Total Synergy Review (2026): Pricing, Features & Honest Verdict

TLDR

Total Synergy is cloud project and financial management built specifically for architecture and engineering firms. It ties time, budgets and invoicing to project phases so you can see profit per phase, which generic PM tools cannot do. The learning curve is real and pricing is demo-only. Best for: A&E practices past the freelancer stage. Price: Custom, no free plan. Rating: 7.8/10.

What is Total Synergy?

Total Synergy is a cloud-based practice management platform aimed squarely at architecture and engineering (A&E) firms. It covers the full project lifecycle: quoting and budgets at the start, time tracking and expense capture during delivery, and invoicing and financial reporting at the end. The thing that sets it apart is project phases. Most project tools treat a project as one bucket. Total Synergy lets you split a job into phases and watch profitability on each one.

The company is based in North Sydney, Australia, with offices in London and Chicago, so it supports firms across Australia, the UK and the US. We dug into how it positions itself, and the message is consistent: this is not a general project tool with an AEC skin on top. Budgets, transmittals, resource planning and revenue forecasting are all framed around how design practices actually run jobs and bill clients. That focus is why firms tolerate the complexity.

Total Synergy has been around long enough to have a desktop heritage, and the current product is its cloud rebuild. That matters because some reviewers compare the web app unfavorably to the older desktop version, calling parts of it clunky. The trade-off is that the cloud version gives distributed teams real-time access to the same project data, which matters more as firms work across multiple offices and remote staff. For a practice deciding between a legacy on-premise tool and something modern, that shift is the main reason to look at Total Synergy now.

What Are Total Synergy’s Key Features?

Project Phases and Profitability

This is the headline. You break a project into phases, assign budgets to each, and then every timesheet entry and expense rolls up against the phase it belongs to. The result is a live view of which phases are making money and which are bleeding. For a firm that bills schematic design, design development and construction documents as separate stages, this is the feature that justifies the whole purchase.

Time, Expenses and Invoicing

Staff log time against tasks, expenses get attached to projects, and invoices pull directly from that captured work. Reviewers specifically praise being able to see exactly what time and costs sit behind each invoice, which helps architects understand what the accounting team is doing. The link between work done and money billed is tight, which is the point of practice management software.

Revenue Forecasting and Reporting

The Business plan includes revenue forecasting and customizable reports; Enterprise adds advanced forecasting with revenue breakdowns and custom dashboards. This is where firms model future cash flow based on committed work. The flip side is that reviewers call the reports complicated and not always intuitive, so expect to invest time learning them.

Resource Planning, HR and CRM

Enterprise customers get resource planning to balance team workload and availability. Total Synergy also bundles optional HR and CRM modules, so staff availability, leave and client lead tracking can live in the same system. Whether you need these depends on your size; smaller firms may never touch them, while a 50-person practice can use resource planning to spot when a key engineer is overbooked across three live jobs before it becomes a deadline problem.

Document Control and Transmittals

Architecture and engineering work is document-heavy, and Total Synergy includes document control with transmittals so drawing issues and revisions are logged against the project. It is not a full BIM or CAD environment, so do not expect it to replace your design software. What it does is keep the paper trail of what was sent, when and to whom, which is exactly the kind of record A&E firms need when a dispute lands months later.

How Much Does Total Synergy Cost?

Total Synergy does not publish a price, which is the single most frustrating thing about evaluating it. There are two plans, Business and Enterprise, and both are quoted after a demo. Add-ons like Analytics Plus, Premium API, Synergy PIM, Synergy HR and Synergy CRM cost extra and are also unpriced publicly.

For context, named A&E competitors do show numbers. BQE CORE starts around $19 per user per month and BigTime from roughly $20 per user per month, while Deltek Ajera, the enterprise incumbent, is also quote-only and generally expensive. Total Synergy sits in the mid-to-premium band based on its positioning and feature depth, so budget for a meaningful per-seat cost rather than a cheap SaaS subscription.

The lack of transparency means you cannot quickly compare it on price. You have to commit to a sales conversation before you know if it fits your budget, which slows down evaluation for smaller firms. Our take: if you are a firm of 15 or more people that already runs phase-based billing, the per-seat cost will likely pay for itself in recovered billable time and tighter project margins. If you are a studio of three, the math is harder to justify, and a $19 per user tool will get you most of the way for a fraction of the cost.

Who is Total Synergy Best For?

Use Total Synergy if you run an architecture or engineering practice that bills by project phase and needs to know which phases are profitable. If you have crossed the point where spreadsheets and generic project tools no longer answer “are we making money on this job,” this is built for you. Mid-sized and larger firms that want resource planning and forecasting in one place get the most value.

Skip Total Synergy if you are a solo designer or a small studio that just needs lightweight time tracking and invoicing. The learning curve is steep and the interface can feel overwhelming. Also skip it if you are outside the AEC world entirely, because the phase-based, practice-specific design will feel like dead weight for a general agency.

One more consideration: implementation. This is not a sign-up-and-go tool. Reviewers describe a real onboarding period where the team learns the workflows and the reporting. Budget for that time. The firms that get the most out of Total Synergy are the ones that commit to using it as their single source of truth for project finance rather than running it alongside spreadsheets. If your team will not fully adopt it, you will pay for depth you never use.

Best Total Synergy Alternatives

Deltek Ajera

Deltek Ajera is the enterprise standard for A&E firm accounting and project management in North America. It is deeper on the accounting side and trusted by large practices, but it is also quote-only, expensive, and has a reputation for being heavy to implement. Choose Ajera if you are a large firm that needs serious project accounting and has budget for a long rollout.

BQE CORE

BQE CORE is the strongest mid-market rival, purpose-built for architects, engineers and other professional-services firms. It starts around $19 per user per month and is generally considered easier to learn than Total Synergy. If you want phase-aware project accounting without as steep a curve, CORE is the one to demo alongside Total Synergy.

BigTime

BigTime is a more general professional-services time, billing and project tool starting from about $20 per user per month. It is cheaper and simpler but less tailored to the AEC phase model. Pick BigTime if your firm wants solid time tracking and invoicing without the full weight of a practice management suite.

Final Verdict: Is Total Synergy Worth It?

Total Synergy is one of the few tools genuinely engineered for how architecture and engineering firms run projects. The phase-based profitability tracking is the real draw, and reviewers consistently value how tightly it ties labor and costs to invoices. For a practice that has outgrown spreadsheets, that depth is worth a lot. We rate it 7.8 out of 10.

The two things holding it back are the learning curve and the demo-only pricing. You will spend time getting your team comfortable, and you cannot compare cost without a sales call. If you are a mid-sized A&E firm that needs financial clarity by phase, Total Synergy is worth the demo. If you are small or outside AEC, look at BQE CORE or a lighter tool first. We would have rated it higher if pricing were public and the interface were smoother, but the core problem it solves, knowing which phases of which projects actually make money, is solved better here than in almost any general tool. For the right firm, that clarity changes how you bid and staff future work, and that is where the return shows up.