Won deals become projects
A signed deal in your CRM creates the Kantata project with budget, rates and a starting team for a manager to confirm.
Kantata integration consulting
Connect Kantata to the rest of your business.
Kantata, formerly Mavenlink, runs projects, staffing, timesheets and budgets for many professional services firms. We build the connections and tools around it, so sold work, hours and invoices line up across sales, delivery and finance.
Keep it, then extend it
What Kantata does well, and where teams outgrow it.
Where Kantata shines
- Staffing and projects together
- Made for billable work
- An open way to connect
Where teams hit the limits
- Sold work starts as retypingWhen a deal closes in the CRM, someone sets up the project, budget and team in Kantata by hand.
- Month end needs a spreadsheetHours, expenses and invoices get reconciled with the accounting system before the books close.
- Timesheets run lateMissing and incorrect time is chased by email in the last days of the period.
What changes
The same week, with the connection.
Today
- The resource manager rebuilds each signed deal as a Kantata project with rates and budget.
- The operations analyst emails consultants about missing time on the last day of the period.
- The engagement lead discovers a project is over budget when finance sends the month-end report.
With the connection
- A signed deal creates the project with budget, rates and a starting team. The manager adjusts staffing.
- People with missing or unusual time get a specific reminder. The analyst checks the remaining gaps.
- Projects running past budget reach the engagement lead with the numbers. She talks to the client sooner.
What we build around it
Connecting Kantata to the rest of your work.
Approved time into billing and payroll
Approved hours and expenses reach your accounting and payroll systems with exceptions flagged.
Timesheet reminders that name the gap
People with missing or unusual time get a specific reminder before the period closes.
Client paperwork read and filed
Statements of work and change requests arriving by email are read, matched to the project and staged for review.
Budget alerts with an owner
Projects running past budget or below margin reach the project lead with the numbers attached.
Month-end reports across systems
Utilization, backlog and margin combined with invoices and payments in one report finance trusts.
How it starts
What happens after you reach out.
You work directly with a senior builder from the first call to launch, not a hand-off to a junior team. How we work
Before we start
What we need from you.
- Someone on your team with admin rights sets up our access. We walk them through it.
- You choose what the connection can see and change, and you can switch it off at any time.
- We build and test on sample data before touching live records.
- Needs a paid Kantata account.
Technical details for your IT team
A Kantata OX account administrator registers an application for the connection on Kantata's application management page, reached from Settings (see Kantata's guide). Kantata requires a paid account to register applications. For a connection that runs in the background, the admin copies the OAuth token shown on that application's page and shares it with us securely. That token acts as the person who created it and does not expire, so we recommend a dedicated user with only the access the connection needs. Deleting the application cuts the connection off at once. Using NetSuite or QuickBooks for finance? See our NetSuite and QuickBooks pages.
FAQ
Common questions.
Do we have to replace Kantata?
No. Kantata stays your system for projects, time and staffing. We build around it and connect what it doesn't reach.
Doesn't Kantata already connect to our CRM and accounting?
Kantata offers ready-made connections for some common tools. If one fits, use it. Custom work makes sense when your process spans several systems or the connector doesn't move the records you need.
Do you work with Kantata OX or Kantata SX?
Our focus is Kantata OX, the product that grew out of Mavenlink. If you run Kantata SX, we check what its connections support first.
What do we need on our side?
A paid Kantata account and an administrator who can register the application once. We test on sample projects before connecting live work.
Are you a certified Kantata partner?
No. We're an independent integration consultant and development team. We build with Kantata's official developer tools and approved access, using the access your team grants, and we work alongside your Kantata admin or implementation partner rather than replacing them.
Sources
- Kantata Developer Docs: Registering your application
- Kantata Developer Docs: Obtaining tokens for users
- Kantata Developer Docs: Security
- Kantata Knowledge Base: How to register OAuth applications in Kantata OX
Facts checked against the vendor's own documentation, November 2026. Names are trademarks of their owners. Inkwell is independent and not affiliated with these companies.
Partner with Inkwell
Tell us how you use Kantata today.
A few sentences is plenty. We'll tell you what we'd connect first, and whether a ready-made app already does the job.