and OLAP functionality for mining deliverable data. The Internet and related technologies have made it possible for a new paradigm to emerge, termed application hosting, which is fundamentally changing the way businesses use software. With this approach, PSA software is leased from the PSA vendor. As traditional enterprise application vendors move into the PSA space, they too will support hosted PSA solutions.